HP Deskjet 5650 Printer Series The HP Deskjet 5650 color inkjet printer series delivers all-around professional performance, convenience, and options for expanded capabilities as your needs grow. This printer delivers professional photo-quality color and laser-quality black text at up to 4800-optimized dpi (up to 4800 x 1200-optimized dpi color printing and 1200-input dpi). The new print-quality selector button offers control of quality and speed from the front of printer. Fast print speeds, up to 21 pages per minute in black and up to 15 ppm in color, plus HP convenience features save you time. Borderless photo printing, plus optional HP exclusive automatic two-sided printing (optional HP Automatic Two-sided Printing accessory, HP 250-sheet paper tray and networking accessories not included; sold separately), wired and wireless networking and 6-ink color printing (6-ink photo printing available with separate purchase of photo cartridge; not included) enable you to increase value and performance of this printer.
Note: The HP DeskJet 5650 is no longer being manufactured. You may want to consider purchasing instead the newer HP DeskJet 6540 color inkjet printer. HP's DeskJet 5650 color inkjet printer offers high resolution output, fast print speeds, and time saving features that you won't want to be without. Delivering color prints at 15 ppm and black text at up to 21 ppm, you can select print modes via buttons on the front of the printer. Resolutions of up to 4,800 dpi are achieved on a variety of media types and sizes, and optional 6-ink color printing can achieve prints that will resist fading, and last for years to come.
Connectivity is offered through your choice or parallel or USB ports, and optional wireless and networking accessories are available to expand versatility. The 5650 allows you to monitor ink-levels on-screen and ink backup printing completes the current print job, even if one cartridge runs out of ink. Other convenient features include a print cancel button, one touch screen shot printing, and an optional duplexing unit. The DeskJet 5650 comes with a handy bundle of photo and imaging software, and a one-year warranty.
What's in the Box
HP DeskJet 5650 color inkjet printer, HP no. 56 (C6656A) black inkjet print cartridge, HP no. 57 (C6657A) tri-color inkjet print cartridge, power supply, power cord, software on CD-ROM (PC and Mac), reference guide, set-up poster, media pack
1 HP Has Missed the Quality Mark on This One
I have been an HP printer fan for 15+ years, both personally and professionally. Because my company has an HP standard printer selection, the 5650 was my only choice to replace an older HP 895CXI, which by the way, I LOVED. My initial 5650 had to be replaced as the IT folks experienced quality problems at setup. This 5650 is less than 4 months old, yet jams OFTEN, makes clunking noises, and I suspect it won't last but another few months, if I'm lucky.
I am so disappointed in HP over this printer, that I recently purchased 2 new printers for my home, both replacing old HP 800 series, and I purchased 2 Canons. Both have been working like a charm for 3 months.
Wake up HP - especially if you're making deals with corporations on low end models. We're the professionals who leave the corporate world and equipment and make purchases for our homes.
2 terrible service
My wife and I wasted hours and hours trying to get HP service. HP has outsourced customer service to several developing countries, and each time we called, the representatives were unable to locate the record of our previous call. We were told time and again that we would be contacted by a "case manager" but that never happened. After weeks of trying, it became obvious that we need to discard the product (still under warrantee) and buy a new (non-HP) product ourselves.
3 Not a good printer for students
I am a college student, and I haven't had a good experience with this printer. I had a Lexmark for about a year, which was fast, but low quality and unreliable. When the cartridge ran out on that, I bought the HP 5650 instead. I've had it for about a month, and although setup was easy and the quality is very high, this is NOT A GOOD PRINTER FOR STUDENTS! Even on fast draft printing quality, it takes at least a minute to print a full page of text. The quality of the printing is very good, but it is EXTREMELY slow, even compared to most cheaper printers. The claim of 21 ppm is laughable. I think you'd need about 30 of these to get 21 pages in a minute.
4 HP rocks
I bought this printer for four reasons: affordability, quality, simplicity, and ability to plug in to my Apple Airport Extreme.
In version 10.2, it worked great. However, when I upgraded to version 10.3.7, the printer would not work at all. I called Apple support (Apple care) and although they were very helpful, were stumped.
I sent an e-mail to HP support and within a day got an e-mail directing me to this link: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107054. Now, the printer is once again working great!
