Seems like an excellent printer

My HP6210 all-in-one broke because I pulled some jammed paper out backwards and apparently it cracked a wheel somewhere inside. It had been my 4th HP printer and other then my breaking that one, all the others were simply "outgrown" by my needs and were given away. So when I needed a new printer I planned on buying an HP. As I read various reviews for printers it seemed like there were two groups when it came to this HP printer, those who loved it and those who hated it. When it came to the second group it seemed like many of their issues revolved around trying to get it to network wirelessly. So I started looking at other brands and found wonderfull reviews for the Cannon Pixma MP530 (which has no networking capablity). Since Fry's electronics had the MP530's on sale for a very good price with 30 day return I decided to go that route. If you are interested in how that worked out I've posted a review of it seperate from this but suffice it to say that after using the Cannon for 28 days and when I found I could get the HP printer for a very slight increase in price I took the Cannon back and bought the HP 7280 with the hope that the negatives reviews would not make me regret it. Some of the reviewers said it was a really loud machine, that it vibrates and shaked and is slow and that they had to wait and wait for the thing to start printing. I have not found any of that to be the case. When I send a print job to it, it starts printing almost immediately with no odd or loud noises and no crazy vibration or shakeing. When I do a scan it also starts up pretty fast with less warm up of the lamp delay then my old HP. It has a seperate paper tray for 4x6 photo paper. It prints very good looking photos fairly quickly. I compared print speeds (from printer reviews) on it to several other top rated printers and overall it seems to have similar speeds. I can't comment on how quickly it uses ink since I haven't had it long enough but the replacement cartridges seem priced pretty low for genuine ink.
I suspect much of the problem many people have with speed is due to them running a wireless connection, not with the printer itself. As far as the complaints about installations not working properly, I did not have a single problem with the software installation. I'm only guessing but I can't help but wonder if some people do not read or believe the instructions and do some of the steps in the wrong order. Also, if running Vista, since its fairly new, I've found it best to ignore the packaged install disk but simply go to HPs website and download the latest version. That's my advise for any brand, not just HP. Like many inkjets, the black print is not water proof. Photo's on the photo paper do not seem to have a problem with water however, most likely because the black ink and color inks are different base formulations, such as pigment based versus dye based. I am glad I decided to go with this printer.