I just bought this 1 month ago, and there are clearly more perks than I am currently taking advantage of. Here are the ones I'm already loving. It's a color printer that allows pure black and white printing. (My old ones only did grayscale wasting lots of colored ink. I can print 6 slides per page, and all printing can be double sided, even multiple pages per side! Amazing paper saving options. Also, a very helpful automatic on-screen error guide. This is just the beginning of what this printer has to offer. To me, it is worth much more than its price! HP DeskJet F4480 Inkjet All-in-One Printer (CB745A#B1H)
I ditched my HP printer and bought a Canon instead and I couldn't be happier with my choice.
I'm giving the HP two stars, not one, because it is in many ways a good machine. It is quiet and the copies look good. I was somewhat happy with it. BUT THESE HP PRINTERS USE INK LIKE CRAZY. They are a ripoff.
The Canon system is MUCH better. The cartridges come full and are translucent so you can see the ink in them and watch it run out. They last about 1.5 - 2 months each at my rate of printing (fairly heavy home office usage, as I run a consulting business).
The HP cartridges keep getting weaker and weaker. They hardly put any ink in them, so I have to buy them in bulk at Costco and replace them every 3-4 weeks. And you can't see inside them, so HP seems to reduce the ink that each cartridge holds but won't tell you this. Even more amusing -- every time you change a cartridge, the printer goes through an elaborate routine of printing "test pages," using up YET MORE INK. You cannot stop these test pages or they print again as soon as you turn the machine back on.
What we *do* know is that HP is charging more for their ink per ounce than you would pay for gasoline, Dom Perignon champagne, or virtually any other fluid on earth.
This is their business decision to make. Every company seems to want a subscription model now and I guess HP has decided to sell cheap printers and then make a living off of high-margin ink. But I will pay off the cost of my new Canon in less than a year just by buying less ink. After that it is all profit to me.
And the Canon PIXMA is better for the environment and for my sanity. Plus it works great and the copies and photos look just as good as the HP.
Ben
I bought this to replace an HP PSC 1350 that stopped working. The F4480 arrived; and works perfectly with my MAC OS X. I did buy a new USB cable. It didn't come with one; and I was right to do so. The new printer would not work with the old USB cable. Must have been a bad USB cable. They do wear out. And the ink for this printer is very reasonable and only uses two cartridges.
After much research (thanks Amazon reviewers), I settled upon this printer. I am not disappointed. Following the enclosed instructions was easy and quickly I was printing out my documents (mostly light office use). I haven't used the scanner but the copier is good. Once I figured out that the blue or black buttons designate whether your copying in color or black, it was a cinch! Yes, the printer does power down with no use, but I knew this from the reviews so I just hit the 'on' button again and away we go! I am very pleased with the printer. Oh, and since another reviewer mentioned the USB cable I purchased one of those when I bought the printer. HP products continue to surpass the competition.
SHIPMENT: typical for free shipping (few days,,not too bad for free), retail box was the packaging (arrived safely though)
SETUP: no usb cable included but I used my old hp usb (usb head at one end and the other is more square with rounded corners on the top, 1/4" x 1/4" or so, if u need to go get one brfore your printer arrives), follow the quick setup sheet (it's easy/short, I'm not much for instructions but glad ?I read them), I have an older pc but the disk setup took some 20 minutes or so with a restart too.
PRINT QUALITY/SPEED: moderare speed, good quality text printing, will post follow-up when I print pics, also will post when I find out how long the inks last (I am skeptical about them, little and light cartridges)
RECOMMEND: at this point, yes...you won't find it cheaper retail
I bought a nice Epson printer for $15 at a garage sale. It wouldn't work at all because the magenta cartridge was empty. In the Epson, all the cartridges had to have some ink in order for it to work at all (even though the black seemed full). So, I was going to buy all four cartridges as a set for $60 plus dollars, but in the store I spied the HP printer with both black and color cartridges for only $62 on sale (plus tax of course) which seemed a better buy than dealing with the Epson problem again, and the HP will print only in black, so if the color runs out - not a problem. I did already have the USB cable, so that wasn't a problem either. HP also has longer lasting XL cartridges for this which will save replacing the cartridge so often. The XL cartridge is about $30, but worth it, I think. - Multifunction Printer - All-in-one - Hp - Printer'
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