The Bottom Line: At $200 6310xi works fine for light-to-medium loads. Extensive multifunction capabilities. Limited photo functions although above average photo prints. Some oddities. Over long run, photo prints pricey.
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It's been awhile since I've looked at All-in-One inkjet units. I had to revisit this with the problems my parents were having with their OfficeJet 6110xi unit recently. It had problems printing from a computer unless you unpluged the unit from the AC outlet for at least 5 minutes then attached the computer via USB then repowered the 6110 unit... talk about a weird problem. If I didn't do this, the 6110 would move the scanning element to the very end of the platen until the unit made continuous grinding noises. That meant it was time for me to look at new All-in-One units... which led me to decide between the 6310 and the Canon MP830. Since Costco was having their Summer Coupon savings on the 6310, I decided to spend $240 to get the 6310 unit with a package of ink (2 blacks and 1 tri-color cartridge). Overall, I've been very happy with the 6310 with a few caveats.
Short Take
Looking at the few reviews available to epinions, I didn't have the problem printing borderless prints up to 8.5x11. They printed very well with vibrant colors and preserving details quite well even without the photo ink cartridge in the system. Although I'm overall happy with the OfficeJet 6310, it does have issues.
Pros:
1- Small overall footprint
2- Integrated Ethernet connection
3- Automatic Sheet Feeder (up to 35 pages) for fax/scanner/copier
4- Direct Print capabilities
5- Memory Card slots
6- As low as $200 for a unit that can fax/copy/scan/print
7- Dedicated button to set fax to Auto-answer mode
8- Junk Fax blocker if you have Caller ID
9- 2400x4800 dpi optical scanner, up to 19,200 enhanced. 48-bit scanner.
Cons:
1- Ink expenses high especially tri-color and photo cartridges
2- glass platen accepts up to 8.5x11 papers for scanning and copying. Legal sized documents must be scanned through the ADF.
3- Paper trays look very flimsy. I don't trust the input paper tray to hold 100 sheets.
4- Software takes up up to 650MB for full install! About 300MB for minimal install!
5- Noisy at startup.
6- Images and Photo slightly more towards yellow/red hues. Minor quibble though.
7- Two line LCD instead of color LCD. No ability to preview photos without printing a proof sheet.
Specs
The Officejet 6310 has dimension of 17.9x15.3x9.3 inches and weighs 17 lbs. This was significantly smaller than my Officejet 6110 but you will note some durability tradeoffs. In particular the input and output paper trays are slip in slabs of plastic instead of the solid molded trays of the the higher end HP printers and older HP units. In fact, the 6310 is more reminiscent of the 5100 series of Officejets. It looks cheaper and feels somewhat cheaper than the 6100 series Officejets. The manual states that the input paper tray can hold up to 100 sheets of standard (20lb. paper) paper (i.e. copier paper) and the output tray can hold up to 50 sheets. However, I'm not that confident of those numbers... that's how flimsy the paper trays look.
The 6310 can connect via USB or ethernet connection. Up to five computers can connect via ethernet. If you want Bluetooth, you can purchase the bt450 bluetooth accessory and plug in into the front of the 6310. I have installed the OfficeJet 6310xi with my HP Pavilion ZE4101 notebook and Dell Inspiron 6000 notebook with no issues. Note that some users had issues crop up with the installation of the 6310 via ethernet as per the HP forums. I would recommend that you download the latest driver package and installation software from HP and try to install from as clean a computer boot as possible for try to get the best results. Please look at my Network section near the end of the review.
The control panel is a large area below the scanner plate. HP to crams an ungodly amount of buttons into this small area as well as a 2 line text LCD. This panel is divided into sections. The far right section contains just the power button. The next section for the Fax functions. Here you have buttons for the Start Fax Black, Start Fax Color, Auto Answer (with associated green LED), Junk Fax blocker (also with associated green LED), redial/pause, speed dial, menu for fax options, and the 5 one touch speed dials. The next section is the numeric keypad, attention LED, Setup button, left and right buttons (for the menu/setup options), OK button, cancel button, and the 2 line LCD. The next section is the Copy section with Start Copy Black, Start Copy Color, Quality (Best, Normal, and Fast with green LEDs next to each option), Reduce/Enlarge, Copy Menu buttons. The next section is the Photo functions with three buttons. These are Print Photos, proof sheet, and Photo Menu. The right most section simply has one button to Scan directly to the computer (as long as you installed the software with the 6310). The control panel looks cluttered but this is the case for most All-in-One multifunction printers. The buttons do allow quick access to most of the commonly needed features. The automatic fax receive button was particularly helpful if you leave the machine on for long periods and allows easy control of having the 6310 picking up to phone automatically (the number of rings is still decided through the fax and system menus.
