24 out of 24 people found this review helpful.
A sure winner for a very good price
Date of Review: Nov 3, 2006
The Bottom Line: This is a very good home office solution for an even better price.
If you are looking for a All-In-One printer solution (printer, fax, scanner, copier) you are usually looking at devices in the range of $150-$250 for decent quality. Not long ago, I was looking myself. My printer had just died on me (trusty little Bubblejet) and my fax was about to. On top of that, I was tired having two devices on my desk - or better, the printer on my desk and the fax standing on a cardboard box near the desk. An All-In-One solution was required. Since my monthly print or fax volume rarely goes over 50 pages, there was no need for a cool $300 solution with lots of gadgets and neat functions I wouldn't use anyway. It had to be simple, cheap, small and easy enough for the kids to understand, in case they wanted to print something too.
So after a long day of driving from one electronics store to the next, my last stop for the day brought me to the HP Officejet 4315 All-In-One.
The printer
It's only $80. It uses two ink cartridges (one black,one tricolor) and, unlike most Officejets, it looks like a normal inkjet printer. It has no flatbed scanner, only a sheetfed one that pulls the papers through, like you are being used from a regular fax. $80 is cheap and it's a HP, so I bought it. I am happy with it ever since.
The Specifications
Print Technology : Thermal Inkjet
Resolution : 1200x1200 B&W and color
Speed: 20ppm B&W (draft), and 14 ppm Color (draft)
Connectivity : USB
built in Memory: 16 MB
two line LCD text display
compatible with Windows 98SE and higher, Mac OS X
Fax Resolution: Up to 300x300dpi B&W, 200x200dpi color
Fax Speed : 3 seconds per page
Fax Features: 200 pages fax memory, 80 speed dialing numbers, delayed sending, auto redial, fax forwarding, color faxing, fax polling, Junk Fax protection
Copy Resolution : 600dpi B&W, 600X1200dpi color
Copy features : Up to 200 copies
Copy speed : up to 20ppm B&W, up to 14ppm color
Scan type : Shetfed
Scan Input Modes : CIS technology, bit-depth 48-bit, 256 grayscale levels, TWAIN version 1.7
Scan resolution : up to 600x1200 dpi
Tray Size : 100 pages US letter/legal, 25 transparancies, 20 labels, 20 cards or 10 envelopes.
Automatic Document Feeder (ADF), capacity 20 sheets.
Paper sizes : Letter, legal, executives, cards, envelopes
Custom media size : 3x5 to 8.5 x 14 inch
supported paper weights :
- Letter and Legal: 20-24 lb
- Cards : up to 110 lb
- 4x6 inch photo : up to 145 lb
The design
The printer has, as I said, a Sheetfed scan device, like regular home fax machines. Because of the missing flatbed scanner, all the lids can be folded and closed when the printer is not needed and then it's the size of a regular Deskjet from HP. Very convenient on desks with little space. Still, if you want to use it, you have to make room to open the lids and put in paper, so it's not a permanent space save. If it's closed, the lids fold over the buttons too, protecting them from dust.
Faxing
When your Officejet is connected to a phone line, it can become your trusty little home fax. It's functions are sufficient for home use. You have a 80 number speed dial, which should be enough for the average household. Fax forwarding and auto redial are supported. The fax works seamlessly so far. Put the original into the ADF (20 pages max) and dial away. The fax also has a "Junk Fax Protection" which works if you have caller-id enabled. The Officejet can then be programmed with numbers it should not accept faxes from. Faxes can either be received automatically or manually. I have set the option to manual so I can't say how good it works. I don't want the fax to pick up the phone and beep into somebodies ear just to see if another fax answers.
Scanning
Scanning works pretty much the same way as faxing in terms of paper handling. The HP Digital Imaging Monitor has to run in the background of Windows to be able to scan. Scanning works fine. There are better scanners out there, but I don't have a high end computer hooked up to the scanner, so anything over 600x1200dpi resolution would be severly overloading the machine anyway. The scan results are very good in terms of sharpness and color.
Printing
The printer is an HP. It might be only $80 but it's still reliable and fast enough for the occasional printout, even if it's a couple of pages more. I also tried photo printing and I am still astounded by the quality. But again, this is a small home office printer, if you want to print your vacation photos to hang on the wall, this is not the right printer for you. To print a photo once in a while, it's more than sufficient 'though.
When you buy HP ink cartridges, you do not only buy the tank with ink,but also the print head, including all the electronics needes to run it. That makes the printer extremely reliable, as all the parts that would normally be subject to wear and tear, namely the print head with its little inkjets, get replaced on a regular basis. That guarantees a longevity that a lot of printers don't have. It makes the ink cartridges slightly more expensive, but in my opinion, it's money well spent. Both the cartridges are available for under $20 each.
Printing itseld is very easy too. The 7 and 9 year old kids have already figured out how it works and since then, we can not only enjoy Powerpoint slides of our Beagle on the computer but on paper too.
I have not had a paper jam yet, but we have not really tried it out with envelopes or transparencies.
The printer offers all the comfort you are used to from other HP printers, including the "Cancel" button, which I am a huge fan of. It immediately cancels a running print job, completely dumping it out of memory. No more hassle going through a windows based menu to try cancel a 50 or 100 page print job only to find out that most or all of it is already in the printers memory and can only be cancelled of you turn the printer off.
Copying
Well, what can I say, copying works very well too...if you just copy occasionally. Remember it's a small Officejet. It's not made for copying your 50 page document a hundred times for all your coworkers. But for the copy you might need once in a while, it definatly beats getting in the car and driving to your nearest copy shop. The results are sharp and if you can wait a couple of seconds for a copy, then you won't have a problem.
A sure winner for that money
I don't think there is anything one can do wrong with this Officejet. It's only $80, even though some stores might sell it for $90 which would still be a bargain. You get all the machines you need for the everyday family office in one. It's reliable as every Hewlett Packard I have come across so far (and I have seen a lot of these...).
I have seen people swear on Lexmark, only to buy a Canon after that (They were still swearing about Lexmark then - in a different way). And when they brag about their Canons and Epsons having the more economical ink solution because you can exchange every ink tank separately they curse the same machines some months later, when their print heads have partially dried and they spend half a ink cartridge on cleaning it again. Yes, some printers might be even cheaper. Yes, some might be a little faster or offer an ink cartridge a little cheaper. But I have very very rarely come across a printer that is that reliable, still decently priced and doesn't miss a feature or function. If you need a cheap, good home office solution, take a good look at this Officejet.
