5 Responses to “HP PHOTOSMART PREMIUM ALL-IN-ONE PRINTER”

1. A. LeBrun says:

   January 2, 2010 at 6:31 am

   I am not able to review this product based on performance; however, I thought those shopping should know that this product retails for 199.99 on hp’s site, and they are currently selling it for 139.99. DO NOT pay what Amazon is asking for this printer.

   That said, I am excited to try it out. All of the reviews have been terrific.
2. Adam Dachis says:

   January 2, 2010 at 9:09 am

   This is a printer that should be a lot easier to setup, because it’s pretty simple to use and figure out without a manual and the print quality and speed are quite good. It’s hard to say how it’ll fare over time, but given that I had some crappy prints right off the bat–before it started to work properly–I’m not exactly convinced that this is a printer I can expect to last me awhile. Over all I found it adequate, but for the price it ought to be a bit more than that.

   My first color printer was an HP, and at 300dpi it looked terrible. Nonetheless, at the time that’s what $450 got you and it was awesome. Now you can get a printer that extraordinarily outperforms my first color printer for about 1/10th of that price. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the point I’m trying to make is this: if you’re going to pay more than you would for the cheapest printer in the line–which will do a pretty nice job even by today’s standards–you have to ask why. The answers I get from this “premium” HP Photosmart are nothing compelling.

   You can expect nice prints, and you can expect them reasonably fast. If that’s all you want, the only regret you may have is that you feel you’ve spent too much to get them. Additionally, $200 isn’t necessarily going to break the bank (although I’m always comparing printers to the cost of my first and I’m constantly amazed by how cheap they are, even with the cost of ink). Still, if you’re not going to see your print quality degrade as you spend less. This printer puts out nice photos, and can print black and white documents quickly, but you’re going to get pretty much the same thing on the low end. (I say this having experienced some of HP’s lower-end printers.) So what you end up with is a bunch of additional features thrown into this printer, and I don’t think any of them are compelling enough to warrant the extra money.

   This is a multifunction unit, so you of course get your standard printer/scanner/copier combination, but you also get a touch screen with features that let you print out pre-made forms and games, for example. You can add frames and other things to photos. You can do a number of other trivial things you probably won’t ever really do. There really isn’t much of a value-add with these little toys HP has thrown in. What would be more compelling is a feature set along the lines of Epson’s Artisan series, where, for example, you can print on CDs and DVDs in addition to various types of papers. The wireless functionality in the Artisan series is also easier to setup. It’s not quite as simple as I’d prefer, but HP fails pretty miserably in the wireless department with this particular model (and I assume others). The wireless setup actually seems pretty simple, but it doesn’t work as advertised. The setup ended up being far more complicated than it needed to be. Had it worked the way HP described in the instructions, I could’ve been printing wirelessly after about 30 seconds of concentrated effort. Instead, it didn’t work numerous times until I somehow managed to get my Mac to see the printer. Overall it was frustrating and that’s far from ideal.

   Ultimately, the features you gain with a printer like this are just going to be a bunch of things you won’t really use much but paid for anyhow. My recommendation would be to go with Epson or Canon, as you’ll get a great feature set with Epson multifunction printers and I, personally, prefer the photo quality of the higher-end Canon inkjet printers (which is not to say the Epson printers aren’t very capable as well–it’s more a matter of preference, though I do use my Artisan 800 more than anything). But if you’re loyal to the HP brand or want to purchase an HP for whatever reason, I’d recommend spending less and getting a lesser model so long as the feature set with those models is adequate for your needs. If not, I’d recommend spending more. HP has some interesting higher-end multifunctions with their web-connected printers, so you may want to look at those instead of this particular unit. I don’t mean to be so harsh on this printer, because it does do its job adequately, but it really doesn’t earn it’s status as a mid-range multifunction. Perhaps in the next iteration it’ll get a little better, but for now I think you’re best off buying just about anything else.
3. Marie Pare says:

   January 2, 2010 at 9:18 am

   I bought this printer today because of the positive reviews on Amazon. The setup took a long time and I had to call my phone company to find the requested WEP. Once the first computer was setup… it was easy (though time-consuming) to set up the second laptop.

   Was excited by the bells and whistles but, just hasn’t yet delivered the quality of scan that I need. I do a lot of graphics… print it out a graphic, modify it and scan. The scan is very pixilated… and faded looking. I have tried different dpi (default is set at 200); I tried 300 and 600 (forget 600… takes forever.) Also tried other settings. Have emailed HP for support. (will update this review once I hear from them).