The 6310 grants 5 one touch speed dial location in addition to 100 speed dial locations. The 6310 is also capable of holding up to 110 pages of faxes in its memory.
The 6310 also has an integrated 35 page automatic sheet feeder (ADF) although this looked less sturdy than my 6110. Fortunately, this part is stronger than it looks.
HP rates the maximum print speed as 30 pages per minute in B&W and 24 pages per minute in color. Note that this speed is under ideal conditions and only when the Fast or Draft print quality is selected. As per HP, the maximum print speed are as follows on plain letter sized paper:
Maximum dpi mode: 2.5 minutes per page. At least 140 seconds for 1 4x6 borderless photo
Best mode: up to 2.3 ppm. At least 74 seconds for 1 4x6 borderless photo.
Normal mode: up to 8.5ppm Black and 5.3ppm color. At least 54 seconds for 1 4x6 borderless photo
Fast Normal: up to 11ppm Black and 8ppm Color. At least 30 sec for 1 4x6 borderless photo.
Fast Draft: up to 30ppm Black and 24ppm Color. At least 30 sec for 1 4x6 borderless photo.
Big difference eh....
If you want fast photo printing... look at a dedicated photo printer especially the high end Canon photo printers. Archival prints with dye-based pigment inks... urm... not sure about that one. The big three have high end printers for this catagory. Dye-based pigment inks tend to last longer with less to no fade over long periods of time when matched with the appropriate paper/card stock.
Automatic duplexing... not an option on the 6310. If you want two-sided prints, you have to do it manually.
The 6310xi has 10MB of ROM and 64MB or RAM memory.
Printing and Print Quality
The 6310 prints are pretty clean overall in both text, graphics, and photos. Color for photos are bright and tend toward the warm side (emphasizing reds and yellows). I noted no banding on graphics or photos even with borderless letter sized prints. Black text was clean and crisp... pretty close to laser quality (as HP inkjets are known for). I didn't have any streaking issues in any of my photo prints from 3x5 borderless all the way to 8.5x11 borderless photos. Photos were clean, vibrant, and detailed.
The 6310 is rated as able to print in 1200x1200 dpi black, 4800 optimized dpi in color or in 6 ink mode (tri-color and photo cartridge). This is a drop-on-demand thermal inkjet printer. The 6310 is rated for a duty cycle of 3000 pages per month.
Note that the print speeds vary widely on the quality you select for the print. Although HP claims speeds up to 30ppm Black and 24ppm Color, this only applies when the Fast Draft mode is selected and only under ideal operating and printing conditions (5% coverage of a letter sized page with ink!). Otherwise, the speed drops drastically with the increase in print quality.
Copying
The 6310 acts as digital copier (which in most cases is better than an analog copier). Print quality is similar to the quality when using the 6310 as a printer however you only have three print qualities to choose from in this case. You can choose from Best, Normal, and Fast. The speed of the 6310 for these settings are as follows:
Best Quality: up to 0.8ppm in Black and Color. Scan resolution 600x1200dpi
Normal Quality: up to 8.5ppm Black and 5.1ppm Color. Scan resolution 300x300dpi
Fast Quality: up to 30ppm Black and 24ppm Color. Scan resolution 300x300dpi.
Like the printer functions, the copies are clean and crisp especially for B&W source material. Color source material was slightly washed out if you didn't set the Best quality copies and use heavy weight photo paper as well as substitute the photo ink cartridge for the black cartridge.
The control panel allows you to make a few changes in copier options without manuevering through the LCD menu (really the reduce/enlarge and copy quality). Overall the 6310 line can enlarge/reduce the original from 25% all the way up to 400%. However, each model designation has particular limits. My 6310xi had a reduce/enlarge ratio of 50% to 200%. Copy quality was excellent throughout the range.
The glass plate only accepts letter sized material and smaller. If you need copies of a legal sized document, you need to see if it will go through the ADF. Otherwise you are out of luck.
The Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) makes multipage faxing easy. You can stack up to 35 pages (assuming 20lbs paper stock) in the feeder and tell the 6310 how many to print and whether you want them collated as well. You can make up to 100 copies of a single source.
Ink consumption rather high more especially with color copies so keep that in mind when you use this as a copier. B&W copies were more reasonable on a page by page basis. It may be cheaper to use a regular analog or a digital copy machine that is based on laser toner cartridges. If you make a lot of copies, I would consider a dedicated copy machine or an All-in-one based on a laser printer. The same if you need color copies... look at color laser all-in-ones although the photo quality tends to suffer on most models to date.
