In the end my printer was a dud
This is overall a very good printer. I like the built in duplex scanner and printer; it scans 2 sided documents without the need to flip it as well as prints 2 sided. The only drawback is that there is a brief 10 second or so pause after printing one side to allow the ink to dry.
I would give this product a 5 star rating but lowered it by 2 for two reasons.
Reason 1:
I question the quality of this printer. My first one was defective. It had two problems.
First the key pad would not function properly. It ignored about every other key press and that was when pressing them normally. Pressing the buttons quickly such as to scroll down a menu would result in only a few buttons being recognized if any. Going through the menu with this defect was a chore. I checked the display model at a store which did not have that problem. This defect appeared to affect all the buttons.
Second the printer registered the ink as installed on December 2008 even though it was installed in May 2009. This did not affect the ink warranty however.
My replacement printer operated normally. The keypad recognized all the buttons. I was able to quickly work my way through the menus. The ink showed it was installed in May 2009. However the connection piece in the back that connects everything (power cable phone Ethernet USB etc.) does not appear to be tightly connected to the printer housing (not a big deal).
Reason 2:
In choosing my new printer I was looking for a low cost printer to do black and white printouts to replace my old HP laser 4si. The replacement black ink cost appears to be much more expensive when compared to the HP Officejet Pro 8500 wireless all in one model. This printer uses the 564XL black ink which is good for only about 800 pages. The 8500 all in one uses the 940XL black ink which is good for about 2200 pages nearly 3 times more yet they cost about the same when purchased from Amazon. It would appear the price per page for black ink is more than double the cost of the 8500 model.
The color inks appear to have the same per page cost between this model and the 8500 when purchased through Amazon. The inks for this printer have about 1/2 the page capacity but are also about 1/2 the price.
While I prefer the 8500 models black ink cost I decided against that higher end model because of an annoying high pitch noise it emits from where the power cable connects (at least from the one I took home as well as from several store displays).
Good Quality Photos:
The photos look great on HP glossy paper. Looking at them they would appear to come from a photo lab there was no graininess. I never believed Ink Jets could print such beautiful images. However when I printed them through Windows Vista photo gallery they came out too red. I adjusted the magenta down and increased the cyan and yellow. I still wasn't happy with the results. When I printed them through the HP Digital Imaging Monitor and selected Auto Photo Fix under advanced options the colors appeared to print correctly under the default settings. So I am guessing in the future I will need to print all my pictures via the HP Digital Imaging Monitor.
Follow up on 6/17/09 (Revised from 6/7/09 to correct saturation and color tone)
I recommend turning off Auto Photo Fix because it doesn't seem to work correctly on all photos. Instead I have created a new setting. I use Bright -6 Saturation 0 (neutral) Color Tone -30 (cool) Cyan 12 Magenta -8 Yellow 5 and Black 0. I print on HP photo paper with the automatic settings and run this through the Photosmart software. The default color settings (zero on all) were way off extremely red and too warm.
The above settings produce amazing lab quality results.
You can move the picture up and down in the HP Photosmart Essential software to crop it as well.
Follow up on 9/2/09
I have had several issues with this printer which I was able to correct:
1) The auto paper feeder would not feed the paper through after a couple of sheets. HP support gave me some documentation how to clean the rollers and that resolved the problem
2) Using Vista 64 bit software the printer frequently sent my computer a connection error when scanning documents. A July 2009 update on HP's website corrected that problem. It is a firmware update that I highly recommend.
3) The fax would not work with my Comcast ISP phone service. Per HP's website a solution is to lower the connection speed; I set mine at the lowest 9600 and the fax now works perfectly using Comcast's ISP service.
I noticed a big difference between this HP printer and my former Epson printers. When my Epson printers thought the ink was empty that was it the printers stopped working. This HP printer on the other hand gives frequent notices when it thinks the ink is empty but doesn't shut down the printer. I have gone through all my cartridges at least once some twice using XL cartridges (I have used the printer a lot) and have ignored the warnings. I wait until I can visually see that the color is gone on my print outs. Replacing the totally empty cartridge with a level one cleaning does the job. The ink indicator is fairly inaccurate from my experience and I can use the cartridges much longer than what the printer thinks I have.
I don't recommend a level two cleaning unless needed as that uses up lots of ink.
I am still very happy with this printer.
Follow up on 10/5/09
I noticed this printer sometimes cuts the bottom line on some of my printouts. After searching the HP forums for awhile I found a fix. If this also happens to you go to your control panel select printer right click on HP Photosmart C309a series and chose properties go to tab ports and uncheck the box that states Enable bidirectional support which is towards the bottom.
Follow up on 10/30/09
I installed Windows 7 on my system initially as an upgrade. The HP Solution Center no longer worked. I also had issues with other software (non HP software) so I did a clean install of Windows 7. The HP website has Windows 7 software for this printer which I have installed and so far appears to work fine. I suggest that if you install Windows 7 you might want to uninstall all the HP software prior to the upgrade and then install the updated Windows 7 HP printer software.
The other thing is that bidirectional support was re-enabled causing some of my print outs to cut-off at the bottom. The printer was not listed in devices and printers. To remove bi-directional support you can open up Internet Explorer and select print from the menu. Under select printer highlight HP Photosmart 309a Series and right click it and select properties. Go to the tab ports and uncheck the box that states Enable bidirectional support which is towards the bottom and click OK. The system will save the setting even if re-booted.
Follow up on 11/12/2009
I am not happy. I noticed some discoloration on my table right next to the printer. I lifted the printer and saw a tremendous amount of ink on my table underneath the printer. I have never seen an inkjet do this before. Needless to say my small table is permanently damaged. I have returned this to the store I bought it at and replaced it with a Canon Pixma MX860. I decided against getting a third HP Photosmart. I haven't read any other complaints with the printer leaking ink so I will leave my rating at 3 stars.More detail ...
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