Comments

1. William W. Davis says:

   November 4, 2009 at 6:52 am

   Quick summary: I like this HP PhotoSmart all-in-one! Setup was very smooth (except for HP’s bloatware causing my browser to not work), the photographic output was good for a 4-ink system, scans were bright and crisp, and using this HP all-in-one was very easy to do using the brightly lit touch screen. Highly recommended!

   I just finished writing a review for a competing product, the Epson Artisan 710. After using that all-in-one for over a week, it didn’t take long for me to realize how much more I prefer this HP all-in-one. Although the feature set for both are very similar, the HP is much more intuitive to use. Read on to learn more.

   *** INSTALLATION:

   Unpacking the HP was easy to do. I was very pleased that it came with a package of 100 4×6 sheets of photo paper, so I could immediately begin printing some favorite family shots. Shame on other vendors (think: Epson) who include only a “sample” of a few sheets of photo paper! This model uses a 4-ink system (1 black, 3 color) but the package includes an extra, high capacity black ink cartridge, too, for everyday printing. Nice!

   I use my home network to connect to this HP. The HP PhotoSmart C309 easily recognized my discoverable network, and it was very easy to use the touch screen to enter the 26-character key I have for my network. Once entered, the printer was given an IP address by the router and it was ready to work after I installed the drivers on my computer.

   I really like how easy it was to insert paper into the front-loading tray. Just raise up a lid, insert paper, put lid back down (for both general-use 8×11 paper and also for inserting 4×6 photo paper). Later, I did experience a problem where the HP couldn’t properly load the 4×6 paper into the printing mechanism. Hopefully that’s an anomaly.

   Installing the HP drivers was a breeze to do on my laptop. It includes out-of-box support for Windows 7 on the enclosed CD-ROM disc (no searching HP’s website for Windows 7 drivers!). HOWEVER, by just quickly clicking through the installation windows, I inadvertently loaded about a dozen HP programs beyond the required drivers to support printing and faxing. Among these were the HP Solutions Center, a program to help re-ordering HP supplies, a Customer Feedback program, HP Print Projects, and a customized Yahoo! toolbar for Internet Explorer. I was thumping myself for not paying attention to the installation process that loaded all this crapware on my computer. Very soon later, I really regretted it because after it was all loaded, my Internet Explorer wouldn’t work (even after rebooting my computer). I tried uninstalling the Yahoo! toolbar, and still IE8 wouldn’t work. Finally, I used Windows 7’s restore feature to return to the last restore point before I loaded the HP drivers and programs, and that removed whatever was causing IE to not work.

   From that experience, I paid much closer attention to the 2nd attempt at installing the drivers. HP doesn’t make it obvious how to customize the install — you must look closely for a link on the window that asks you to accept the EULA — but you *can* deselect all the bloatware and install just 2 programs (the printer and scanner drivers), which is all you really need. After those two programs were installed, the HP C309 was fully functional on my WiFi home network — and IE was working, too!

   I got a new LG Env3 with Bluetooth, so I tried printing a photo taken with my phone using Bluetooth. Setting up Bluetooth was easy! What I learned from the experience is that you must FIRST set the HP to look for Bluetooth devices, THEN place your phone in discovery mode. Once my LG Env3 was paired with this HP, it was easy to print 4×6 photos. And they looked terrific for a camera phone!

   *** USABILTY AND PERFORMANCE:

   Using the HP was a joy to do. The photographs I printed were very good-looking, but they were decidedly inferior to the six-color print output from the Epson Artisan 710. The Epson’s photos have very deep, rich colors and vibrancy, while the photos from this HP were not so rich in color depth, and not as vibrant. I found that it depends on the photo whether the differences were apparent or not. In some photos (lots of sunlit trees and grass), the differences were very slight. In other photos (for example, photos with a deep blue sky), the differences were more apparent. Camera flash-lit faces look a little yellowish coming from this printer. Grass and trees have more yellow in them than what I’d expect, too. If you’re wondering whether a six-color printer can really print better than a 4-color printer, the answer is, **YES**, it can. So if you want to print the absolute best photos possible, look to a different all-in-one than this HP PhotoSmart C309. If you’re not *that* picky, then this HP will do a very good job (especially if you’re not contrasting photos printed from this HP with photos printed on another, 6-color machine).

   I used the “Copy” function to see how well the HP could duplicate a photograph. Ideally, if you place a photo on the flatbed scanner and press Copy, the copied photo would be indistinguishable from the original, right? Well, there was a definite difference between the copy and the original. The copy was auto-cropped so it lost about a quarter-inch off the border of the original photograph. The colors on the copy were less vivid, too, although the copy was more faithfully reproduced on this HP C309 than what the Epson Artisan 710 could achieve.

   Scans taken with this HP were very bright and vivid — more so than what the Epson Artisan 710 could achieve. The background white on my daughter’s drawing was a very bright white, and her ink colors were rendered brightly and sharply on the scanned image. (Keep in mind, I’m using all default, automatic settings — I could achieve better results if I tried customizing the scan settings). One thing: some of the faint black lines on my daughter’s drawing weren’t picked up properly on the scanned image. In all, I liked how the automatic scanned image looked. Another perk: The software creates a folder under My Pictures on your computer, and stores the scanned image inside that folder (rather than just adding it to My Pictures alone).

   I haven’t used the HP long enough to speak to matters pertaining to ink usage. Once I get more experience, I’ll re-edit this review to include those details.

