HP OfficeJet 7310

[HH]

I am thinking of buying a HP OfficeJet 7310 but as I can see on Google, a
lot of people has problems with the enclosed software and the installation.
How bad is it and is it so bad that I should not buy this printer?

A thing that I think is quite bad, is that the printer does not have
seperate ink cartridges but instead it has a multi-three ink cartridges with
three colors. I guess there can be a lot of waste of ink, if you use all of
the one color. Therefore... is there any alternative printer, with the same
specifications as the 7310 (but without the fax as I don't need that), as I
could consider? I have considered the Canon MP760 but it does not have
network built in?

The last thing - I can see on the HP webpage, that you can get special photo
ink cartridges but can they be mounted in the same time in the printer or do
you need to switch between cartridges?

 

[Ann Meffert]

I looked at this machine tonight at Office Depot, and like you, had done a
search for opinions. Lots of installation problems. The salesman at OD said
he had set one up for a customer and had trouble installing the software.
Had to reinstall and it worked OK after that. I read about some type of
patch on the HP site, but that might have been for another model. I agree
about the ink cartridge waste, but that's how HP makes its millions--on ink,
not printers!

 

[Andrew Rossmann]

[This followup was posted to comp.periphs.printers and a copy was sent
to the cited author.]

I am thinking of buying a HP OfficeJet 7310 but as I can see on Google, a
lot of people has problems with the enclosed software and the installation.
How bad is it and is it so bad that I should not buy this printer?

A thing that I think is quite bad, is that the printer does not have
seperate ink cartridges but instead it has a multi-three ink cartridges with
three colors. I guess there can be a lot of waste of ink, if you use all of
the one color. Therefore... is there any alternative printer, with the same
specifications as the 7310 (but without the fax as I don't need that), as I
could consider? I have considered the Canon MP760 but it does not have
network built in?

The last thing - I can see on the HP webpage, that you can get special photo
ink cartridges but can they be mounted in the same time in the printer or do
you need to switch between cartridges?

I believe this is the one my father has. The cartidges are similar to
the 56/57/58 series, but with better ink. For photo color, you replace
the black cartridge with the photo color to go from 4-color to 6-color.
It doesn't hold all 3 at the same time (7-color mode).

When he first got it, he connected it via USB to his old WinME desktop
computer. He also had a laptop with XP, which couldn't access it. I
installed the software, and re-set it up to work through the network
connection, which is built into the printer. The laptop initially set up
fine, but the WinME desktop required using HP's driver cleanup utility
to wipe out everything.

The desktop died awhile ago and he' now 100% on the laptop. It started
having problems. I was able to manually change the network port setting
so it could print, but the scanner no longer worked. I again ended up
uninstalling, using the cleaner, then reinstalling. So far, everything
except the one-button-scan works. For some reason, it says we are not
running the software on the laptop?

 

[HH]

Another question - can the printer print to the margin (A4)?

Are there any other alternatives (rather than the 7310), if I wish the
following optios:

PC (not Mac).
Photo-printer (sometimes I want to print a photo in a decent quality).
Print/scan/copy (48 bit color).
Connect to the wired LAN.
Duplex print/scan/copy.
A4.
Seperate ink cartgrides (not a 3-pack color in one cartgride).
Price must be under $500.

 

[usenet]

I am thinking of buying a HP OfficeJet 7310 but as I can see on Google, a
lot of people has problems with the enclosed software and the installation.
How bad is it and is it so bad that I should not buy this printer?

I have one of these, the original software did cause me problems
(though I finally got it to work), the later revision of the software
(about October 2004 I think) is much better and has resolved just
about all ot the problems. It installed cleanly and worked straight
away, this is on a mix of Win2k and WinXP machines.

Once installed I like the 7310, it works pretty well, I use the
printing and FAX facilities quite a lot, the scanner rather less
(except for FAX sending of course).

I also have it working from Linux, that was much less hassle overall
than on Windows.