Ever since my first child was born I've been a bit of a photo-holic. As a computer geek who takes tons of pictures, it seemed only logical to get a printer that could print good quality photographs. After much research we settled on the
Hewlett Packard DeskJet 5550 Thermal Inkjet Printer back in 2002, and it has done a good job for us in the years since we purchased it.
Features:
It is a cool-looking printer, sleek and curvy in silver and black. It has a fairly small footprint too (18x23½x6 inches), so it won't take up a lot of space on your desk. The printer uses that space effectively too, with the 100-sheet input tray nestled below the 50-sheet output tray (the output tray lifts up so you can easily load more paper). The input-tray has handy movable guides so you can load a variety of types of paper, from the normal 8½x11 paper to 4x6 photo paper to envelopes and more.
The driver software is very easy to use, and allows you to be as hands-off or control-freakish as you want to be. For those who are more hands-off, the printer's sensors can detect the weight and texture of the paper and adjust its settings accordingly (it can tell plain paper from glossy photo paper, etc). If you're willing to click a few boxes, you can choose the quality of print you want (draft, everyday, best, etc) and set photos to print "borderless". More advanced settings include high resolution control, contrast enhancement, smart-focus, digital flash (making your image brighter), sharpness controls, and smoothing, among many others.
Some other quickie, cool features include:
* Auto-on and Auto-off - enabling this places your printer in an energy efficient stand-by mode. The printer will automatically come on whenever you need to print
* Poster printing - you can print a poster on multiple pages that can be taped together
* Envelope slot - on the "out" tray there is a nifty slot for single-feeding envelopes or index cards through the printer
* The printer can be hooked up via USB (2.0) or a parallel port (I like having options)
* The two sided print option prints the odd-numbered pages first, then prompts you to reload the paper so the even-numbered pages can be printed
* Pages per sheet option allows multiple pages of your document to be printed on a single sheet of paper (handy for saving trees, provided you have good eyesight).
* As you print, the "print status" box shows you the ink levels on the 2 cartridges currently loaded in the printer, which is handy for seeing when you are running low on ink.
Specs:
Max Resolution (b&w): 1200 dpi x 1200 dpi
Max Resolution (color): 4800 dpi x 1200 dpi
Max document size: 8½ x 14 (legal)
Media Type: Cards, Labels, Banners, Envelopes, Photo paper, Plain paper, Transparencies, Iron-on transfers, Magnet paper
Ports/Connectors Required: 1 USB 4 pin USB Type B or 1 Parallel IEEE 1284 (EPP/ECP):36 pin Centronics
Max Speed (color/Fast Draft): 12 pages per minute
Max Speed (B&W/Fast Draft): 17 pages per minute
Memory: 8MB built-in RAM
Processor: 96 MHz processor
Ink Cartridges:
You get 3 cartridges with your DeskJet printer, although only 2 at a time are used in printing. You get a basic black cartridge and a tri-color (cyan, magenta, yellow) cartridge for normal printing. When you want to print photos you replace the black cartridge with a special photo cartridge (also with 3 different colors - light cyan, light magenta, and non-pigmented black). That means for photographs you get 6 colors for printing, which is nice, and you don't waste that precious ink when you're printing other documents that aren't photo-quality. The color cartridges typically run around $25, the black one is usually a bit cheaper.
When the hubby and I were looking into purchasing a printer, one of the things we looked at was the cost of the ink. The online consensus at the time was that this DeskJet was one of the very cheapest, ink wise, on the market. The average ink cost of this printer was 4.4 to 5.6 cents per page of text, and 14 to 29 cents per page of color (photo-quality prints with the tri-color cartridge will run through it faster, however). Compared to most printers on the market that's not bad at all!
I do continue to use the cartridge until it is completely empty. The software will warn you to change the cartridges, but until I see a degredation in the picture quality I leave the nearly-empty cartridge in-place.
System Requirements:
Windows 95 and up, or Macintosh OS 8.6 and up
Required free hard disk space: 40MB
Our Thoughts and Experiences:
I really cannot complain about the print-quality of our
HP DeskJet 5550. When I compare digital images I've printed against those same images printed at a photo center, I can only tell the slightest of differences (and I know that some of that difference is the photo paper). When I compare photos I've scanned in and printed against the originals, there is a slight blurring, but that may be our
scanner (or the dpi I've scanned it in at - usually 300 dpi). The images are really beautiful looking - no visible dots or smearing at all. I did run into a problem once with a very blown-up image - the red tones on my son's face looked fake on the printed image on glossy paper, and looked better when printed on plain paper (I was blowing up 6 or 7 pictures for a birthday-party game and only had this problem with 1 of the images). The regular photographs I print typically look quite impressive and professionally printed.
When it hit the market the DeskJet's print speed was probably middle-of-the-road for printers at that time. To give you an idea, I printed an 8x10 at 300 dpi and the "best" resolution and it took roughly 4 minutes (each picture's time is different, based upon the colors in the picture). That's certainly not terrible, but there are much faster printers out there. Printing text or graphics or photos at a lower dpi and/or resolution will go much faster, of course. According to HP at the "normal" resolution text can be printed at 6 pages per minute (with even faster times at the lower resolutions).
Installation was super easy, with a "quick start" poster included in the box to help get you up and running in no time. The software CD has an animated setup program that pops up automatically and guides you through everything.
We purchased this printer before we had our
digital camera. When we finally did get the camera I figured I would never need to go to a photo-processing place again because I could print all of my pictures at home. That idea didn't last long, but honestly it isn't the DeskJet's fault. I take far too many pictures (we're talking hundreds each month), and while the DeskJet is certainly speedier than our older printers, it would just take too much of my precious spare time to attempt to print all of the pictures I take (plus the extra copies for the relatives and whatnot). These days I mostly use
Ofoto (recently renamed
The Kodak Easy Share Gallery) to print the bulk of my pictures, but I still get a lot of use out of my printer too. I make custom birthday invitations for my kids' birthday parties, make custom photo magnets and calendars for gifts/special occasions, and sometimes print oddly-shaped photos for special picture frames, so my DeskJet printer still gets a good workout.
Software wise, the one thing I do occasionally have a problem with is canceling a print job. It will stop the document that is currently printing (at however far along the job was buffered already), but then I have trouble getting that job out of the queue and getting the next thing to print properly. Sometimes I must reboot before my next document will print.
I like the in/out tray design - it is an efficient use of space while still being easy to use. I do recommend using the sliding guide when feeding non-standard paper through (such as my 4x6 photo paper) - I've had it feed through crooked when I tried going without the guide. When I do involved stuff like 4x6 photos or double-sided prints (there is an attachment for printing double sided automatically, but it must be purchased separately and we didn't buy it) I simply remove the "out" tray so I have easy access to the input tray. The "out" tray just sits on top and is just as easy to remove completely as it is to fold it up and out of the way.
I do remember having some difficulty getting "borderless" prints the first time. I now buy 4x6 paper with tear-off tabs -- the print is borderless after the tab is removed. If you get 4x6 paper without the tab you will still have a small border on one side of the paper. If you simply print a 4x6 without selecting the "borderless" option (or without manually selecting the "4x6 with tabs" paper) you will automatically get a small white border around the entire picture. It cannot do an 8x10 borderless (so we just buy 8½x11 photo paper and trim the edges).
Final Thoughts:
As someone who only occasionally prints, and who typically prints photographs when I print, I feel that this printer is just right for me. The
HP DeskJet 5550 is a "mid-range" printer with excellent print quality for the price, cheap (comparatively speaking) ink-costs, and a decent print speed.
