Hewlett Packard Deskjet 6840 InkJet Printer

I bought this printer when it first became available only because of it's wireless capability. I thought, "wow, a wireless printer...what a great concept!", and since I needed a photo printer that would also be able to print color documents, it was an obvious and easy choice for me. I used to have a behemoth of a B/W laserjet that I bought from an old job, but that took up half my office space, so I sold that and bought this instead. Here are my observations:

Physical Attributes: It's not huge, but still a bit bulky for my taste. What I really liked about this style was its clean lines - it is basically a box with a tray. The simplicity of the buttons and their layout was aesthetically pleasing and unintimidating. The two main physical issues I had with this printer were that 1) it took up a lot of space with its footprint, and 2) the paper tray is not removable. I can accept the size of the printer because it's not as big as the other HP photo printers that has a gazillion functions, with LCD screens and buttons for editing and such, but it does take up a good 1.5 - 2 square feet of room (I found that the wireless aspect of the printer kind of negated the size factor since I hide my printer on a shelf in the closet). as for the unremovable paper tray, that was a hassle. If the paper tray was removable, it would have been much cleaner and more manageable to leave out. However, the paper tray is permanent and looks a bit of an awkward projecting from it. If you don't have a nice printer table or have a small desk without the size to support a printer, you might just have to put it below the desk or buy a separate table for it.

Printing: Mainly, I print a lot of photos on this printer and not many documents. Whether printing 4x6, 10x12, 8x10, the quality of the printer is good. Not excellent, but good. Compared to the HP 8450 that my father-in-law has, the quality of the prints are just a tad bit inferior. I printed the same photo (4x6) on both printers using the same photo paper and the 8450 print was spectacular, while the 6840 was good. To quantify against photos that are developed professionally, the 8450 would have been around 90-95% of the quality, while the 6840 was around 75-80%. Still, to the naked eye, it would be difficult to distinguish the difference when looking at the photos sidd-by-side at a distance greater than 3 feet. It's when you look at the photos closely that the lines of the ink and some pixelation are evident (but you have to look at these photos very closely to notice). I should also add that the images being printed were taken at the max resolution for my camera (2560 x 1920). When printing larger pictures, the quality translates similarly.

Printer speed: This printer is SLOW. It takes a good 1 - 1.5 minutes to print one picture on 4x6. Much longer for 8x10. I remember the 8450 printing the 4x6 picture in about 20 seconds, which I found remarkable. Documents print much faster, but it is typical for an inkjet printer.

Ink cartridges: Ink cartridges are expensive. It takes 2 cartridges at a time, and if you are switching from photo to regular color documents, you have to switch the cartridge or you'll be using photo ink to print color documents on regular paper.

The other cumbersome aspect of this printer is that if you want to switch from photo to document (and vice versa), you have to change the settings every time on your computer to have it conform to the right size. On numerous occasions, I've tried printing photos and it only printed 1/4th of the picture because the printer setting on the computer was set on "General printing". I've also tried to print regular documents and it only printed on only 1/4th of the page because the printer setting was on "Best Quality Photo".

Wireless: The key for me purchasing this printer and not taking it back to the store was the fact that it is wireless. I LOVE THE WIRELESS FEATURE! I have my printer in a closet completely out of sight and whenever I need to use it, it will print the document in the closet. The wireless range is great and works with my 802.11G setup at home (The printer sits in a closet in my office, while the computer sits in the opposite corner). The downside of this is the set up, especially if you have an encrypted home wireless network (which everyone should have). When I first installed this, it required a USB flash drive to be able to transport the network key from the computer to the printer. There was an update to the software which allowed the key to be loaded onto the printer if it was directly connected to the computer, but this came about after I bought the printer. Thus, the set up was a pain for me. You should have a good working knowledge of wireless networks to be able to set this up, and if you find that you have problems with this due to an encrypted network, DO NOT TAKE THE ENCRYPTION OFF just to make the printer work! One should never have an unencrypted wireless network at home...but I digress. :)

My Lessons from this experience:
1) If you are thinking of buying this printer, you should only buy it because you need a wireless printer. Other than that main feature, there are numerous other printers that can print better and are easier to use.
2) Kind of an aside, but I realized after buying this that a photo printer should be dedicated to just printing photos. Trying to have one machine do the different printing jobs is very cumbersome, and I am unaware of any printer that can do multiple jobs seamlessly. For me, this printer has become solely for printing documents. I bought another compact printer just for photos.
3) The wireless feature is great if you don't have space to put a printer in your work area, but if you do, I would advise choosing a different printer that can print higher quality prints and can connect directly. The main selling point for me was the wireless aspect...and only that.