Comments on: HP PHOTOSMART 8750 LARGE-FORMAT PROFESSIONAL PHOTO PRINTER

By: D. Westphal

D. Westphal — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:06:43 +0000

Not what I was hoping for...upgraded from a CP1700....Oooops.

This thing eats ink, is ridiculously slow, prints faded images (with no insight from tech support) and consistanly pulls multiple pages.

Oh but it looks nice. No more HP's for this kid...

By: .

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:43:05 +0000

I bought this printer used for $90. Set up via Ethernet was relatively easy, although I haven't been able to get USB to work. I've printed on HP Premium Plus Soft Gloss, and the quality is very very good. Color rendition could be better, but allowing CS3 to control color helps.

I've also printed on an Epson 3800 and 7800, and this printer is not far off in terms of quality prints - with the exception of deep blue skies. The HP 8750 does not handle extensive areas of deep blue sky well (golden hour at Sunrise/Sunset). The subtle tonal variations tend to get lost.

Supplies (consumables such as 3 ink catridges and 25 sheets of premium paper) run about $140 for 30 8x10 prints. That averages to $4.50 per 8x10 print . . . ouch, but not much worse than other photo prints. The standard cartridges for photos are HP Photo Blue (101), HP Tri-color (97), and HP Photo Grey (102). There are different cartridges available for special printing, such as sepia or colored line drawings.

I've called HP for customer support. The first person hung up on me after realizing they could not fix the problem. The second person was much more helpful. I've heard some people describe HP support as a "mine field", but you can get quality technical support if you are dilligent.

I like this printer alot. I will use it for art school homework, but probably not for my fine art prints that I intend to hang - like I said, color rendition can be very very good, but for certain colors is not consistent.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:18:26 +0000

I've had this printer for several years now. I bought it (at an incredible bargain price) refurbished, which worried me at first. But it has turned out to be a super performer.

The (photo) print quality is very good, and the large format images are impressive.

On the down side, you start to realize you (and other people) don't have the wall space for too many tabloid or B-size prints. And framing is expensive.

Also, I like the fact that this is a network printer, but the print drivers stopped working after a year or so (reinstalling them is on my to-do list). I can still use it by reading media cards directly from the printer.

I have printed over 100 large (12x16" or larger) photos, and countless smaller ones. The ink does last reasonably long, but a big print is going to cost you probably $3 or more in ink, plus the paper. But it's well worth it.

By: Roger T. Reimann

Roger T. Reimann — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 09:43:58 +0000

We’ve had the printer up and running now for two weeks and so far it does exactly what it’s supposed to do. Not the fastest machine availble but for the price- well worht it- so far….

By: Anthony Albanese

Anthony Albanese — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:00:50 +0000

This is my first actual photo printer. I saw it on sale and decided to buy. It produces some very nice pictures using only 3 ink cartidges. I am able to get many pictures from these ink cartridges. Being new to these printers I wasnt to sure on what I was going to use the 8750 for.

As of now I have only printed 1 13 x 19 photo for a friend. Iam getting around more and will be using it more. One more feature is the LCD that I thought displayed the picture, but it only gives you a number to use when using the memory card slots. [...]