All I wanted was a simple, basic, and moderately fast color printer and the deskjet 5650 delivers. But the fact that HP support was so great easily doubles the value of this product. I highly recommend it.
5 DISAPPOINTED WITH THIS PRINTER
For three years I was using a HP 932c deskjet printer. It was a work horse and gave very little trouble. It printed very quietly and the print was very sharp. This printer had only two cartridges a black and color. The photo images were excellent.
Finally it gave up the ghost and the warrantee people replaced it with a HP 5650 and called it an upgrade.
The 5660 sounds like a truck when it prints. It goes clunk, clunk,clunk and you might think it is about to break down. It takes two cartridges one color and one black. These cartridges are about half the size of the 932c cartridges and therefore have much less ink. The price for these cartridges is about the same as the 932c cartridges.
I discovered that I was getting bad photo images. I contacted the HP people and discovered that to print photos I must have a photo cartridge. They want about 24 dollars to supply this cartridge. So in fact to properly operate this printer you must have three cartridges.
How can HP state that this printer is an upgrade to the 932c.
6 Second HP printer to breakdown after a year
I bought this printer when my previous HP printer (different model) refused to print yellow. After contacting the subpar support at HP I was essentially told there was nothing I could do. So I went and bought a new HP printer because I was generally satisfied with the printing results and assumed the problem with the first printer was just bad luck.
Sure enough roughly the same amount of time has passed and this printer failed. It started by sporadically notifying me that my ink cartridges are bad. To fix this I would power off and power on. After a couple weeks of that it managed to jam its ink head cleaner into the ink jet heads and now it does nothing. It doesn't even power off.
Throughout my PC had problems communicating with the printer forcing me to perform the voodoo ritual of turning on the printer, turning it off, unplugging it and then plugging in the printer once again.
It is clear to me that HP no longer cares about quality. Maybe it has to do with the general lack of direction of the company. I will opt to buy any other brand before considering another HP.
7 Fabulous Printer
Early this year, I wanted to upgrade my HP 722c to something faster with cheaper ink (are you listening HP?). So, I bought a Canon 560i, which is the same price as the HP 5650. After 6 miserable months of intolerably bad print quality (2 lines on every page come out squiggly, the black isn't very dark, etc, not nearly laser quality), which I now attribute to either a bad print head or a bad feeder, and not my own ability to line up the cartridges) I went back to HP, despite the ink prices.
I am SO happy with my new HP printer. The text is laser quality (you can print resumes and reports and be proud of your product) and the photos are great. I've printed out old black and white so far, and I can't wait to try some color photos based on the amazing photo that prints on your test page.
I had absolutely no trouble installing this on my Windows XP home system. Perhaps people who had trouble with this didn't follow the installation steps in the right order - I doubt that the problem is with the printer, but with the software configuration on some people's computers. I installed my printer in 20 minutes. The only glitch I had was getting the CD to run by itself, but I got it going manually.
I see from the other reviews that if your printer is going slower than you'd like make sure you have a USB 2.0 cable, and not a 1.0. They're cheap at Target. Mine runs fine (I'm using the Canon USB cable, at least it was good for something) I also hear that the newer ones now come with cables, but check the box before you walk out of the store (I got mine from Buy.com for $89 with free shipping, but was from older stock that doesn't come with the cable).
I can't believe the quality of the text and photos you get for your money with this printer. I tried Canon, but sorry Canon, your products are flimsy pieces of junk and your quality control stinks.
Go for the HP, whether it's this model or another one. You will get reliably great quality results. Those frustrated people who gave printer 2 stars were doing so based on their installation experiences, NOT the print quality, which is the important thing.
My only question on this printer is how long the ink cartridge will last. Although yes it's cheaper than past HP products, it's also smaller.
In the meantime, I will be printing out resumes that I can have pride in, and scanning in some photos so I can play around a bit more with this great little printer!
8 It worked for a while....
My husband and I purchased this printer last Christmas. It worked wonderfully at first and we were very happy with the high quality printing (especially photo printing).
After three months, we encountered a recurring error message. The printer had a paper jam in the duplexer (WE DID NOT HAVE THE DUPLEXER ATTACHMENT). Shaking it vigorously and cursing at it worked for a while, but it eventually stopped working all together.
After over an hour online with the HP help center (they were very nice, by the way), we found it was a "hardware problem" and that our warranty had expired (no surprise).
