The HP DeskJet 2360 inket printer allows you to print vibrant photos and crisp black text. HP has made use of the DeskJet series as a good hybrid of photo quality and every day text printing. It is a good general use printer. It also features a print cancel button to help you in those times of need when you accidentally click print, but really did not mean to. We have not had any experience to how quickly the cancel button stops the print though. In the past, print cancel buttons still allow 1/2 to 3/4’s of a page to be printed before it stops.

The printer prints up to 20 pages per minute in black/white, and 14 pages per minute in color. It also features five different print modes: Fast Draft, Fast normal, Normal, Best and Maximum dpi. Most printers only allow you three. The DeskJet 2360 has a compact design and holds, a maximum, 100 sheets of standard sized paper. It was designed NOT to be a desk hog.

The printer can be purchased for as low as $49.99 and uses the HP 21, HP 22, and HP 58 inkjet cartridges. Fully compatible, remanufactured cartridges are available for this printer to save you some money. Of course, Pacific Ink has them (shameless plug!).

Here’s what users of the 2360 are saying:

If you own this printer, let Pacific Ink know what you think.

Vyomesh Joshi, HP’s Executive Vice President of the Imaging and Printing Group, recently gave an interview and participated in a round table discussion at the Future in Review Conference. Here are some excerpts (you can read the full article here).

1. HP has been focused on being a printer business. They now need to shift to being a printing business.

Joshi says HP needs to focus on pages rather than printers. There are more than 48 trillion pages printed per year (Wow!) and in terms of a market share, HP only holds 2%. He sees a lot of opportunity in the pages.

Anyone see the need for more extensive use of printer ink in making the shift to this model? 48 trillion pages printed and HP only makes up 2% of that 48 trillion. That’s a lot of ink!

2. The Content Consumption model

Joshi believes that in its shift, HP needs to look at a Content Consumption model. There is a huge push today for the consumers to create and then consume the content they create. Given the technology that exists it is very easy for individuals to create content and then quickly distribute it for others to consume (that is what we are doing here). All of this can be done from their homes using a digital camera, Internet connection, various forms of inexpensive software, and a printer. The technology that was supposed to have created a paperless society has created a society that prints a lot more, maybe not always on paper, but on other mediums. HP’s goal is to be a source of printing on any medium.

3. Inkjet printing and DNA sequencing

Joshi believes that HP’s inkjet technology can play a big part in supplying technology that works in medical areas like drug delivery and DNA sequencing. He claims that HP’s core competency is making a pump that can accurately deliver liquid. Their pump (internal component of the inkjet printer) accurately delivers nanoliters of liquids, and they make a half a billion of them a year.

4. 3D Printing

HP has made 3D prints in their labs. It requires layering of materials, and the primary concern is the strength of the material used. He said the problem is not in the printer, and that HP could inkjet anything. The limiting factor is the material they are printing on.

5. On Kodak

(We are just going to use the direct quote on this one) “Kodak says they are half the price on photos only, not black and white. You will find that claim is not really valid. What do customers print in the home? Seventy percent of it is black and white. Kodak has patent issues. The problem is going to be any kind of business you want to build, it has to be a real business model. Look at Dell, they started (in printers) three years ago, and still can’t make money.”

6. On Memjet

(Direct quote on this one too) “It’s very interesting; they are claiming they have a prototype of one. It takes years to commercialize the technology. We always love competition; it gives us a wakeup call.”

Let Pacific Ink know what you think of Joshi’s comments.

Ah, we’ve seen our first big response to Kodak’s announcement of less expensive printer cartridges, and HP is the respondent.

On April 25 HP announced their plan to save consumers money on inkjet cartridges. Their plan: The more ink you buy, the more you will save. It is a bulk purchase plan that will reward purchasers with price breaks based on the amount of ink they buy. How does it work?

HP says they will color code their cartridges to match the needs of three different types of users. We assume they did some research to determine who the three different types of users are, but as it is their logic breaks down like this.

Standard cartridges will come in a blue package and will be priced at $14.99. The standard designation is for the bulk of printer users who don’t really do a lot of printing.

The “Value” or “XL” cartridges will come in a green package and are designed for the heavy printer users. These cartridges will cost around $30.00. These cartridges are supposed to be bigger and hold more ink.

