 "Poor reliability and mechanical design" | 2008-10-06 |
| - Reviewed By ahto |
| I agree with the few who say that don't believe all the reviews. "Built like a tank" is not a good thing on this case, especially when you have previously had some Canon Pixma printers that have excellent engineering. Tube of vaseline required to move/remove paper trays smoothly on D9180 is NOT included with the printer. And it is noisy.br /br /I have used my printer very little and still it has developed fault where it does not understand when specialty media tray is lowered, rendering that tray useless. Small lever that reports position of the tray to printer seem to work fine mechanically, but pressing it makes no difference. Now warranty just ended and I'm stuck. In fact I have only printed about 80 sheets and have still original ink cartridges.br /br /Printer driver is also bloatware, several hundres megabytes. br /br /To HP's credit I must say that this printer consumes really little ink when not in use. That is probably it's best feature. I was away for 3 months and it consumed less than 5% of ink. I have had this printer over year in stand-by and still have original ink cardridges. Years ago I had a few Epsons and these were wasting most ink for head cleaning, making final prints very expensive. B9180's print head cleaning is quite intelligent and I hope other manufacturers will catch up in that respect.br /br /Don't buy this printer if you like high gloss prints (a la Canon Photo Paper Pro) as HP does not have any good glossy paper. Buy it when you want to print mostly on matte paper like Hahnemühle Smooth Fine Art.
br /br /I'm very unhappy with this expensive product and will probably switch back to Canon unit. I remember that I was quite often impressed how well my previous Canon Pixma was designed and how flawlessly it operated for a mechanical product. |
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 "Excellent with XP, need some Vista work arounds..." | 2008-09-20 |
| - Reviewed By User: A291KK7LAHD6JP |
| I've been comparing printers to upgrade my Photosmart 8750 for the B9180 - all said and done, HP is still ahead of the Canon and Epson photo printing peers. Taken, HP's customer service and tech support sucks, depending on who you get you may get different answers, some more helpful than others but with some luck I was able to proof the following workarounds I found on other bbs and tech support validated:br /br /- Under vista, I was having trouble with 13x19 too, borderless leaving a 1 1/2 inch blank white tail at the end of the sheet. It seems to stop if I print at 200 dpi and manifests at 220 dpi and higher. It is a matter of spooling file size and is a Vista issue. My Desktop Photo station dual boots with XP and I do not see the problem. It occurs either with the HP plugin or "print with preview" in CS2. I wasted some materials before I fortunately found the problem.br /br /- Another factor is CS2 isn't Vista friendly. Do a Google search: "CS2 and Vista." CS3 works much better. Lightroom 2.0 is good too.br /br /- Another workaround is to use the specialty media tray instead of the main tray you can print any size or dpi file without the blanks areas. Does not make much sense but it seems to work for the few prints I tested.br /br /Lastly, above workarounds resolve a Vista "May 2007" review that is outdated, since then, HP posted a firmware upgrade to the B9180 that works very well and integrates printer very tight with Photoshop CS3 version, specially for color correction under Vista. br /br /Hope this helps, |
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| "Don't buy anything HP, period !" | 2008-09-18 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1FVGV9TER3JDQ |
| HP Photosmart Pro B9180 Printerbr /Do yourselves a favor and get a Canon, or maybe an Epson. HP no longer makes products like the HP-41C I used to carry proudly when I was an engineering student 30 years ago. Yes if and when you are blessed and the unit works it turns out beautiful prints, but then so do similar printers from other manufacturers. Don't be fooled by all the comments about this printer being "fantastic" or "built like a tank", the moment you power it up you start hearing the worrying noise of the cheap mechanism within. After a troublesome setup I managed to use it for some three months and then it failed. HP, to their credit, have replaced the printer twice (most likely refurbished units), but with each replacement I get the same message to replace two of the same printheads. But since HP considers print heads consumable items I have had to buy a total of 3 heads at a cost of more than $180 including shipping.br /So here I am with replacement printers that ask you to install new print heads, and when you do it will repeat the same message. I also have at least four full ink cartridges that were installed just 2 days before the drastic failure , another set of four unopened (in all worth another $270), and a full set of 8 cartridges supplied free by HP with the second replacement printer. Lots of expensive ink but no printer.br /I will go now place order for a Canon pro 9500. |
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 "Beware of this printer!" | 2008-09-13 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1ES30RZDPYU6Q |
I bought this printer a little over a year ago and was never able to print more than ten pictures reliably. The paper would jam halfway through nearly every print job. The few times the printer managed to complete a job, the results were decent, however these were few and far between.
After approximately 10-11 months of trying various paper and setting combinations, I finally gave in and called HP's tech support. I'd read many reviews of this experience and I was prepared for the worst. Sadly, my expectations were confirmed.