Scanning
The 6310 is capable of a resolution of 2400x4800 ppi optical and up to 19200 ppi enhanced. It is a 48-bit color scanner (16-bit per RGB color). It cannot scan items larger than 8.5x11.7 inches from the glass although single sheets longer than 11.7 inches can be scanner through the ADF.
Scan are clean, maintaining excellent detail and color reprodution. There might be a slight wash out from glossy photos being scanned in... but I have not played with the settings through the HP scanner software. Otherwise, scanning all types of material was overall accurate and easy.
HP has included more robust scanning software than they have in the past... however the software package is very bulky. What I mean is the software takes up up to 80MB of space on your hard drive (this includes drivers and photo editors mind you).
Note that the Scan to button will only work if the computer has HP Digital Imaging Monitor running. This will automatically scan the item directly to the computer. You can scan to a computer connected via USB or via network connection! The LCD will ask which computer to scan to if multiple ones are connected to the 6310.
HP software allowed some editing tools and software but more experienced users will opt for more powerful programs. HP included software will handle basics and then some.
I'm not a big fan of OCR software and don't really use it... so I can't say much about it.
Faxing
The basic specs for the fax capabilities are:
CCITT/ITU Group 3 fax with Error Correction Mode
Up to 33.6Kbps transmission
As fast as 3 seconds per page at 33.6Kbps
Ring detect with automatic fax/answering machine switching
Automatic busy redial up to 5 times
Automatic no-answer redial one time
Fax resolution:
-Color: 200x200 dpi
-Black: 196x203 dpi (8-bit color) for photos, 300x300 for Very Fine, 196x203 for Fine, 196x98 for Standard.
A nice thing about the 6310 is the one touch to set the fax to auto receive or not. It's nice to have an automatic receive fax button. When the green LED is on, it will answer the phone after the set number of rings (which you can adjust). Prefer manual reception? Press the button so the green LED turns off.
If you have an answering machine, the 6310 can still pick up the fax but you have to set the 6310 to answer after the answering machine picks up (i.e. the answering machine picks up the phone in less rings than the 6310). The 6310 should be set to Auto Answer on.
The Junk Fax Blocker requires that you have Caller ID service. I could not test this function my parents don't subscribe to Caller ID service.
The 6310 can be set to have a backup fax reception. This stores up to the last eight received faxes in memory (less can be stored if the faxes are large and take up too much memory). There are three setting for this feature. It can be on, stores the fax only if an error occurs in printing, or off (no storage). Note that the memory is wiped if you turn off he 6310!
The 6310xi has up to a 100 page memory as per HP. There is 100 speed dial memory locations and 5 one-touch speed dial selections.
In the end... it works like Fax machine should work.
Memory Cards, PictBridge, and Photo Printing.
The 6310 directly accepts Compact Flash, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, Secure Digital, MultiMediaCard, and xD-Picture cards. It will accept Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick Duo Pro, and Secure MultiMedia Card with use of the appropriate adapters. In addition, the 6310 accepts USB flash drives as well through the USB port in the front of the 6310. This same USB port is used for PictBridge mode with digital camera that support it (which should include all recent digital cameras).
As per the manual, HP does not recommend using cards greater than 1GB in capacity with the 6310 although I haven't had problems with my 2GB cards to date. HP also recommends that no card have more than 1000 images/files. The maximum individual file size is 8MB or images of 12MP in resolution (whichever limit is smaller for the file). The 6310 can read and print JPEG, TIFF, MPEG-1, AVI, and Quicktime files. Although the 6310 can accept video files to print pictures from, I have not tried this to see what does print out (like a series of pictures or just the first frame).
The 6310 can be used as a card reader... but I did not test how fast this connection would be.
With a PictBridge enabled camera, selection and printing of photos is controlled by the camera. Size of your photo print was determined by the size of the paper I placed in the 6310. Quality of the print is the same as using the 6310 as a direct printer from a computer.
When a flash memory card is used or a USB flash drive, you have several options. You can pick the size, layout, quality of print, paper type used, and more. However, selection of the photos is another story. Since the 6310 has only a 2 line text LCD, you cannot preview photo without printing. On top of that, the photos are labeled starting from the number one to the last photo on the card/drive. This means you have to waste expensive color ink to print a proof sheet if you're not exactly sure of the photo you want to print. This is a bit of a problem.