Finally, the red packaging is for those needing specialty print outs that are high in quality and give the appearance of professional prints.

My response . . . huh? Hasn’t HP already tried a strategy very similar to this?

Think back a little.

Before HP made the switch to their “short numbers” cartridges used to have, well, long numbers. For example HP’s C6578 cartridge became know as the hp 78 when short numbers became fashionable. Before it was know as the hp 78 you had a variety of choices for this one cartridge. You had the C6578G cartridge that came with the printer. You had the C6578D cartridge that you could buy at a mid range price. And, you had the C6578A cartridge which had the highest price point. In many cases you would find another letter after the G, D, or A.

What did these letters stand for? Well, they simply designed now much ink was in the cartridge. The G was an entry level cartridge that contained a small amount of ink. It’s goal was to get you quickly started printing, but to very soon run out and create a need for more ink. The G cartridges were not available for sale, so the only choice was to move up to the D or A cartridge. The D cartridge was a half filled cartridge, while the A was a completely filled cartridge. Of course, with more ink came a higher cost. This same letter strategy and ink amount was also employed in all other HP cartridges.

So now we see the Standard (blue), Value/XL (green), and Specialty (red) designations. Seems like G, D, and A all over again. Also, HP has produced a new generation of cartridges that holds less ink than the cartridges before them.

For instance, the hp 78 D used to be the most popular color print cartridge. It held 19ml of ink and cost $34.99. Now the most popular cartridge is the hp 57. It holds 17ml of ink and costs $34.99. What difference does 2ml make, well according to the HP website, about 50 pages.

Bottom line is we are now back to more decisions for the consumer. Which color box to buy? Of course the color box you choose will impact how much you spend. We’ll reserve final judgment on this plan until we see it in action.

What do you think?

(Photo Courtesy of Yahoo!)

The HP Color LaserJet 3600n is considered to be smaller in size, as far as laser printers go, but don’t let that deceive you. This machine is capable of doing a lot of work, yielding very fast print times, quality black and white documents, and vibrant full color documents.

The $549 to $700 price tag makes the 3600n an expensive personal laser printer, but something that is affordable for a small workgroup seeking a color laser that can be networked. It prints at speeds of 13 ppm (black) and 13.5 ppm (color). The printer comes with a 250 sheet paper feeder and has an additional 100 sheet auxiliary feeder. A 500 sheet feeder can be purchased for about $250.

Unlike most HP printers, the LaserJet 3600n comes with four full toner cartridges. The toner/drum combo cartridges are the only consumables this item uses. Printing a page of black text will cost you about 2.2 cents, and a color page about 12 cents (when using HP brand toner cartridges). This printer uses the following printer cartridges: Q6470A black, Q6471A cyan, Q6472A yellow, Q6473A magenta. The HP brand cartridges will cost you about $140.00 per cartridge. Pacific Ink offers a 100% compatible version of each of these cartridges for $20 less per cartridge. Visit our LaserJet 3060n page to find out more.

Overall, this printer provides the quality you would expect from an HP laser printer. It is well designed, handles paper well, and has a relatively low cost for toner cartridges (unlike many of the other HP Color LaserJets). It is not an expandable printer, meaning it only comes with 64MB of memory, and cannot be upgraded. It also does not have the ability to add a duplexer to it. Some suggest the HP Color LaserJet 3600dn as a better option because it comes with a duplexer and has 128MB of memory. It costs $849.

Here are the printer vitals:

Buy the HP Color LaserJet 3600n printer

Buy HP ColorLaserJet 3600n ink cartridges

Do you have this printer? Let us know what you think of it.

Well, not really, but Vyomesh Joshi, the senior vice president in charge of Hewlett-Packard’s printing division, has expressed some concern of a potential shift in consumers printing habits.

First some quick facts.

• The printing division brought in 30% of HP’s $91.7 billion revenue last year.
• Half of the printers sold in the world have the HP logo on them.

Now, back to the story. It turns out that the concern was spawned by Mr. Joshi’s college age daughter. She reported to him that college students find printing annoying and unnecessary. Most of what they would print are web pages, and they are simply not formatted to print on a standard 8.5 x 11 inch piece of paper. She told her father, “I don’t need a printer.” —- Ouch!