9 Good printer ... terrible drivers
My deskjet used to work. Then my hard drive went out and HP replaced it. When they sent the CPU back, I had to take the back off because they didn't seat the modem back correctly. So after 4 hours with the HP phone support, we got it to work. Now the printer will not work. Some problem with XP and the drivers. I have spent more than 4 hours at this and still no luck. I suspect the USB is the problem. Now I have to go out and buy a parallel cable.
10 Fast Shipping -- Good product
Ordered this on Wednesday night. Had it installed by Friday at noon. 10 minute install. It's hard to find a personal printer to work well with NT. This one does, for a good price.
11 Installation
What would be a four star printer is reduced to two stars by awful driver support. Installing on Windows XP is a terrible experience. It asks you to plug in your printer, then it freezes and doesn't detect it. When it does detect it, it says "New Printer Detected, Please Wait" and then freezes. I'm no computer novice, and I've never had drivers give me a problem like this.
The drivers off the CD or their website give the same problem. It is very frustrating. HP did an awful job.
12 Fantastic printer
I installed my new HP 5650 on my WinXP Pro machine today without a hitch. I connected it to the paralell cable that I had been using for my old HP660c, and turned it on. It made some clicks and such for about a minute. Once it stopped, I loaded it with paper and put in the cartridges. Then it calibrated the cartridges automaticllay. That was such an excellent surprise.
Then I just put in the driver CD and followed the prompts. I shared it with my wifes WinXP Home Dell and we were printing just like that.
It's quiet and fast and best of all prints outstanding color photos from our digital camera.
We purchased a second one for my wifes office without hesitation!
13 Excellent printer!!!
Simply put, this is one excellent printer and I'm glad I bought one. I don't understand some of the complaints I've read in this review section--one in particular saying something about a quality issue. I couldn't disagree more--It looks and performs like a "well-oiled machine." I finally gave away my old HP (which also served me very well) and have been using this 5650 for about six months now. No problems whatsoever. I have it hooked up to a six-year-old laptop and do mostly black and white printing in "best" mode. I am continually impressed with the quality. The color printing is equally impressive to me even without the photo cartridge. Also, the black ink cartridges are comparatively inexpensive--I believe at about (...), and last a good long time. No complaints at all here.
14 HP 5650 Install Problem
While I think the printer is a pretty good printer, problems after installing it are annoying. I inherited my husband's hard drive which had a 5600 HP printer on it (and was using XP Home Edition). We uninstalled it before putting in the install disk for the 5650. When we went to print a test page we got several pages with a few lines of gibberish on each page. After multiple attempts of plugging, unplugging, uninstalling and installing and getting the same thing, we went on line to see if others had problems.
And they had! While they may not all be exactly the same, one person stated that switching to a USB 2.0 cable solved their problem. So while we were at Target and it was only $10, we thought a $10 possible fix (or not) was easier to swallow than spending time on line with a support person.
And it worked!! My husband swapped out the cords and turned on the computer, went to print a test page and FINALLY something that made sense printed out. Good luck!
Oh, and by the way, I've tried the extra photo cartridge and really couldn't tell enough of a difference to buy another one. Also, I get my cartridges in multipacks from Costco and it's less expensive than other places. I had the 5600 before my husband needed a new printer, so then I got the 5650. Can't really tell much of a difference (printwise between the two).
15 Blew up my PC!
I have been a devoted fan of HP printers for years. But I installed the 5650 on Tuesday night on my Dell Dimension. Everything worked fine. On Wednesday morning my machine wouldn't boot up. I suspect it was some CD memory maker software that was bundled with the printer software. I will probably have to reintall ALL of my applications because of this.
As a side note - I did not get a printer cable or a USB cable with this printer. That's a bit tacky.
Who knows if the printer works well; I can't get my PC to function!
16 hp desktop 5650
I am sick of HP products breaking on me or the fact that they charge a ton for ink, so that it is actually cheaper to buy a new printer than pay for junk low capacity ink cartridges... the paper doesn't feed well, and when the ink runs out, printer stops working.
17 Good printer, be prepared to spend a fortune for ink
I replaced an HP DeskJet 850 with a 5650, thereby replacing the large HP45 (39 ml) color and HP41 (41 ml) black cartridge with the tiny HP57 (17 ml) color and HP56 (19 ml) black cartridges. Worse than that, this printer simply eats ink, even in draft mode. With the 850, I was replacing cartridges every 8-14 months, minimum. I replace the cartridges on the 5650 at least once every 2 months. These tiny cartridges also cost more than the larger ones.
