Even Better Value since Price Drop - $299
Written: Sep 20 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great price, functionality and price
Cons: Not for large jobs
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| eTom's Full Review: Hewlett Packard PSC 500 All-In-One Printer |
HP PSC 500
I purchased a HP PSC 500 for home use in July, 2000. This is HP's lower priced entry into the multi-function machines. I looked at this model a few months earlier when it was priced at $399 and I thought it was a good value at that price, but since I already had a scanner and a copier, it was a bit too much just for a printer. But when the price dropped to $299, it was too good to pass up. I moved my Xerox personal copier to my wife's home office and packed my scanner up for future use.
Overall Mechanics
As the name implies, the PSC 500 is a three function machine - a Printer, Scanner and Copier. It does not come with a fax. My system came with full sized ink cartridges, both black and color. I have been burned before when buying color printers and found that it cost almost as much to replace the ink as I had paid for the printer. Not so with the PSC 500. The cartridges are around $30 for black and color. My wife's HP 720C color printer takes the same color cartridge! I have printed several hundred pages so far and the ink is still going.
Paper Feed
I have had a small problems with paper jams. I have found that the thicker photo paper does not feed well if you have more than one sheet in the tray. This paper is not easy to separate by hand, and I think the fault lies in the paper, not the PSC 500. Regular paper and high quality ink jet paper feed without problems. Clearing a jam is fairly painless. The front pops open and there is an access cover in the back.
REMEMBER: The paper goes in the tray FACE DOWN. I have printed several photos on the back, and can't seem to remember that.
Printer Function
I have printed everything from Iron on Transfers, photos, band fliers and even word documents. The printer is rated at "up to 9 ppm black, 6.5 ppm color" and that seems close enough. It is much faster than using my wife's HP 720C over the network. It works just like any other printer with Windows 98. It can be shared on a LAN, plugs to your parallel port and comes with all required drivers on the CD. The print quality is excellent (600 X 600) and it is a very quiet printer.
Scanner Function
You load everything off of the included CD, including scanner software. After I installed the printer and loaded the software from CD, I tried a test scan. I placed a photo on the flat bed scanner and pressed the "SCAN" button on the printer. The software starts up on the PC and the picture is there in a few seconds. Since I use Photoshop, I simply saved the image to clipboard with one click and pasted it into Photoshop. You can also save it in several popular formats - JPG, TIF, GIF, BMP and more. I also tried a regular text document and used the OCR software included with the printer. If you plan to do a lot of OCR (Optical Character Recognition) work, you may want to look at a better OCR package. The included package is very basic. You can also manipulate the photo - size, light, dark as well as other functions, but for any serious work you will want to use a product like Photoshop or something similar. The resolution is 600 X 600 with up to 2400 dpi resolution. This is not the highest resolution scanner out there, but keep in mind that most web photos are around 72 dpi resolution. An 8 X 10 photo scanned at 2400 dpi resolution produces a bitmap (BMP) over 6 Megs in size! How many of those do you want on your hard drive? It's sort of like buying a car that will do over 185 MPH. My other scanner is capable of much higher resolution, but I never used it.
Copier Function
For one copy, press the "copy" button. Couldn't be easier. There is a "+" and "-" for setting the number of copies, and an "Enlarge/Reduce" button for everything from poster (4 sheet) enlargements to 25% reductions. You can copy anything from photos to documents. I put a dollar bill on the machine and copied it to test the detail. It even copied the small fibers. (Of course I then shredded the test page). The quality of the copies is excellent.
Conclusion
For a home user, the only thing missing is a fax. Since most people really don't get that many faxes, a PC based fax program will probably make up for the missing fax. For the few copies and scans most people need, this machine is perfect for a home office or even a business office with moderate needs. If you are doing a large copy job such as manual duplication, this is not the tool for you. But for personal use such as expense receipt copies, school paper copies and family legal copies, this is just the ticket. And priced at under $300, almost as cheap as a decent color printer. I highly recommend the HP PSC 500 for home use.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
eTom
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Member: Tom White
Location: Mechanicsville, VA
Reviews written: 15
Trusted by: 3 members
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