great printer

I purchased this printer in April of '06 for $149.00 at Staples and have been totally satisfied until last week when the unit developed a short in the black cartridge connection. After spending about 1 hour with HP tech support chat we found that the machine itself was bad and not the cartridge as i had suspected. HP wanted $90.00 including shipping in both directions to repair the unit because it was out of warranty. I found the same printer with XI at the end of the number (which only means that it comes with an usb cable as well as the standard ethernet cable) for $109.99 at Costco and did not hesitate to purchase it again. It was a no-brainer as i have not had a single problem until now. Print speed is great in normal mode. I can't see why anyone would want the really fast speed unless you are printing a 100 page document in draft mode. You should expect that there will be problems unless you use a really good quality paper but then why waste it printing a draft? Paper handling is great in regular mode so don't waste paper or get aggrivated using the draft mode.
Set-up is a cinch if you follow the directions from the beginning. You cannot set it up wirelessly. You must either use the ethernet connection from your router or a portable key drive. I used the key drive and had the whole thing done on my vaio laptop in about 10 minutes and another ten minutes on my mac mini (both connect to my router wirelessly). The longest part was installing the software. Many people miss this point and think they can install it wirelessly from their laptops. It must go thru a router!
The unit has lights on the front to indicate ink levels as well as the ability to check the levels thru the software. Be warned that the software and lights come on at least 100 pages before you actually run out of ink. I guess most people will pull the cartridges out when the light comes on and replace them. Don't! wait until it runs out of ink, you will be surprised how long it will last. Plus HP has a small reserve feature that keeps some ink available even when the cartridge is totally gone.
In short it is a great unit and also prints great picture although i think if printed 3 in the last year...