On the other hand, the proof sheet is an interesting way of solving this problem. Press proof sheet to get... well a picture proof sheet. The proof sheet will contain about 20 images per page as well as options. Like a standardized test, you fill out circles below the desired photos and the desired paper layout. Place the proof sheet on the scanner plate (not the ADF!) and press the Proof Sheet button and pick option 2 to print your desired photos. The major drawback to this method is the amount of ink you use to print the proof sheets. If you don't mind using the ink, this is a nice system and you have the option to select a range of photos to print on the proof sheets. Realize that if you have alot of photo on your card that you want to proof, you are going to use alot of ink!
The 6310 is capable of printing borderless 8.5x11 photos and up to borderless 8.5x24 sized prints (panoramic photos).
Ink Consumption
Overall, inkjet printers on the whole tend to be expensive to operate especially with color prints and photo prints. Before I go specifically into the OfficeJet 6310 ink consumption, let me briefly discuss cost of cartridges for the major brands and the reasons for the cost disparity.
HP and Lexmark inkjets have more expensive cartridges than Canon and Epson. I think Dell still uses Lexmark printer design so the ink costs for Dell printers are similar to Lexmark. There are major reasons for the large cost differences. Most of the current HP models almost all of the Lexmark inkjet models sell cartridges that contain ink and the printhead. This automatically makes the cartridge more expensive to manufacture than a Canon or Epson ink cartridge. When you buy the Canon and Epson ink cartridges, you only get the ink cartridge. The printhead is part of the printer (although it is often replaceable for a fee if it is damaged). The advantage of having HP and Lexmark system is that you always get a new printhead when you buy a new OEM cartridge (this is not guaranteed with a refilled cartridge or office store brand as they use remanufactured cartridges!) which technically means clean prints with the new cartridge. Printhead can deteriorate over time which may put Canon, Epson, and the high end HP inkjets (since some have the printhead installed in the printer rather than on the ink cartridge). Printheads can also get clogged as well... to the point that the printhead cleaning procedures on the printer do not help (and these procedures also waste alot of ink!).
HP's and Lexmark's ink and printhead system works better and is more cost effective for inkjet printer that have light duty and extremely heavy duty. It is more reasonable for light duty because if the printhead clogs up, you can simply get a new print cartridge. On the Canon and Epson, you have to hope you can clean out the printhead if it is removable from the printer. If using hot water to flush the printhead (which can damage the printhead) doesn't clean it out... a new printhead costs at least $50 and usually much more. On top of that, printheads are sold by the company itself and not in stores. In heavy duty, the printhead just get worn down from the sheer number of pages printed. In moderate duty, the Canon and Espon printers have more of an advantage. The printhead goes through enough use that the printhead doesn't have a chance to get clogged and the printheads are not being severely stressed.
To compound the problem, because it is more expensive to manufacture the ink cartridge for HP and Lexmark printers (ink and printhead), they will not sell cartridges with individual colors (except black). Color/Photo/Gray cartridges contain three colors or shades so if one of them runs out, the cartridge is effectively empty and you have to buy a new cartridge. It's throwing ink away from the consumer standpoint.
So why does HP maintain a lion's share of the inkjet market if the upkeep costs are more expensive? Although the per cartridge costs are more expensive, the quality of prints are more consistent over time especially when printing fine text. Also, businesses will buy multipacks that shave a few dollars from the cost of each cartridge... so the overall expensive over time is not that different from owning a Canon or Epson printer.
Okay back to the Officejet 6310xi. As per HP based on standardized test print pages, the following cartridges have these maximum yields:
HP 92 Black ink cartridge 5ml. 210 pages maximum. Cost $14.99
HP 98 Black ink cartridge 11ml. 420 pages maximum. Cost $19.99
HP 95 Color ink cartridge 7ml of each of red, blue, and yellow. 260 pages maximum or 86 4x6 photos maximum. Cost $24.99
HP 99 Color ink cartidge 11ml of photo black, photo cyan, and photo magenta. 130 4x6 photos maximum. Cost $24.99
HP 100 Grayscale ink cartridge 15ml of ink three shades of black/gray. Cost $24.99
As you can see, only the HP 98 has an economical cost costing as little as 5 cents to print a page. Color cartridges costing at least $0.29 per 4x6 print. Photo cartridges costing at least @0.19 per 4x6 print. Note that I am using a very simplified calculation here and that the costs are more expensive than this for the ink alone. The costs go up if your prints are more heavy towards a specific color. You also have to add the cost of the paper you're using as well. The average cost of a 4x6 print is probably $0.35 to $0.40 a print if you buy the cartridges in multipacks (unfortunately the photo and grayscales do not come in multipacks usually) and the photo paper in bulk. The cost of printing pure black text is equivalent to most low to medium cost laser printers especially if you buy the HP98 in multipacks of 2 or 3 (which reduces the cost of each ink cartridge by $2-3 each). Compare this cost to the HP LaserJet 3030 All-in-one whose Q2612A toner cartridge costs $69.99 for up to 2000 pages (3.5 cents per page!) or the LaserJet 1320 printer whose Q5949X toner cartridge costs $130.99 for up to 6000 pages (as low as 2 cents per page). An HP98 twin multipack costs $34.99 bring costs as low as 4 cents per printed black page.
