My Video Problems

Ben · Joined: 02 Apr 2007 Posts: 98 Location: London, UK

disclaimer - not a serious review. no comparisons and very little background knowledge applied - really more a chat.

We finally got sick of our printer, and in any case it was just a bundled Dell one, so the quality was dire, plus Dell did all they could to conceal the name of the actual printer under their badging, so it was hard to shop around for ink (which must verge on illegal, surely?) so the ink was hugely expensive. plus the paper feed was appalling so everything was always slightly squewed.

we ended up with 2 or 3 deadlines needing something printed (just quotes and stuff like that) so in the end had to rush out to a shed and buy a printer. great help from the staff aside, Rolling Eyes

we managed to find something (if not any extra ink)

when i got it set up i was crossing my fingers, painfully aware that i'd done nil research. nil internet price comparisons and read no reviews. i didn't even get a chance to ask you lot.

so got the above printer. tried it a couple of ways - a DVD cover, large and small photos -

instead of feeling ok-ish about the results as i feared, i was completely blown away - and by the speed and low noise of the print. but above all by the quality of the image. rock solid paper handling. plus the 6-ink + 15 photo-sized paper package HP sell is half the price of one ink-only bundle from Dell. i'm impressed.

i checked out the card reader which can work without a pc direct to print, save or whatever. it printed out beautifully, but also kicked open the relevant application on the pc so i could backup and print in virtually one step. i won't use that much, but i was impressed.

a small issues: none of them have the USB in the box - which given the variations possible (1 and 2, plus 6- and 4- pin) leaves the customer confused and suspicious that they're being ripped off. then given that, why not the people in the shed give a cable away gratis. i know it's more engineered than a power lead, but in the end it is still only a cable.

plus they include a 'half-full' ink in the box. er, why?

shed staff to be fair at least alerted us to both issues without prompting.

so that's my 'not a review' on the C5180. Wink

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firm: Meconopsis Films
blog: Version-101