Hardware Geeks

I recently became a fan of Lexmark’s new line of Wi-Fi Printers, and I would of told you a few weeks ago that I was the proud owner of the Lexmark X4550 Wi-Fi Printer, but then I had a paper jam.  It literally broke—a piece of plastic in the printer literally broke due to 4 sheets of paper that somehow managed to get crumpled, I was left without a printer.

But as my luck would have it, the day before my X4550 broke HP asked if I would be interested in taking a look at one of their Wi-Fi printers and I agreed. But my expectations were low.  I didn’t expect much; in fact I did not even know HP had any Wi-Fi printers.

I expressed some discontent about my X4550 to HP.  For example, the need to connect the printer to a computer before I could use it as a WI-Fi Printer, which in my opinion defeated the purpose of it being wireless. I also disliked that every computer needed to have the Lexmark software on it, I couldn’t just pull a generic driver from my network even if was a shared printer. Another problem I encountered was that the printer software would not communicate with my other computers unless all were using the most current software to date.  (I brought this problem to Lexmark’s attention during CES and never heard back from them).  Then there were a lot of issues with the Lexmark software and communication problems which worsened over time. But despite my X4550 dying on me, I still wasn’t sure HP could deliver a similar product.

Boy was I wrong! I had no idea which printer would be sent to me, so when I opened the box and saw it was the C8180, I went to the HP site and looked it up and read all about it. The specs made me drool, the features made me giddy and if it were a woman I would have asked her on a date. The printer literally had it all.

Features:
DVD Writer with Lightscibe (acts like external hard drive when connected via USB to PC)
Memory card reader (SD, XD, MMC, MS/DUO, CF) (acts like removable media on every PC even if not connected via USB cable to a PC)
Built in Adapter to scan Photo Negatives and Slides.
Pict-Bridge Support
Touch Screen with built in photo editing software
Laser Quality Printing
Wireless connectivity (G) and Bluetooth
Built in Ethernet port for those without wireless.
Oh and let’s not forget it’s a printer/copier

So after I drooled over the specs, I decided to install it.  I feared I would have to get on my hands and knees to find an available USB port on my computer (I have 10 but no more than 2 are ever vacant) and install it that way, but there wasn’t a need to get dirty.  All I had to do was install the software and add the printer to my wireless network. I was able to use the 3.5 inch color Touch Screen on the printer to locate my wireless network (it displayed a list of available ones).  I was also able to enter my WEP key using the touch screen, and luckily on my first try it connected, and I got a little alert on my desktop that said “HP Photosmart C8180 Connected”.  Instant gratification

One suggestion to HP is to make the wireless set up a bit easier. A lot of people know how to access their wireless routers and get their WEP key, but it’s a long tedious process entering 26 characters onto the touch screen.  Since the C8180 has a USB port it would be nice if I could insert a USB stick and have the printer pull my wireless info from that, similar to how Windows Vista works with Windows Vista Certified Routers.

I then installed it on my other computers and I was able to install it using a generic driver and over the network, I did not need to install the included HP software on any other PC, although you may want too as you will need it to take full advantage of some features which I will mention later on in this review.

The C8180 literally has it all, and I am sure some are you are probably asking, why the hell does a printer need a CD drive? I thought the same thing but it’s actually the perfect place for it.

I mean think about it, you have a digital camera.  You take pictures that are stored on a memory card.  You then connect your digital camera to a computer and import the pictures, or you insert your memory card into a memory card reader and import those pictures onto your computer. Then what do you do with those imported pictures? If you are like me you either print them, or put them on a CD or DVD to back them up. Having the drive on the printer eliminates the need for the PC, one less step and it makes the process a whole lot simpler.

But then if you are also like me, you may want to crop that photo, or get the red out of your evil cousin’s eyes before printing the picture.  You would normally do these adjustments on a computer but you can also do it on the C8180’s touch screen.  It allows you to edit pictures, crop them, zoom in & out and remove red eyes. You would definitely need a computer if you wanted to cut your ex girl/boyfriend’s face out of the picture but for basic editing the already built-in Photosmart Express software will work wonders.

Speaking of software, the printer comes bundled with Photosmart Essential software for your PC. This software, although not required, gives your printer added benefits.  For example, the printer sends pictures to any given computer, for easy emailing or more intensive editing, and all it takes is 3 to 4 taps on the touch screen.

So now you are probably wondering, “How good is the scanner?” Well, it’s pretty damn good!  The quality of the scanned images is probably the best quality of any scanner I have used to date.  It can deliver a resolution of up 9600 dpi (dots per inch) or 19200 dpi when enhanced with software and 96 bit rate.

I scanned a lot of photos and also printed some out and I was impressed.  I will probably repeat myself later in this review, but the print quality was almost as sharp as printing from a laser printer.  My color pictures were amazing; they looked crisp and reminded me of the good ole’ days when I used to send my film to Clark and get those nice sharp glossy pictures back a week later.

But wait that’s not all! It does more than just scan and print great pictures, it also scans documents and prints them super fast.  I timed it and was able to get 34 B&W pages and 32 color pages in about a minute.  Note that the amount of color copies varied due to the amount of colors used.

The same was true for printing from a computer; it printed about 34 to 35 pages per minute and 32 to 33 in color.  Despite the varying colors determining how much printed, all the prints were as close to laser quality as you can get. I actually printed a few pages on a laser printer and compared them to what the C8180 printed and I couldn’t tell the difference.

Another cool feature I loved is the ability to directly connect to the printer via Bluetooth from your Smartphone.  This element allowed me to send pictures over to the printer and print instantly.

Oh and lets not forget about another perk I really enjoyed, which was that the printer had a web interface.  It allowed me to check the status of the printer, the ink levels, the usage reports and even scanned documents. I wish it would’ve also allowed me to view files stored on the memory card I inserted into the printer.

The printer is amazing.  From this day forward I am officially a HP Printer Fanboy.  I used to be a fan of Lexmark, but gosh, this printer totally converted me. I am now a believer.
Something I would like to mention is that the CD drive also supports Lightscribe, so you can print onto the disc itself, however don’t expect to print anything elaborate, it seems you can only print wording. It would have been nice if HP included some templates that we could easily fill with whatever we wanted.

It has so many features that I am sure I missed a few in this review, but one feature I adored and my neighbor loves me for, is the narrow rule paper it prints. When you access the printer’s setup, one of the options is Printable School paper and you can print narrow or wide rule paper, you can also print sheets of music or graph paper to name a few. It even lets you print out a maze and I’ve printed about 10 of them and they have all been different, so whenever I get bored I print a maze out and do it. I wonder how many it has.

For those of you wondering if it can print on multiple sides of paper? It can, but you need a module sold separately to do that.

Overall the C8180 is amazing, it’s the last printer you will ever need and for that we award it our 5 Star Gold Editor’s Choice Award.  It is the second product to receive this award.

The C8180 is available at major office supply stores such as staples for $399, but can be found at HP Shopping for only $240.

Post Tags: review  hp  printer  c8180 

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