My daughter's off to college. She's inheriting her older brother's Compaq notebook computer (he got that Alienware). She still needed a printer.
(Actually, she won an inkjet printer in a photo contest, but it was an Epson. They suffer from interminable problems of the ink heads drying out, so you spend more time -- and ink and paper -- cleaning them than printing. So I threw it out and promised to buy her a properly-made printer.)
Walmart Canada was featuring two low-cost printers as back-to-school specials:
+ An HP for CDN$57.77 (about US$52; list is US$60).
+ A Lexmark for CDN$55.
Both were printers, scanners, and copiers. Each has a 8.5"x11" flatbed scanner (600x2400dpi optical resolution, 36-bit color) built into the top of the printer. This would be handy for my daughter, who sometimes needs to scan in graphical material. The drawback is that these printers take up about twice the desk space than those without the scanner.
As I was deciding which to get, I overheard a young couple telling the salesperson they were getting the Lexmark because of the brand name. Hmm.
But the flaw with the Lexmark was that it used a single color cartridge (boasted as feature on the box) but this feature is a flaw: black is created by mixing all three colors, thus this printer would consume far more color ink than the HP, which has a separate black cartridge. While you would need to buy two cartridges for the HP (black $19, and tri-color $23), each was cheaper than the single cartridge needed for the Lexmark ($25).
The HP PSC 1400 comes with a bunch of software, such as organizing photos (a Picasa wannabe), controlling scans and copies, and OCR for converting scanned text into electronic documents. Naturally, any TWAIN software (such as PaintShop Pro and Picasa) can access the scanner directly. At this low price, no USB cable is included, but I've plenty of spares at home.
The printer works fine, even though the USB port is the slower v1.1 type. Photos printed on non-photo paper look good. The scanner has a reasonable speed, but is noisy. It's a bit awkward trying to install the two inkjet cartridges. Considering that the printer's inside is mostly empty space, it would have been nice for HP to fit the power brick in there.
For the low-volume printing, copying, and scanning needed by college students, this printer works just fine. Beats having to walk to the library in the rain to pay 25c for photocopies.
Comments