Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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176 of 176 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good choice for home network setup, 20 Jun 2007
I have a wired home network and wanted a printer that would connect to this, cope with a medium level of home use, and photocopy. This printer seemed to tick all the boxes. I also print the occasional photograph but mainly use the quick draft mode to print documents, letters, etc.
Set up was a doddle. After assembling the printer (trays, faceplates etc), inserting inks, switching on, and attaching to my router, I was ready to go. My Vista machine took 5 minutes to initialise. The XP machine slightly longer; 10-15 minutes. Both were full installs. (There are separate installation CDs for Windows (non Vista), Vista, and Mac). The XP machine played up a bit with various system programs falling over, but the HP software can automatically update itself, and the problem seems to have gone away. I'm guessing it might have something to do with security settings (firewall, anti-virus, etc). These are all set to max on the XP machine, and are at a minimal level on the Vista machine.
Note: This printer needs a solid surface to sit on. If you try balancing it on a stand or a wobbly table, the speed of the printer internals will make it rock about, adversely affecting the print quality.
Photocopying is quick and painless. I just use the flatbed scanner to photocopy one sheet at a time. All it takes is one button to either copy in colour or black and white. The computer does not need to be switched on. There is also a document feeder for photocopying multiple sheets.
I don't use the fax facility - so can't comment on that.
The printer comes with a black and tri-colour cartridges, to give 4 colour printing. There is not much information on what numbers you can use, but a quick search on the internet reveals:
Black: Either 336 (5ml), 338 (11ml), or 339 (21ml).
Tri-colour: Either 342 (5ml), or 343 (7ml).
The back of the manual also lists 348 Photo, and 100 Gray as compatible, but makes no mention of how or when you would use them. After a lot more searching I found that the 348 photo cartridge is another tri-colour cartridge (light magenta, light cyan, and black) which replaces your black-only cartridge to give you 6 colour printing for photos.
I printed a test picture (a garden scene) to test the difference between 4 and 6 inks. At first glance they look the same. But take a closer look and I found water and rock surfaces were more natural with less noise. The fern fronds were more defined, and there was more detail to be seen in the dark shaded areas. If you are printing photos to keep in an album, I would say the photo cartridge is essential and well worth the money.
I'm not sure the 100 Gray cartridge can be used in this printer. It's not colour coded where the cartridges push in, and as I have no intention of printing black and white photos, I'm not going to investigate further.
To sum up: I would recommend this printer for light office use (eg. someone self employed) or to anyone who wants a bog standard home printer that does a bit of everything. I would not recommend it to someone who mainly prints photos or plans to use it for heavy office use.
Hope this review has been of some use.
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45 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
HP Officejet 6310, 15 Nov 2007
This is quite simply the best printer I've ever bought. I got it as a present for my partner and she's absolutely delighted. It was very easy to set up on a partially wireless network and does all the jobs I could ask for and more. My only complaint is that it doesn't come with an ethernet or USB cable, but I had one lying around so no problem. I haven't used the fax functions yet, but I'm sure they do the job to the same standard.
Also when buying ink disregard the comments of anyone shamelessly plugging a certain website that sells refilled/refurbished cartridges. It's likely that they work for this company and they're being paid to write these bogus reviews that don't reflect their true quality. One of them seems to have the same opinion of 23 different cartridges and has written identical reviews for them. Sad.
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78 of 81 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Oh dear..., 22 Oct 2007
Having been the owner of several previous HP printers this one turned out to be a huge disappointment. I was so looking forward to getting a networked printer for my home office setup and this looked just the job. The printer itself is very sturdy, well made (apart from the flimsy plastic paper `trays'), prints beautifully and is fully featured. Unfortunately HP paid less attention to the software and that's where the root of my problem lay. It loaded onto my old PC (running XP) and ran no problem but could I get it to work on my new Dell (also XP)? - not a chance! Three days consulting HP's tech support (based, you've guessed, it in India) failed to resolve the issue (something to do with the PML driver...). The guy was courteous and gave it his best shot but there comes a point when enough's enough and back it went for a refund.
So why 3 stars? Well if you get one and it works with your setup you'll probably want to give it 5. However, there is definitely a software compatibility issue (HP admitted receiving numerous calls similar to mine) and I find it unacceptable that software is being shipped that is less than robust. After all, there's no shortage of other vendors vying for our business...
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