"View ink levels" doesn't work if you connect with a parallel cable and seems to be problematic even with a USB cable.
This is an excellent printer for the price (I paid $100), but be aware that the costs of keeping it in ink will significantly increase the total cost of operation compared to other printers. I would go so far as to say that HP is making printers like this to leverage their ink sales and has become somewhat unscrupulous in their methods.
18 Superb upgrade...
In December 2001 I bought a Lexmark P51, because of the price. The ink took hours to dry, and smeared on several different brands of paper. It broke after a year.
In March 2004 I bought the HP 5650, and it is a much better performer than the Lexmark it replaced. Installation was easy, though the setup program took a while to install the drivers (strange, as it was running on a brand new HP Pavilion).
I have printed several different things, including a flight ticket and two photos, on standard printing paper. The 5650 prints quietly, the ink dries quickly and most importantly the quality of the prints is superb. My parents were shocked that I printed a photo with such great quality, on an inkjet printer. They thought I bought a color laser!
Although the installation was a bit tedious, the print quality is great. Taking into account the low price makes my purchase all the better. I highly recommend the HP 5650.
19 Great printer, nightmarish setup
I've just spent 3 hours helping someone connect an HP Deskjet 5650 to his year-old Dell laptop running Windows 2000, and after reading all the reviews on this site I see more than a few others have had setup complaints. It took over an hour on the phone to hp before the techie and I finally managed to get the drivers up and running, and none of the ancillary software is installed at all. It remains to be seen if this causes problems.
Once installed, the actual printing is all you could ask for in a moderately priced machine--five stars, in fact. But it's anybody's guess whether you'll have no trouble at all or find yourself tearing your hair out. Caveat emptor!
20 Good for printing "stuff", not so much for photos
When I first bought the printer, I was leery about some of the reviews I saw. As a part of at least one review, I have decided that some people aren't as "tech savy" as they think they are. I bought this printer as opposed to my usual HP Photosmart upgrade or Epson Stylus Photo printer. I first determined that the colors printed brilliantly and at a better than acceptable speed. After printing a few photos, I was impressed...Until I looked closer at the photos. They were sharp, but noticeable adjacent color contrasts made it look like the person was standing in front of a background. The ink is the usual slow drying, weak holding HP ink. It (the ink) stays soft for a longer time than any other printers I have used, and usually dust or something scratches the print. For the user that is looking for photos that are not necessarily professionally done, this is perfect because the quality of prints were still exceptional.
Other than the photo imperfections, this printer is superb! Since I was going for a photo printer, I will be going back to an Epson. The nice thing about HP is their software. It is EASY to install and it is easy to use for prints and photos.
21 They don't make them like they used to .....
HP printers have been my favorite for many years, but this particular printer is subpar. It's construction is noticeably flimsier than previous models, and it has compatability issues with a number of programs, including at least some versions of PrintMaster. I installed this printer on three different computers running two different operating systems (XP and ME) and the software installed differently on all three computers, even the two that are both running XP. HP's troubleshooting and maintenance software used to be excellent, but with this model it is difficult to figure out how to print a self-test page, much less troubleshoot any problems that might arise.
Also, this model is extremely particular about what paper you feed it. My old 722C would take anything, but the 5650 doesn't. I wasn't able to print at all on colored inkjet paper! Even HP Photo paper tends to jam in this printer! The automatic paper detect feature has a tendency to detect banner paper despite the fact that I have never used banner paper and this tends to cause the printer to lock up when I try to print.
The only reason the 5650 gets a two star rating from me rather than a one is due to the fact that it does print very nice photographs, particularly with the photo ink cartridge. Photos on the 5650 print sharper and clearer than even on previous HP models. That is, they do when the photo printer paper doesn't jam in the machine.
I have had difficulty with Canon in the past, but my father has been using Epson printers for about as long as I have used HP and he has some very nice results. Also, Epson is addressing the true digital photography lab with many of its newer products. I think it is time for me to switch ....