   Also had many error messages when trying to scan. The printer/scanner panel said, “try scanning from computer”. The computer said, “scanner engaged by other device.” Using their troubleshooting system, I was advised to “reboot the printer”, “reboot the computer”, “reinstall the software”… I always managed to get it to scan (without ever reinstalling)… just by retrying first the printer screen and then the computer screen… but WHAT A HASSLE! I don’t have time for this… especially for a mediocre end result. Unless HP can come up with a solution, this is being returned tomorrow!
4. Bill L. Trimble says:

   January 2, 2010 at 11:20 am

   PROS: PRICE WAS REASONABLE AT THE TIME OF SALE. VERY FAST PPM. FAST SHIPPING. THIS IS MY 5TH HP PRINTER.

   CONS: 31 DAYS LATER THEY LOWERED THE PRICE ABOUT $40.00. THEY DECLINED A PRICE MATCH REFUND AND THEY WERE VERY RUDE TO ME FOR ASKING. COLORS ARE NOT THAT CLOSE TO THE ORIGINAL PHOTO COLORS. FIRST SHIPPED PRINTER WAS DEFECTIVE, BUT THE EXCHANGE PROCESS WAS STRESS-FREE (EXCEPT FOR THE WAITING PERIOD). ALL INITAL INK CARTRIDGES HAD VERY LITTLE INK IN THEM. IN THE PAST, HP FILLED THEIR INITAL CARTRIDGES ABOUT HALF FULL.
5. Charlie says:

   January 2, 2010 at 12:10 pm

   The C309G is not a small printer. The duplex add-on and the front tray take up an enormous amount of room on a desk and you definitely want to take measurements in your small office to make sure it will fit. I’ve smacked my elbow into it numerous times. Let’s start with the basics.

   The unit does not come with a USB cable, so make sure you have one in the event you do not want to use the Ethernet or WiFi connections. Rest assured, the USB cable isn’t needed to connect the printer to the network at all. Everything is set up via software or the touch screen. The LCD touch screen is a very cool feature! The on-screen keyboard isn’t QWERTY so it took some time to input the passcode for my WiFi network, but the overall user interface is very sleek and easy to use!

   When I popped the lid to install the cartridges, I noticed there were no LED’s to indicate proper installation of each cartridge like my Canon Pixma MP620. The C309G also makes a steady hissing sound when it is turned on, and you get to hear it for at least 5 minutes during the first initialization of the printer (which is an awful long time to wait when you’re anxious to use it).

   I used the on-board photo printing feature to try out some of the photo paper that was included (100 sheets). The cropping feature is very lackluster and managed to cutoff some of my photographs. It wasn’t as flexible in allowing me to crop the photo the way I wanted, and it was hard to tell if the photo quality was going to be good or not, so make sure you use a good camera and take a clear pic. The color reproduction is quite spectacular and the glossy prints look Kodak-quality. I made a few photos for family and they thought I got them developed. The duplex unit worked very nicely but it takes a few moments for the ink to dry before it proceeds printing on the reverse side.

   The software isn’t that great as it takes 15MB or more of memory (not hard drive space) and installs a bunch of IE/FireFox add-ons for no reason. The scanning system works seamlessly as you are able to save directly onto a USB flash drive. Unfortunately the scanner only scans at 300 dpi (fixed setting) and saves as a JPG without any option to store all the images in one session onto one PDF file like my Canon Pixma MP620. This isn’t a big deal if you’re just scanning photographs from a scrapbook, but I usually scan lots of documents at 150 dpi and it makes it convenient to store 35 pages into 1 PDF rather than store it as 35 JPG’s in 300 dpi format.

   There are some fun maze and puzzles available for print straight from the printer itself. It can print out mazes or Sudoku puzzles (ranging from simple to expert), or other activities right from the touch screen.

   Pros: Fast printing, individual color tanks, duplex attachment, great photo printing capabilities, onboard WiFi setup, excellent touch screen user interface, and excellent print quality even in the Fast Draft setting.

   Cons: Takes up a lot of physical space, installation and initialization can take awhile, and the unit makes a hissing noise from the speaker.

   Overall: Feature-rich printer but I felt my less expensive Canon Pixma MP620 does everything but takes up less room, and has a better scanner interface with the same quality of printing. The really great feature of the HP C309G is the duplex attachment and easier to access paper tray.

   UPDATE 12-23-2009:
   
   A bit of a warning about the ink cartridges:
   
   The 564 cartridges don’t last very long, specifically the big tank for black ink. After maybe 100-200 print outs, it tells me to buy a new tank. I recommend looking at the 564XL cartridges for higher capacity. They cost more but the standard sized 564 cartridges don’t last long at all.