10 out of 10 people found this review helpful.
Awesome printer UPDATE: COMPLETE JUNK
Date of Review: Apr 22, 2006
The Bottom Line: If this was sold as a boat anchor, it would probably get great reviews.
Firstly I must say I'm amazed at the negative reviews of this printer, perhaps there was a bad batch as one review mentioned because I have been using mine for months and done thousands of prints so far with no problem at all.
If you're looking for photo quality, this isn't the printer for you, it is built for low cost and high speed printing. I'm not saying the quality isn't good, it's better than most color laser printers but isn't as good as a 6 color photo inkjet printer which can easily match or surpass lab quality prints, look at the HP home models if you want photo quality. I was looking for low cost and high speed printing, and if that's what you want the HP K550 is the obvious choice. I'm actually running a color printing service using it along with another HP inkjet all in one business printer which so far has done 60 000 prints with no problem.
The cartridge and printhead design is perfect, each of the 4 ink cartridges and 2 print heads can be replaced individually, meaning you never replace something that's still good. I've even modified my cartridges so they take in ink from 1 liter ink bottles connected to the cartridges by tubes, the printer's built in ink pump pumps the ink from the bottles meaning I can do 30-60 000 prints between replacing the ink bottles, HP is one of the only brands that lets you do this, most others will disable the cartridges once the original amount of ink has been used, forcing you to buy new cartridges, this easy modification can easily let you get $8000 worth of ink for $100, an incredible saving.
If you're looking for high speed low cost printing at good quality, this is the obvious choice, don't even bother with laser printers unless you absolutely need water proof prints, that is the one and only advantage laser has to offer other inkjets, inkjets are cheaper, faster, better print quality and cost a tiny fraction of the ink cost, which is the biggest advantage for inkjets.
MAJOR UPDATE:
OK, after a few months of light use, I got the famous black/yellow printhead failure. I stupidly decided to buy a 2nd one. That one failed within 24 hours. I exchanged it for a 3rd, that one also failed in 24 hours. Needless to say, this is complete junk and HP is selling a defective product.