22 Hp 5650 color printer
This printer is replacing a HP 1100 photosmart and I must say I am very impressed with the ease of use and the trouble free installation on a win98se system. The color spectrum is as good as the hp 1100 if not better, and thats not using the photo print cartridge. Using USB 2.0 this printer does output what it states, of course I know of no printer that can print a 8x10 photo in under a min.at high res.at this price.The only drawback is that this printer did not come with a USB cable or the hp58 photo print cartridge, but these were minor problems since my old hp 1100 had the USB cable I needed. The packaged software is also very good and user friendly. I would recommend this printer to the entry level or even the intermediate user.
23 POS
What a complete piece of junk!!! I'd spend my money on a Canon i560 if I were you AVOID this printer at all costs!!!
24 Full of problems!
After spending countless hours with customer service and google searches of my own. I have officially given up on this printer.
I have a Dell computer which runs flawless - except when trying to install and use this lemon of a machine.
Even if you are tech savy - you will not be able to work out the many issues with this $130 piece of worthless plastic.
Issue 1 - Although this printer comes with a parallel cable port - it doesn't work at all. That's right - it's a decoy. The software won't install using a parralel cable and hp knows it! When you call hp support thats the first question they ask - so they can try to talk you into using a usb cable.
Issue 2 - The printer software is not compatible with the display adapter in most dell dimension computers. One of their tech support assistants admitted this to me and told me to call Dell. Nice Huh.
Issue 3 - Bad customer service. Spent hours just trying to get the right department. Had tech support try to put the problem on me.
Any other brand of printer must be better than this lemon.
25 HPDeskjet 5650 Printer
I have used HP Inkjet printers for over 12 years, I am on my 4th or 5th one, I had no problems with any of them, I just moved up to newer models. I have been very happy with them & have recommended them to several of my relatives and friends who were either just getting into computing or were unhappy with another brand. When I moved to a new HP computer with Windows XP I decided to move to another printer again & decided on the HP Model 5650 advertised at something like 21ppm black & white & 16 ppm color.
Well it is the slowest printer I have ever used, it takes about a minute & a half to print the most simple b&w pages & "forever" to print color. I don't know if it is XP,or some printer problem but it's driving me crazy
26 Bought a substitute, Got exactly what I wanted
My old HP 970cxi with parallel connection and automatic reverse mechanism died of old age and abuse. I went to Circuit City and Office Max looking for a replacement. None of the idiot printer experts at either store were aware that they carried a printer under $250 that had a parallel port and an available auto reversing mechanism. They also were all under the impression that each model of HP DeskJet that could use a auto reversing mechanism had its own special mechanism, so that I could not use my old one. Finally I decided that I would bite the bullet and get USB connection printer +/- $150.00, a USB hub +/- $30.00, and a USB cable $15-30, and just forget about the auto reversing aspect. Before purchasing the approximately $200.00 worth, I went to Sams Club just to check their prices. (Just before Christmas ?" Super long lines)
I found they had the same 5650 printer as Circuit City and Office Max. It was only $10 cheaper, and I almost went back, until I noticed that Sam Clubs printer had a big yellow sticker indicating it included a USB cable. All of a sudden it was at least $25.00 cheaper. They also had a hub for only $10.00. Wow, $45.00 cheaper ?" worth the long line after all. Still not what I really wanted, but it would do.
Imagine my surprise on getting home, and discovering the parallel interface. Then a few minutes later discovering that it would accept an auto reversing mechanism. The final surprise ?" My old auto reversing mechanism fit perfectly. Well it??s not the same color, but who cares. It??s in back and out of site anyway.
I thought I came home with a substitute printer that I could live with, and I actually came home with the exact printer that I wanted. It seems to be faster than my old 970cxi, and the color photo quality on HP photographic (High Gloss) paper seems to be even better even without using the optional 6 color cartridge. I loved that old 970cxi, but the 5650 is smaller, sleeker, faster and quieter.
Great value ?" Great printer
27 WOW, all that for under $200.00!
First off this is the easiest printer I have ever encountered. Installation took about 10 minutes at the most. I have Norton anti-virus program and was never asked to disable it (don't know why you would). Also we have a home network with 3 computers and everyone can use the printer with no problem (2 computers running on XP home and 1 on XP Pro.) As for the pictures they are amazing. It takes about 2 seconds to swap out the black cartridge for the photo cartridge and your off. 4X6 borderless prints at the maximum dpi (4800X1200) in less than 60 seconds and 8X10 in about 90 seconds. Its fast and no one will never know that you printed the photo. I have had family members ask me where I had my digital pictures developed. The pictures are just amazing you will be in shock when you print the first one.
