Product Review: Hewlett-Packard PhotoSmart C3180

Hewlett-Packard’s newest iteration in their multifunction line is sure to confuse a few people, especially those who are used to their numbering system. The previous models were the PSC 1300, 1310, 1350, 1410, 1510 and 1610… so why did they suddenly decide to call this one the C 3180? And this model is now in the PhotoSmart family, not the PSC family, though it uses the same ink cartridges that the 1510 used (numbers 92 black and 93 color and 99 photo) whereas the Photosmart printers now tend to use the individual colored 02 cartridges.

Stylistically, the C3180 hews closely to the design of the 1510, with more of a rectangular-shaped body and a compact design with a folding paper feed tray that allows for easy storage in a corner when not in use. The new addition is a memory card reader, situated in the front bottom left corner for printing photographs directly from the card instead of through the computer. Memory cards supported are SecureDigital (SD), Compact Flash, Memory Stick , Memory Stick Duo and X-D Picture Card. There is an outlet for people who have PictBridge-enabled digital cameras as well.

What is PictBridge? It’s software that is on digital cameras that allows people to directly hook their cameras up to a printer and then using the camera’s LCD screen, choose the pictures that they want printed.

With its compact size, this printer is the perfect fit for nearly any student’s room, be it a grade school, high school or college (undergraduate and graduate), especially for those in dorm rooms, where any free space is at a premium. While it is not flashy, by any means, it still looks like a modern-age printer with a sort of rounded shape at the edged rather than a stodgy, blocky sort. It’s primarily white, with a gray lid that covers the scanner/copier. Sizewise, it’s roughly the same size as the smaller portable boomboxes.

Now for the specifics: The C3180 prints at a pretty fast speed in draft mode, at up to 24 pages a minute (ppm) in black and white and up to 20ppm in color. People can scan in high resolution, at up to 1200 x 240 dots per inch (dpi), which is quite a ceiling, since most people scan at 300-600 dpi.

For those who are unclear about the whole ‘color’ and ‘photo’ cartridge principle, here is how it works: Usually the 6310 will have a black cartridge in the cartridge slot on the right side of the cartridge tray while the 3-color (yellow, magenta and cyan) cartridge will occupy the left side of the cartridge tray. That will produce 4-color printing and 4-color photos, which are excellent in their own right. There are those who want to have even more vibrant color in their photos, so what the photo cartridge does is add to the color cartridge. The black cartridge is removed and the photo cartridge, which has some black, light cyan and light magenta in it, is put in its place and the printer has now become a six-color printer.

Changing the ink is now literally a snap. Gone are the days where people had to use more levers and tabs than those convoluted traps that Wile E. Coyote invented to try to capture the Roadrunner. With the C3180, all one has to do is first grab a tab in the middle of the printer and pull downward, like opening up a toaster oven. The ink cartridge tray will be nestled on the right. Reaching in sideways and grabbing the ink with ones thumb and forefinger, the cartridge is easily removed. Putting in a new one is easy, just slide it in the same way and push until an audible ‘click’ is heard.

The C3180, like the majority of HP printers, is what is called a front-loading printer. The printing paper is fed through the front and the finished print product is deposited on a tray above the blank paper. This is ideal for people who may have a low-hanging bookshelf on their desk space. The tray can fold up to make for easy storage space, or if a student has their printer next to their computer, they can just put any homework books in front of the printer when it’s not in use.

People who buy the C3180 need to have at least Windows98 or higher, 128 MB of RAMand 400 MB hard drive space on their hard drives on their PCS and at least Mac OS X 10.2.5 or higher with 128MB of RAM and 400 MB hard drive space on their Macintosh. A USB cable must be purchased seperately to connect the printer to the computer.

The ink is especially affordable for students, with the black 92 cartridge usually costing around $16 and the color 93 cartridge costing in the $21 range. The 99 photo cartridge is in the $26 range.

Paper size ranges from 4 x6 ” photos to 8 1/2 by 11″ documents and photos.

Just make sure to not ask where the ‘1710 printer’ is when shopping.