The first 45 minutes of my initial call was spent trying to navigate HP's support queues. Eventually I really someone who walked through the usual "level one" tests, e.g. confirm power, confirm paper, etc. I've worked in enterprise IT for ten years so this was a bit annoying but I was pleasant throughout, recognizing that the guy had a job to do.
Eventually the conclusion was that I should try different paper. I agreed, and he promised HP would send a small bundle for testing. After waiting three weeks, I called to check on the order and found that it had been cancelled. The reason given was that the printer was no longer under warranty. Excellent work, HP.
I'm sad to say that this experience is precisely what I had expected--an infuriating waste of time. With no further recourse, I took the printer to a nearby dumpster and bid farewall.
In short, don't buy this printer. And if you do, never, ever call HP for support. It will be a complete waste of time.
Damon |
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 "Great if you're not in a hurry and you're a system administrator" | 2008-09-02 |
| - Reviewed By brawnylads |
I am running Windows XP Professional with 2 GB of RAM on a Pentium IV 2.4 GHz CPU and Photoshop CS2. I am printing to the printer via Ethernet on a 100 Mbit/s switch.
Pros:
1) I love the consistently good "lab quality" print quality that the printer produces.
2) I love the high level of color controls that are provided through the Photoshop plug-in.
3) I also love, of course, the ability to do borderless printing at 13x19.
4) I also love the fact that the print heads and the ink cartridges are separate, which yields cheaper ink cartridges. According to the documentation, the print heads should last the life of the computer.
5) I also love the eight separate colors, especially the light gray (which isn't found on HP's cheaper Vivera printers), yielding more accurate color shading for both color and black and white prints.
6) I love the intstant drying and automatic alignment when using Advanced photo paper, which is decently priced if you can find a decent store that specializes in such stuff.
7) I love the archival quality, waterproof, pigment based inks.
Cons:
1) I hate that if I wish to print 4x6 photos, I have to wait 5 minutes for the first one to come out, and three more minutes for each additional one, using the "Best" image quality setting, which is recommended, of course, for "lab quality" photos.
I am guessing by the high CPU usage from the print spooler that if I had a faster computer, it might be faster, but a 2.4 GHz CPU is pretty fast.
This makes the use of the printer a point of convenience. I bought this printer because I thought it would be more covenient to print out my own photos than upload them to the local photo processor or burn them to a disk, order them, then go pick them up. However, with how slow this printer is, it's only more convenient to print them out myself if I'm printing a few ad hoc photos here or there. To develop a whole shoot of 15 or more photos, it quickly becomes more convenient to drop them off at a one hour photo, or even, I hate to say it, upload them.
Please note that the advertisements claiming that it prints 4x6 in 10 seconds is for draft mode, which you will never do. If you look at their technical specs, it supposedly prints a 4x6 in best mode in 70 seconds, but even that is not true. It's three minutes on a medium range computer, like mine, with a two minute warm up period. Not to mention, you also have to tear off the tabs.
2) I hate that I don't get the same print controls using any program other than Photoshop.
3) I hate the fact that you cannot use the Photoshop plugin if you are not logged in as an administrator of the computer. This is surprising, as I don't know of any computer administrator that gives everyone else administrative privileges on a workstation. I know that I don't. So, this leaves me with some serious concerns, having to change my policy for my users.
Conclusion:
Overall, I am happy with the printer, as most of my printing is on an adhoc basis, but my wife was looking forward to using it to print out all 4x6 photos in lieu of sending them out to be printed, so she is less satisfied. She'll probably still use it, but will have to commit to the wait. I'm not looking forward to giving her administrative privileges on the computer.
Here are current local prices for me:
100 4x6 Advanced Glossy Photo paper : $12.99
100 8.5x11 Advanced Glossy Photo paper: $29.99
25 13x19 Advanced Glossy Photo paper: $49.99
HP #38 Ink Cartridge: $33.99
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| "Great Printer, HORRIBLE SERVICE" | 2008-08-26 |
| - Reviewed By tomgregory6 |
I purchased this printer about 9 months ago and have used it for photo printing. The print quality is good IF AND ONLY IF you can get the right paper profiles. Make sure your favorite papers are supported by this HP product.
After just 9 months, I had a problem with the paper sensor. It no longer prints and just drags paper until it eventually jams. I have been working with HP for over 1 month to get a replacement printer. I've submitted the requested paperwork 3 times, but to no avail. Each call results in at least 3 transfers to different departments, nobody able to get this resolved.
I WILL NEVER BUY ANOTHER HP PRODUCT!!