Yes, there is a lack of directions but just do a little poking around and you can figure out how to use the printer.
This was a gift to me and I would recommend if you know someone who wants a photo printer to get this one or another HP. HP makes the best photo printers as far as I have found. And the ink is much cheaper than any other printer manufacture (about $19.99 for black, $24.99 for photo and $34.99 for tri color).
Lastly paper does matter. If you want to frame a photo buy the good stuff. The price seems steep but $20.00 for 60 photos' is really not that bad (just a lot to shell out up front).
Happy Printing!
28 Manual duplex mode works!
I installed this fabulous deskjet 5650 on a WinXP Pro system to replace my old Deskjet 722c when the color cartridge ran out (why not?), so I just connected it with the parallel cable to save a USB port. That is one thing that the 5600 or most other models do not have.
I was totally convinced that manual duplex mode had been taken out of the driver so that you would have to buy the automatic duplexer accessory. However, much to my delight the manual duplex DOES in fact work. It is in the driver on the Finishing tab (the 2nd one) and it is called Print on Both sides. A window pops up to tell you to rotate the stack and put it back in the input paper tray. I can't imagine this works because I installed it on a parallel port but maybe so. I did have a problem the first time I used duplex mode as it printed the stack out and never told me to put it back in then I couldn't get it to continue as no window popped up. I couldn't seem to delete the job from the spooler either, even after I rebooted. I then deleted my old 722c printer from the LPT1 port and after another reboot it started working - don't know what the problem was and hope it doesn't come back!
Man this printer is fast compared to my last one. Haven't tried photos yet but I expect them to be great, and use a lot of ink. Oh well.
29 Excellent
Looking a new printer since my elderly Epson blew up I came across an ad in the paper for PC World in Dublin offering the 5650 at a voucher price of ?99.99 or about $85. Reviews here were good so I took the plunge (not much of a risk at that price!). Glad I did because it's a fantastic printer. I'd agree with the comments on lack of documentation, I'm not a total newbie to printers but it took a while to figure out how to insert the ink and the installation CD froze my laptop, I had to unplug the battery to get going again but all was fine after that. Also had to buy a cable but an extra ?9 was OK.
It's fast, the colours are fantastic and it even looks well! For home or a quiet office I'd be very doubtful if there'a better value for money anywhere!
30 A Must Buy
This printer is one that caught my eye in the store. The price was fairly low and in my budget range. I liked the sleek look of it and there was only one left so it was either now or never. I went for it and brought it home. I had that printer running in like 10 min. Some people were complaining about there being no instruction manual. It is pretty simple, 1)plug in 2)insert ink 3)Insert cd and follow directions, it's easy!. The picture quality is awesome and so is the text quality. If the picture is important you can just make the quality right on the printer better! My computer isn't the best, I must say I have the lowest reccomended computer windows 98 but it still works fine. This thing is 1000 times better than my old crummy cannon color bubble jet (from like 1800's, don't ask). Ive had no problems so far and think I will not have any to come, good luck with your printer shopping!
31 HP 5650
Ordered the printer as the specs and the reviews seemed fine. First of all the printer was larger and heavier than expected. The real issues started when I wanted to install the software which I still have not managed to - plug and play... The customer service for Mac is at its best to be rated with 2 stars... Hope I'll get it to work, otherwise I'll return it.
32 Problem with Win XP Prof Installation
This printer worked nicely with Win 2000. It indeed gave very good prints, beautiful color. However, the driver installation got stuck and could not finish once my computer was upgraded to Win XP Professional. I tried many times and eventually gave up.
33 Best in Price Range
Wanting to upgrade for two years, I looked at em all, every brand... then did the web and researched even more. Proof is in the pudding. This beauty was up and running on my XP Home PC in 10 mins. flat. Tried plain paper, semi & gloss paper, 4 X 6 borderless (this was amazing !) and envelopes. This printer didn't choke on anything I threw at it.
