Kraellin
01-15-2008, 10:31 PM
i bought a new printer a month or so ago. it's, as you can see from the title of the thread, an HP Photosmart D7260. my old printer had just never quite lived up to what i wanted, so, after quite a bit of discussion with the sales guy at Staples, i bought this one.
now, bear in mind that i always take what any sales person says with a big grain of salt, so, before finally buying, i made sure i knew what the store's return policy was. the pitch was pretty convincing. lower cost inks, better quality than our best $500 color printer, easy installation, etc, etc. so, ok, i bit.
i've been putting this thing through its paces for over a month now and needless to say, i'm now well past the return date. for a home printer, at a decent cost, this is a very good printer! i have not seen better quality in a printer anywhere else. and, this printer uses the new 02 inks and cartridges. folks, these are MUCH cheaper! instead of four cartridges costing a total of roughly $120 for the set, this is six cartridges costing about $35 for the entire set, plus a bit of 4x6 glossy paper when you buy the set as a set. and, a set will do somewhere over 100 glossies. the salesman said between 100 and 150 prints.
now, i havent tried this with photoshop since i mostly use paint shop pro, but the printing from Paint Shop Pro is really quite remarkable. i can pretty much calibrate my monitor to the output of this thing. they match up better than any other printer i've seen. the gamut is broad and the matchup is excellent. even on plain white paper i've been impressed. the gray range is also quite good if you're doing black and whites and the speed of all printing is quite decent. but, it's the glossies that are really quite remarkable. all i can say is VIBRANT!
the biggest drawback is that this is just a small printer. it will only do up to 8 1/2 x 11's. it will do all the other smaller sizes just fine, but only up to 8 1/2 x 11 max printing size. and for a $150 printer with much cheaper ink costs, and being only a 'home' printer, that's a pretty small drawback. the cynic in me would love it if there was more at fault here, but so far, i've not been able to find it.
so, all in all, this is a good printer.
now, bear in mind that i always take what any sales person says with a big grain of salt, so, before finally buying, i made sure i knew what the store's return policy was. the pitch was pretty convincing. lower cost inks, better quality than our best $500 color printer, easy installation, etc, etc. so, ok, i bit.
i've been putting this thing through its paces for over a month now and needless to say, i'm now well past the return date. for a home printer, at a decent cost, this is a very good printer! i have not seen better quality in a printer anywhere else. and, this printer uses the new 02 inks and cartridges. folks, these are MUCH cheaper! instead of four cartridges costing a total of roughly $120 for the set, this is six cartridges costing about $35 for the entire set, plus a bit of 4x6 glossy paper when you buy the set as a set. and, a set will do somewhere over 100 glossies. the salesman said between 100 and 150 prints.
now, i havent tried this with photoshop since i mostly use paint shop pro, but the printing from Paint Shop Pro is really quite remarkable. i can pretty much calibrate my monitor to the output of this thing. they match up better than any other printer i've seen. the gamut is broad and the matchup is excellent. even on plain white paper i've been impressed. the gray range is also quite good if you're doing black and whites and the speed of all printing is quite decent. but, it's the glossies that are really quite remarkable. all i can say is VIBRANT!
the biggest drawback is that this is just a small printer. it will only do up to 8 1/2 x 11's. it will do all the other smaller sizes just fine, but only up to 8 1/2 x 11 max printing size. and for a $150 printer with much cheaper ink costs, and being only a 'home' printer, that's a pretty small drawback. the cynic in me would love it if there was more at fault here, but so far, i've not been able to find it.
so, all in all, this is a good printer.