I have been in the computer software industry for over 20 years and have never experienced such poor customer service. Shame on HP. |
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 "Beautiful prints but expensive to maintain." | 2008-06-28 |
| - Reviewed By sharko2005 |
I love the excellent quality of the prints it produces, but I had no idea when I bought it how much money I would be spending on replacing the ink cartridges.
It turns out that to prevent the nozzles from clogging, HP suggests you leave the printer on 24/7. When you do this, every 24 hrs or so the printer automatically steps though a head cleaning routine that uses a certain amount of ink. This means that even if you don't print a single print, in several weeks you end up needing to replace some of the ink cartridges anyway, which at about $30 each (and there's 8 of them), you end up spending your kid's college fund just to keep the printer usable.
If you are like me, a casual hobbyist, then it's too expensive. However if you are a professional, or even a serious hobbyist for whom money is no object, then this printer will make you very happy. The results are really outstanding.
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| "Great features, great prints" | 2008-06-18 |
| - Reviewed By whidbeypix |
Background: I've owned and/or used Epson 2200, 4000, 7600, and 9800 printers for prints up to 44x96. Other than laser printers, this is my first deviation from Epson. I'm very happy with this HP.
INSTALLATION
I don't remember the details, but the initial setup had a small problem. The instructions were very explicit, so I called support. In the end, they had me turn it off and on again and the problem went away. I could have saved an hour on the phone.
COLOR
I've been using this exclusively with a 13x19 Hahnemuhle fine art paper for which I had a custom profile made. I'm getting excellent results and a pretty good color gamut. I print photos, mostly color and some B&W.
INK CONSUMPTION
After the ink consumed to charge the printer, I've made about 35 prints (usually 9x13.5 image area) and 10 5x7 notecards and any minute now I'll replace the MK cartridge. The light gray is just showing the low warning now. Since the paper I use is $3 a sheet and ink carts are $30, I'm pressing my luck to get a feel for the accuracy of the warnings.
EASE OF USE
When I installed this, I was using Photoshop CS2 and printed through the "automate" menu. That went away when I upgraded to CS3, perhaps because I uninstalled CS2 first or perhaps just because the printer driver was already installed. It's not a big difference going through the regular print menu. It is, of course, important to have all of the correct settings; I wasted two sheets because Color Management had reset to Adobe RGB from Application Managed Color when I reopened the file.
One convenient feature is the Printing Shortcuts which allow you to save presets for your various paper/size/orientation standards. Overall, the driver is a bit more user friendly than Epson's.
Speaking of Epson printers, this one differs in that you do not control the platen. When you've inserted paper, you press the OK button and the printer grabs the paper and transports it. Anything you load through the slot (all heavy paper) gets pulled out the back and then prints moving forward. This means that you need space behind the printer.
Having been through painful episodes with clogged heads on Epsons I love several features of this printer. If necessary, I can replace the heads. But that's less likely to be necessary because the printer periodically checks itself. Just leave it turned on and you can go on vacation without fear that you'll have to jump through hoops power cleaning heads or even end up choking on the cost of a service call!
SHORTCOMINGS
The paper loading for specialty paper is tweaky. You drop the alternate loading slot door on the front and hand-align the paper. Curled corners of heavy paper catch on the way in fairly often. The good news is the only time I've had the paper skew is with some notecards (7x10 sheet size). I tried loading the Moab notecard stock in the tray and that did not work.
On two prints I notice a faint line rubbed in the ink. Same image, same spot (no, it's on in the image file). I blew out the printer and have not seen it again.
This printer is larger and heavier than many 13x19" printers. I have it on a substantial folding table and it really dances when it prints.
BOTTOM LINE
I don't know what was going on at the time, but I got this printer in March 2008 for $500 plus shipping. Prices are higher now. It would have cost me that much to buy a set of cartridges for the Epson 4000 which this printer replaced. I consider the HP B9180 a fine printer and outstanding value. |
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| "HP B9180" | 2008-06-02 |
| - Reviewed By jeremy_i |
I had an issue with the first printer that I shipped, but I was completely satisfied with how Amazon handled it. Within about 3 days, I had a new printer.
The printer itself is gigantic - I measured the size before I purchased it, but that didn't prepare for the space requirements. I've printed a few photos out of the printer, and everything has been superb. The Photoshop plug-in helps as well; what I see on my monitor is replicated on the paper.
Great prints. |
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| "Appalling wheel marks on glossy paper... not a pro machine." | 2008-05-15 |
| - Reviewed By laurentsj |
HP must be some very powerful company. I've read lots of positive reviews on this printer, so i went a purchased one.
But i quickly found out that it marks lines on glossy paper (both HP and Tetenal)
This is unacceptable for a pro range model.
I do not recommend HP B9180 |
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