Weird Issues
Other than the flimsy paper trays, there was one other issue that really bothered me... the noise. The 6310 is noisy at certain functions. At startup, the 6310 makes loud startup noises. Scanning is fairly low key and the actually printing is fairly quiet... until it ejects the paper to the output tray. It makes a loud ker-chunk noise after the end of each sheet. I thought it was my unit... but trying the same unit in two different Staples got the same sound! My other HP PSC and Officejet units were not this loud.
Other annoying feature is that the stored Backup Fax Reception memory is completely erased when you turn off the machine... not unplug it, but simply turning the machine off! This is just plain stupid in my opinion.
Network Connection
Before I started the installation of the Officejet 6310xi to any of my notebooks, I made sure I had the latest installation software, closed all programs, disabled background processes like the anti-virus programs and spyware blockers, closed any non-essential program on the taskbar and started from a clean boot (before stopping background processes). The entire installation process took about 35 minutes with the computer rebooting once (this was part of the installation). Note that it can take 1 to 5 minutes at times for the installation to show further progress... so be patient. When the system entered step 4 where it first reboots the computer, it took 5 minutes for the system to show ANY progress in the installation! I almost thought the system crashed on me at that point. Once the installation finished, I was able to use the printer just like I connected it to the USB port. I had access to all functions from printing, scanning, card reading, image transfers, and faxing through the network connection with no problems!
My feeling is that a small number of people experience a truly disasterous network install process. I'm happy to say that it worked without a hitch for me... just that the installation takes a long time!
Software
The bulk of the software focuses on the HP Solution Center which is supposed to integrate and ease the use of multiple HP product (more recent products I should note as older HP devices do not seem supported by this software). You have the option of install the additional HP software such as HP Photosmart Premier but most of the software gives basic with a few "advanced" functions. You can remove red eye with the Premier software and change the color tone, resize, add a limited number of effects and the such. However, you would do better with dedicated photo software like Adobe Photoshop Essentials 4.0. The HP Document Center isn't very special either.
Recommendations
There is alot of competition in the All-in-one market from HP itself, Canon, Epson, Lexmark, Dell, Brother, and others. However, for $199 to $249 price tag is actually quite low for a color inkjet with a high resolution scanner, ADF, copy functions, extensive fax functions, and direct photo printing capability from a digital camera, multiple flash cards, or a USB flash drive. Add to this the built-in networking/ethernet connection and the ability to act as a card reader for even more value. Note that Bluetooth is an expensive option however (additional $60) and paper duplexing is unavailable.
The ability of the 6310xi to serve as the printer for up to 6 computers (5 on the network and one through the USB) as well as the main scanner for these same computer is extremely valuable. However, there are better photo printers on the market and dedicated photo printer or an all-in-one from Canon or Epson may be better in quality and/or cost over the long run.
The strengths of the HP 6310 lies in its abilities to enchance productivity with fairly economical black ink printing, built-in networking for printing and scanning, high end fax capabilities, copy functions, very fast printing in fast draft and fast normal quality (quality is quite good for everyday printing and saves some ink), and near laser quality text printing. It's weaknesses are the cost of color printing especially with the quirks of HP's color cartridge design, lack of a color LCD to make the 6310 a more usable direct photo printer (the use of proof sheets will increase the cost to print a 4x6 photo by multiples of 2 or 3!), slow print speed for photos and best quality modes when desired, and inadequate selection process of photos on memory cards when relying on the 2-line text LCD screen. The last questionable issue is the network connection as I have heard reports of extreme difficulty with connecting to the 6310 in this method. I did NOT have a problem installing the OfficeJet 6310xi to two notebooks. All the functions are usable through the network connection.
The OfficeJet 6310 is an overall rock solid multifunction machine as long as direct photo printing and duplexing does not count high on your list. If you plan extensive photo printing I would look elsewhere.
Anyway, my parents are just happy that the machine is similar in use to the old 6110xi they had. That's always good news.
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