As will all new printers, the software print options are numerous... If you use them wisely, the 5650 won't cost any more than any other inky printer. One thing I have always liked with HP Inkjets. Every cart you get new print heads; this is a DEFINITE plus. Mess up the heads on other brands, you can pretty much throw your printer away. Get this, I have by old printer, DJ 935 on another USB port and I can swith back and forth with ease. With the current $ 20 rebate going from HP, don't pass the gem up.
34 Quality Printer
Yes the printer does work fine with Windows XP Home Edition. And also the printer prints crisp photos. Also printers don't come with parallel or USB cables for the computer.
35 Great Printer
This product deserves a boost in Amazon ratings, so I simply want to tell a prospective buyer that this machine prints superb photos and crisp, clear documents. If you follow the installation instructions, everything works fine. I have XP Home and had no problem whatsoever with the installation. It looks really slick also and you can add an additional paper tray and 2 sided printing unit. This machine is well worth the money.
36 Yes, it should work with Windows XP Home Edition!
Just got a new Dell computer (October 2003) - was a little worried after reading the first Amazon review by jackbmichael. The printer was fairly easy to set-up and self-installed after loading the enclosed HP software - just thought I'd let any other Windows XP Home Edition users out there know.
37 Installation should not be this painful
Amazon delivered this printer so quickly, we hadn't yet bought a Parallel cable. No problem though, since we have 2 other computers with printers. Unfortunately, the installation procedure froze. After speaking with 4 charming people in the New Delhi customer center, we discovered that the problem was with the first Parallel cable. After switching to the second cable & finding the same problems, we asked to speak to a supervisor, who informed us that the printer often worked only with a USB cable.
Installation using the USB connection was a breeze.
I suspect that we will rate the printer as *****; however, it receives the lowest rating not for the 7 hours that it took to install, but because at one stage we were instructed to deactivate Norton Antivirus & can no longer get it to work. Getting Norton up & running looks to be a lot harder than installing the printer.
38 Technology takes another step forward
We purchased the printer and have been pleasantly surprised with the overall print quality.
Here are the negatives:
1) Limited setup instructions. No booklet or instructions
2) Printer drivers would not install on XP Home Edition. It should be automatic and this is the biggest complaint. I almost had to forfeit the printer, but resolved the problem by upgrading to XP-Professional.
3) HP ink can be pricey
4) No USB cable comes with the printer
Here are some positives:
1) Even the non-photo color cartridge prints fantastic quality pictures. It's hard to tell the difference between professional pictures and pictures printed on this printer
2) Large 8 x 11-1/2 pictures are as good as 3x5's
3) Text quality is excellent and prints very fast
In spite of the negatives, I'm still going with a 4.5 star rating because the print quality is all that really matters. There are no instructions on how to print to envelopes, but for now I'll live without envelope address print-outs.
39 Great Printer!
I purchased this printer to use at my office, because I needed something that could print color brochures and flyers quickly while producing a good quality image. I've had it for about two months now and I'm very pleased. I had a bit of trouble installing it on my ancient laptop which was running Win98 and had only 32MB of ram. According to the box, my laptop had the minimum requirements, but when I ran the software it told me that I didn't, and refused to install. I played around with it and finally got it to work and haven't had a problem since. I also notified HP about this problem since the software and the box say two different things. They are looking into it.
This printer is fast, does great quality prints and is pretty quiet. I also really like the sleek design. The picture above does not do it justice. I've been getting compliments from co-workers about how cool it looks. It really is nicely designed and doesn't take up too much space.
I've used HP printers for years and have always found them to last an extremely long time. I usually replace mine because I want a faster one before I replace one for breaking down. Also, I want to mention that I bought an Epson about a year ago because I heard about how great they were and I was very dissapointed. The Epson ink cartridges do NOT have new printer heads on the bottom of them, like HP and many other brands do. Because of this, the Epson print heads routinely dry out, get full of gunk and refuse to print, or cause a lot of smearing on your documents. I've had to take my Epson apart twice to remove gunk from it, and I am still not satisfied with its print quality. All other things aside, you should pick HP over Epson just for the shear fact that every time you put a new cartridge in you are also replacing the print head.
I brought my 5650 home tonight because I needed to print something on my home computer and my Epson was acting up again. Installation on WinXP was a breeze. I didn't have my cd with me so I just downloaded the software from the HP website and had no problems.
Bottom line: This is a great printer for the price and I recommend it to anyone looking for work or home office use.
