Criteria
Comments
Rating
- Print quality It was the first color printer I ever owned, so it seemed pretty damn amazing at first, though I recall images being a bit blurry.
- Speed Color was much slower than B&W. This is to be expected.
- Noise Pretty quiet and easy to forget.
- Ink / toner cost I vaguely remember cartridges being $20-$30 a pop, which is not horrible, even for 1999.
- Other features (networking, etc.) Tried using it for printing other types of media but I don't think I was very successful. The access hatch was conveniently located.
Detailed review
This was my second printer, bought (by my mother) as an emergency measure when our old B&W died the week I had a big report due. For that first job it performed pretty well; I used it to print out an essay with several images, which were decently legible. The images weren't super crisp or sharp but they were perfectly adequate and the ability to print in color allowed me to experiment in various ways with printed matter.
I felt comfortable enough with the print quality to print out color images and hang them on the wall (however, they were not good enough to frame). I used my computer to create B&W fliers that I posted at school, since the B&W print quality was very good (and flaws could be obscured in the photocopying process).
Speed was fine but not impressive. It was also very quiet. These added up to a printer it was easy to forget about, looking down to be surprised that there was now a completed document sitting in the tray.
As the printer aged it sometimes exhibited quirks; paper would get caught but because the hatch was in the front, it was easy enough to fish out the mangled paper. Sometimes the printer would randomly spit out pages of gibberish, like strange alien messages.
The printer was retired for a variety of reasons; one was the odd behavior described above, but mostly it had to do with the fact that I switched computers and had problems installing the driver on the new computer (it was hard to find, and never worked as well). When I switched computers again I couldn't find a driver at all (and it might not have even had a parallel port to attach the printer to). So I ended up going a few years without a printer at home, and though I have one now, I rarely ever have to print anything out.
It was a good, small printer that didn't age very well.
I felt comfortable enough with the print quality to print out color images and hang them on the wall (however, they were not good enough to frame). I used my computer to create B&W fliers that I posted at school, since the B&W print quality was very good (and flaws could be obscured in the photocopying process).
Speed was fine but not impressive. It was also very quiet. These added up to a printer it was easy to forget about, looking down to be surprised that there was now a completed document sitting in the tray.
As the printer aged it sometimes exhibited quirks; paper would get caught but because the hatch was in the front, it was easy enough to fish out the mangled paper. Sometimes the printer would randomly spit out pages of gibberish, like strange alien messages.
The printer was retired for a variety of reasons; one was the odd behavior described above, but mostly it had to do with the fact that I switched computers and had problems installing the driver on the new computer (it was hard to find, and never worked as well). When I switched computers again I couldn't find a driver at all (and it might not have even had a parallel port to attach the printer to). So I ended up going a few years without a printer at home, and though I have one now, I rarely ever have to print anything out.
It was a good, small printer that didn't age very well.
good review!
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