Studies show that half of the printing done in homes is from Internet related materials (email, web pages). Printing from software (like Microsoft Word) only accounts for 20% of home printing. So, if the next generation of printer buyers is finding printing Internet related materials (web pages) to hard you can see Mr. Joshi’s reason for concern.

Blogs, MySpace pages, lists from comparison shopping sites, and map directions for Google or Yahoo! are simply not formatted in a manner that can be neatly printed. Printouts are often don’t appear as you see them on the screen. Images are misplaced or chopped in half and large white spaces often appear on the page.

What to do? Well, HP has taken one small step. Last month they bought a small software company named Tabblo. Tabblo specializes in creating web based software that creates templates to reorganize the photos and text blocks on a Web page to fit standard sizes of paper.

An HP inkjet printer that prints 70 pages per minute - Awesome!

HP unveiled two multifunction inkjet printers today that feature their new Edgeline Technology. The HP CM8060 and the HP CM8050 color multifunction printers. They claim the maximum speed for the CM8060 is 70-71 pages per minute (ppm), with an average of 60 ppm for black and white prints and 50 ppm for color prints. The CM8050 is slightly slower, printing 50 ppm in black and white, and 40 ppm in color.

These are the first two printers to be released that feature Edgeline Technology. The increased print speed comes from the fact that the print head does not have to move. In traditional inkjet printers, the print head has to left to right to print a page. In these printers the paper moves under the print head, and the print head spans the width of the page. The printer also features a drum that carries the paper and spins it under the print head as many times as necessary to get adequate ink coverage. The Edgeline multifunction machines also feature a fast drying ink.

Those that are in “the know” in the printer industry are most impressed that this kind of technology is featured in an inkjet printer. If these printers work as well as advertised they will provide some serious competition to laser printer market. And, much as laser printers use a heat element to seal toner to the page, these printers use a bonding agent to seal ink to the page and protect it from spills and smudges.

Both of these printers are designed for use in larger offices. They feature 100-sheet duplexing automatic document feeder (ADF) for scanning both sides of a page, a built-in print duplexer for printing on both sides of the page, the ability to handle paper up to 12 by 18 inches, an 80-page multipurpose feeder, and three 500-sheet input trays. Options include a 4,000-sheet input tray, a four-bin job separator for output, and a multi-function finisher that can staple and stack print jobs.

HP expects that both of these printers will be available during April and will cost $18,930 for the CM8050 and $23,530 for the CM8060. Wow! This price is drastically higher than the MemJet printer produced by Silverbrook Research. It produces 60 ppm and only costs $200-$300. Of course, Silverbrook is not HP so we will see what impact their printers have.

Overall, the release of these two printers, and the MemJet printer, hold big implications for the inkjet printer market. Their success could drastically change consumers expectations of how in inkjet printer should operate. It may also change how much consumers pay for their inkjet cartridges. To date there has been no word on the cost of cartridges for these HP printers. But history has shown that inkjet cartridges are far more expensive that laser cartridges (based on the amount of ink and the number of pages printed).

Reports on the HP OfficeJet 5610 have shown it to be very usable machine for the home office, but CNET warns that some compromises will have to be made on performance and convenience should you choose to buy one. Priced at around $140.00, the 5610 is a multifunction machine with photo printing capabilities. As for overall functionality, this machine does it all - prints, scans, copies, and faxes. When just judged on general use alone, it does the job. Here’s where it gets in to trouble.

Photo printing. As mentioned above, the machine does have the capability to print photo quality prints. Only problem is that users have reported mixed results in the quality of their prints. And they complain of a slow print speed. Those more proficient in the photo printing world have reported that those looking to buy a new printer should opt for ones with memory card slots.

Overall print speed. Those looking for a machine to quickly print black and white documents would be better opting for a multifunction machine that uses a laser toner cartridge. The cartridges for the OfficeJet 5610 are quite expensive and won’t last you all that long when compared to the page yield you will get out of a laser cartridge.

And, the CNET bottom line: “The HP OfficeJet 5610 is affordable and provides most of the home-office basics, but it doesn’t stand out from the crowd of better-equipped multifunctions.” They rated it a 6.1 out of 10 (which is a “Good” rating). The 5610 is inexpensive and small. It prints well and should be considered for those on a budget who just need basic functionality and print quality. And the negatives — It uses expensive ink cartridges, has poor scan quality, prints slowly, and has not memory card readers. On the other hand, Yahoo! users have rated it 4.5 stars out of 5 (this is only on 3 reviews though).

