I had to return it. Review on HP Photosmart C4180

I really wanted a printer and scanner for my college work and so I went and got myself a Lexmark wireless printer. But since that wasn't compatible with leopard, I took it back, and got it replaced for a Hp C4180 because apparently, HP had drivers available for leopard. I unboxed it. It came with a lot of useless junk like HP cd labels and hp photo paper sample...ok, I admit that photo paper isn't completely useless, but a USB cord in the package would have been VERY useful.

I had no problem setting it up (Because I had kept the USB cord that came with the Lexmark printer) But the huge power-brick hanging from my table irked me. After downloading new drivers from the HP website, I was well on my way to using the printer. But it wasn't all smooth sailing. First, I had to spent around 15 minutes trying to figure out how the dumb 4x6 photo paper attachment was supposed to go into the tray.

I wonder why its even there! Another piece of hardware to take care of and keep track of. huh! Anyways, I gave the print command from photoshop lightroom (photo organizing/managing software) And watched the printer take in the first sheet, and immediately spew out most of it... and in the last part, started printing. And as you'd expect, it didn't finish printing the photo on there, and took in the next sheet too! I have thrown that away, or else, I'd have put up a picture of it here. On other occasions, wanting to print border-less has resulted in disasters... with the paper jamming or the print being misaligned. Scanning was a problem too. When I tried to use file>import>Hp scan Pro in photoshop, it always resulted in photoshop crashing.

I am using cs3 with all the updates applied. So I was forced to use HP's stupid scan pro application. It does have a nice 'scan tiff to adobe photoshop' option, and it would have been ok, had it not been for the automatic exposure adjustments. It always overexposed the drawings and photos. I had to manually go in for each scan and get the highlights and shadows back to zero.

]I really hope they work on these things. The other day, I took some pictures and wanted to transfer them to my computer. And I figured I'd try putting it in the card reader on the printer. And luckily, I could access the card on my computer! So this can also work as a card reader for your computer, besides being able to print directly from the card! But the lexmark one also had a USB port which this one doesn't. But I thought this feature was really neat! Then the final straw was the smudging of the ink! I print out my artwork for putting up in my room or submitting to the teachers. I also made stickers and was intending to print cd labels. But the ink is so unstable, that slightest amount of wetness will smudge it. I have sweaty palms. And so me resting my hands on those pieces while working with them results in it getting smudged and destroyed. Wet fingers destroyed a photograph by smudging the ink. Plus, my hands got black.

This is wasting very expensive photo paper. So I decided to take it back. What I also did like was the lcd screen which can be tilted upto 90 degrees from flat. Its nicely readable, and provides information and access to features. This I thought was a great adition to the printer that can print directly from memory cards. yeah, forgot to add, It also came with another faceplate with instructions in french (canada is bilingual.) So buy this printer if you don't care about durability or life of your photographs. or if you only want to print documents. the scanner is alright, not very lazy like most, and I didn't get around to testing the copier functions.