8 out of 8 people found this review helpful.
A Big Waste of Money
Date of Review: May 9, 2008
The Bottom Line: Stay away from this printer. The ink cartridges are expensive, the printer uses an immense amount of inks, photos print in pink only, customer service is totally incompetent and inadequate.
I bought my printer about 9 months ago, as part of a promotional package that came with my Mac. I had originally intended on purchasing a Canon, and I really wish I had done so.
After setting up my new HP C3180, I was quite happy in the beginning. The black and white documents came out beautifully, and word documents including color images turned out o.k. as well. The set-up was quick and easy as well. However, the initial excitement didn't last long.
First of all, this printer EATS ink! I used to own an Epson printer for 8 years, and was used to exchanging cartridges every 4 to 5 months. With this HP, I was very surprised to see the black ink gone after only 3 weeks - and I don't print a lot, I don't even use this printer every day! Not only that, the replacement cartridges are very expensive. In ink alone, I already spent twice as much for this printer as I would have spent for the more expensive Canon model.
The next major disappointment came when I started printing photos - or at least, I tried. I bought an overpriced photo ink cartridge and the very expensive HP photo paper to make sure the pictures would turn out well. The first inch of each picture did turn out well, but after that, the photo printed all in pink. I tried to use the regular cartridge, same thing: all pink! When I went online to HP, I found out that the online support does not include Mac users, so I called customer (dis)service. I was on hold for about 30 minutes, after which I was connected to a representative who put me on hold for about 20 minutes. After that, I was re-routed to the music part, and after another 30 minutes of holding, I finally gave up.
After this experience, I will avoid any HP product like the plague. The customer service was a nightmare, and the product performed very, VERY poorly. I am in the process of selling this one and buying a Canon or another Epson.