Here are the printer vitals:

What are the users of this printer saying?

Pros: Print, Scan, Fax, Color copies, Inexpensive

Cons: Expensive ink, Slow, Poor scan quality, No memory card readers, Automatically starts application on your computer

Buy the HP OfficeJet 5610 Printer

Buy HP OfficeJet 5610 ink cartridges

For those looking for a little cloak and dagger action in the printer cartridge world we offer up Hewlett Packard (And keep in mind all this is presented with tongue firmly planted in cheek. While being a serious issue, we are able to find some humor in it as well. Hope you do too). The tales of their espionage escapades continue to make headlines. We took some time to read over a few articles today, but there was so much information to digest we really could not put it in to any type of format that someone could sit and read. We thought it best to give you some links you can use to begin your own journey. So, grab Jack Bauer, alert Columbo, call Clouseau, then queue up some Mission Impossible music.

Chapter 1: HP hires agent to spy on Dell prior to Dell’s entry in to the printer market. (read more)

Chapter 2: HP investigators trick phone company employees into turning over private phone records belonging to journalists, employees and HP board directors (read more)

Find out more about the HP Scandal.

The HP OfficeJet 7410 is priced on the higher side when it comes to multifunction machines. There are quite a few out there that carry a lower price tag. But, with the 7410, the old adage holds true - you get what you pay for. This machine will far outperform many of its lower priced counterparts, and you will definitely get more functionality for those extra dollars.

As with the others, this printer will copy, print, scan, and fax. You can also print, copy, and scan from a variety of digital media cards. That’s all low end stuff these days. The 7410 distances itself from the others by offering automatic duplex printing (automatically print on both sides), making legal sized copies and scans, connecting to a wired or wireless network, and providing a ADF (automatic document feeder) that allows you to simply place a stack of papers in the tray that you wish to copy. All this, and more . . . For only $49.99 you can add a Bluetooth adapter. It’s paper tray also holds up to 400 pages (this means don’t have to fill the paper tray as often).

So now you ask, “What is this amazing machine going to cost me?” You can have an HP OfficeJet 7410 today for roughly $400.00.

And, the CNET bottom line: “You’ll get what you pay for. The 7410 provides the latest all-in-one features and functions–for a price.” They did rate it an 8 out of 10, but mentioned that they would be tempted to give it a perfect 10 if it had individual color and black ink tanks like some Epson printers, and a removable scanner lid, like some Lexmark printers.

Here are the printer vitals:

The HP OfficeJet 7410 scans at resolutions of 2400 x 2400 dpi and faxes at 33.6Kbps. It features automatic redialing and sends outbound PC faxes only. The following types of Flash Media are supported for direct printing, copying, and scanning: Memory Stick, CompactFlash, SmartMedia, SD Memory Card, MultiMediaCard, XD-Picture Card.

What are the users of this printer saying?

Pros: Printer server, Duplexer, Two paper trays included, Wireless connectivity, Easy setup

Cons: Small card paper tray with is attached to the duplexer, Totally useless sheet feeder, Price, 771MB Install

Buy the HP OfficeJet 7410 printer

Buy cartridges for the HP OfficeJet 7410

Newegg.com is offering a great deal on the HP LaserJet 1020 personal laser printer. Regularly priced at $119.99 + shipping, you can now get this printer for only $101.00 after shipping. This offer includes a 20% discount (use code PPAL1020) and $5 for 3-Day shipping.

The HP LaserJet 1020 is one of the smaller laser printers HP offers. As quoted on Newegg.com, it takes up about as much room as a legal pad and only weighs 11 pounds. This is a monchrome laser printer, meaning it only prints in black, that offers a print speed of up to 15 pages per minute. It has 1200dpi resolution output, and offers a 150 sheet input tray and manual duplexing (you have to turn the page over yourself to print on the reverse side). Connect to your computer via USB cable. The 1020 uses HP cartridge number Q2612A.

This deal does not have a published expiration date.

Buy this printer

Buy HP LaserJet 1020 ink cartridges