Domain Name Com's Electronics HP Photosmart C6180 All-in-One Printer, Fax, Scanner, and Copier

Electronics HP Photosmart C6180 All-in-One Printer, Fax, Scanner, and Copier

Domain Name Com's - Electronics : HP Photosmart C6180 All-in-One Printer, Fax, Scanner, and Copier

- High price per page, low initial cost refurbished
This printer was recommended to me by a friend who noticed it use the HP vivera inks. He had found it in a store, refurbished, for $168, which seemed like a reasonable buy. Looking on line, there were some positive reviews saying the unit worked OK. An odd part is only one of the interfaces can be designated at a time - network OR USB OR wireless.

Scanning to PDF works OK, and I use it for that all the time to email documents.

I've been keeping track of cartridge changes since purchasing the unit, both to find out how many sheets each cartridge actually delivers and to identify the cost per page for output. The bottom line is ink costs $.23/page after a year of steady use. That's pretty high, considering most if its work has been acting as a copier or printer onto regular paper.

Photo printout produces good quality output, but I found I have to manage the colors using Photoshop to get the desired output. The automatic settings are very colorful, but not very accurate, in general.

If I were to make this purchase again, this still would have been a good choice of multifunction device. The cost per page for just the ink must make some product manager at HP smile every day, though.

Rating:

- This Ink guzzler comes with software problems
I have owned this printer for a little more than one year. I bought it because I wanted an all-in-one printer and I wanted it to be part of my wireless network at home. I have three PC desktops and three laptops (no Mac) and they share this printer. Even though the printer has many features that I like it has also disappointed me. I recommend it but unenthusiastically.

My user experience>>

My first HP Photosmart C6180 I had to return on the first day because it did not work. My second HP Photosmart C6180 lasted three months until a paper jam did it in. However, my third HP Photosmart C6180 has lasted for over a year. The software installation did not work as it was supposed to. The installation program crashed (exception error) halfway through the installation and the re-installation subsequently failed. I had to uninstall the software, call HP support, and redo the process using their assistance. Another bad thing is that I had to turn off my firewalls to complete the software installation. If you re-install the software several times, like I did, you might forget to turn the firewalls back on, like I did once. Because of this my computer was hijacked, and I was visited by Trojan horses, and worms. The fact that the printer runs out of ink so often is also irritating. If it does not run out of cyan, or blue, it will run out of yellow, magenta, or black, sooner than you expect. I have to change cartridges a little bit too often and it gets expensive.

Currently everything works except scanning from the printer. To scan I have to type in the printers IP address in a browser and start the scan from the browser (you get the IP address by pressing Setup on the panel and then Network). HP Support thought this was very strange and by doing some testing it was confirmed that the software indeed was corrupt. However, even if I follow the given instructions I get a corrupt installation and by doing what HP support tells me I also get a corrupt installation. Since I am fine with scanning using my internet explorer instead of the scan button on the printer, and the rest of the stuff, printing, copying, faxing, and photo printing works just fine, I am not going to fix this (don't fix what is only somewhat broken).

I like the fact that I can print 4X6 photos, as well as do scanning, printing, faxing, and make copies from all of my computers on my wireless network in my house. I have never lost contact with it since my last re-installation (a year ago) and I have never needed a network cable. Paper jams do not happen often, it is lightweight, and it is fairly easy to use. My final C6180 has lasted more than a year and my old HP OfficeJet 7410 all-in-one gave me a lot more trouble. Perhaps HP is on the right track.

Summary Pro>>

-- Good printer quality
-- Lightweight
-- The all-in-one feature plus photo printing is nice
-- Easy to use
-- Has worked continuously on my wireless network for more than a year
-- HP customer support is good

Summary Con>>

-- Ink cartridges are consumed too quickly
-- You may get a lemon that brakes (my third has worked fine)
-- The software installation may not work as intended. This has nothing to do with following instructions, there are real problems.
-- I had to turn off firewalls to install software for wireless operation

Rating:

- MAJOR bloatware
I honestly wish I had gone for a different brand rather than HP

The pros:
- The print quality is very high
- I got it to work on a wireless network without much bother
- It faxes multiple pages just fine

The cons:
- The recommended software is awful
- If you want to download the drivers, it's 160 mb, minimum, which includes lots of bloatware with confusing names designed to make you think you need them. Why can't they keep this smaller and give people a smaller option with just the basic drivers?
- The printer seems to randomly disappear from my printers list every few weeks, which means a very lengthy de-install and re-install process (2 reboots + goodness knows what registry changes - gee thanks)
- It seems to print a lot of un-necessary pages
- fax confirmation (why do i need a page printed? there's no option to stop this)
- scan confirmation (same)

In short, I'd recommend anyone to go to the "download drivers" website of the OEM before buying a printer, see how many mb of junk they try to foist on people, then decide.

I won't be buying HP again for the above reasons. Print quality seems to be high across all major manufacturers these days, so I'm buying on other factors next time.

Rating:

- Looks great, if only it worked
I think it only fair to balance the comments of others. There is no doubt this could be a fabulous printer. In theory it does everything you could ask, it is compact, it is fast, it is cheap. But in fact it is more trouble than it is worth.

I agree that the software is flaky and difficult to install. I had one networked machine where it simply refused to identify the printer (I think it had something to do with that machine being on a segment of my network fed from a switch but I don't know why). In the end I had to physically move the computer to install and then it was okay. And every time it fails to install you have to go through a painfull clean up routune.

Eventually I got the knack and installed the drivers/applications on 3 machines - then the printer stopped working. The black ink would not work. From trawling the internet this seems a common problem. HP could not diagnose the fault. They claimed the printer was out of warranty but I eventually proved it was not, so they sent a new one. This lasted 2 months and then the same thing happened. So I am on my third printer and again the software install is playing up. I have had to role back my OS even as it completely stopped my laptop working. In the past I have even seen rogue processes running that take 100% of CPU. This is costing me a lot of time to solve. So unless you are very patient and very computer savvy, so are not freaked out by having to mess with the OS, don't take the risk with this printer.

Rating:

- Do not buy this printer
This printer has never worked since the day I purchased it. It is impossible to connect via a wireless network and HP support is the worst.

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