   SUMMARY:

   The HP PhotoSmart C309 is a terrific multifunction choice. If you demand the very best in photographic output, look to a different model that uses a 6-ink system. If good-looking photos is “good enough” for you, then be assured that this printer will print good looking photos. The touchscreen interface was easy and intuitive to use, and loading paper into the front-side slot was no-hassle at all. Aside from HP’s bloatware during the software installation process (which you now know how to avoid after reading this review), I like everything about this HP model. Highly recommended!
   Rating: 5 / 5
2. Patrick Ethridge says:

   November 4, 2009 at 7:04 am

   I’ve been in the tech field for 10 years now, and have seen many printers claiming to print photo-realistic pictures. This is the first one I’ve come across that actually does it.

   Pros:
   
   *Prints excellent quality pictures that look like they were developed and does it quickly
   
   *Scanner works great and is fast
   
   *Auto feeder lets you have both 4×6 photo paper and regular paper in at the same time
   
   *LCD touch screen controls are easy to use
   
   *Does everything wirelessly
   
   *Works great with iPhone once you download the app for free
   
   *Works with other cell phones over bluetooth
   
   *Price

   Cons:
   
   *None at all

   Buy this printer, you won’t be disappointed.
   Rating: 5 / 5
3. Lincoln Gergar says:

   November 4, 2009 at 9:12 am

   I have owned my share of stand-alone and multi-function printers. I’ve had two Epson printers – one lasted 4 years and worked great until I gave it away, the other experienced ink clogs in all of its ink tubes and was unfixable after less than 1 year. Although this was a problem with many 2002-2005 model Epson printers due to their new ink, I swore to never buy another Espon. I wasn’t too impressed with the scan quality of my model either – even though I paid over $300.00. I’ve also had a HP Business Jet 1200 which was an amazing workhorse. It stood up to being shipped to and from Hawaii and across the country twice. Finally after 5 years, there was an unexpected mechanical error and it had to be retired. The HP Business Jet 1200 worked amazingly well – fast and great quality. To replace the HP, I went with a Canon MX860 Multifunction because of it’s high reviews and awards. This printer is extremely user friendly and has many useful “business class” features. I still have this printer and use it for my business. I also bought and installed a Canon Multifunction for my father, which he loves.

   Onto the HP Photosmart Premium. The design of this printer is remarkable. I have never worked with a better, more easy to use menu system – all made better by the touch screen interface. Big icons, minimum steps to get things done, and many stand-alone printer options (such as printing calendars, music sheets, photos, online photos from SnapFish). This printer even prints from the iPod and Bluetooth phones (which I haven’t tried since I don’t own one of these). In addition to it’s sleek design, the printer features a well-designed photo paper tray. No longer do you need to single feed photo paper or remove other paper to print photos. Other companies can learn a lot from this design.

   This printer is perfect for families or the non-technical users. Simple to use, looks great, and has a small size. Perfect!

   For a more demanding “business” user, this printer lacks some necessary features – such as faxing, auto-feed scanning, and two paper trays. These missing features do not at all detract from this HP printer, since the printer is not designed for business use, but instead for family use. It appears that HP put everything that the normal family member would use and take out the extraneous business features to keep the size compact and lightweight, and the cost down.

   If I had to pick one printer for personal (non-business) use, it would be this HP. It is relatively compact, looks great, prints great, and is super easy to use thanks to the amazing touch screen. The touch screen truly is awesome. Looking at my past experience with HP printers, this Photosmart Premium should last for many trouble-free years. 5 stars!
   Rating: 5 / 5
4. Brian Baker says:

   November 4, 2009 at 10:31 am

   Once again, HP produces a great All-In-One to meet your needs in home computing and printing. This unit is compact and stylish, and delivers the performance you’d expect from HP.

   I found it very easy to set up and install, and kudos for the fact that it’s already compatible with the new Windows 7 operating system. I have two other HP printers, and though both operate with the Win 7 printer drivers that are part of the OS, full driver updates for those units won’t be available until the end of Jan 2010 per HP’s support website.

   I didn’t get the opportunity to test the wireless capability as my network’s run through a router using LAN cables, but from what I could see during setup it appears that it would be simple and intuitive to set up.

   HP’s Vivera inks are archival, with very long life per Wilhelm testing, so your photos should last a lifetime. Print speeds and scan quality are great. There are slots for accepting memory cards, enabling direct photo printing, too.

   A couple of caveats for serious photographers: if you want prints larger than essentially 8X10s, you’ll need a different printer, as that size is too large for this unit.

   Also, though the photos are very good quality, they’re not pro quality. So for serious print work, you’ll still need a dedicated or more advanced printer.

   Same thing holds for scanning. This unit does a very good job, but isn’t up to the complexity demanded for finer nuances if you’re scanning photos to digitize them, and it’s not up to the job for scanning slides or negs for digitization.

   But with its inherent limitations in mind, this is a great value for the money. Just keep in mind it’s not going to replace your $400 dedicated film scanner, or $500 pro-level photo printer.

   But it’s not meant to.

   Rating: 5 / 5
5. D Cohen says:

   November 4, 2009 at 12:57 pm

   Got this to replace an old canon 850i.

   Took me about 20 minutes to set up with OSX 10.6 on a mac and get it printing.

   Getting it up and running was beyond simple.

   I did go to the HP site and got the latest version of the software rather than trying the stuff that came on the CD.

   Negatives:

   It isn’t the quietest thing when it is starting to print and does seem to go through quite a dance before it is ready to print.

   Positives:

   simple, simple set up
   
   fast printing
   
   you can scan straight to a flash drive (or memory card) and the ports are on the front

   I didn’t think that last point was going to be a big deal until I needed to scan some receipts and didn’t have my computer to hand. I just scanned them straight to a flash drive – that saved me hours this morning and persuaded me to write a review.

   Didn’t think I would care about the screen on the printer but it is actually very useful when you are scanning.

   Rating: 5 / 5