Category Archives: Printer/Scanner/Copier

The HP Deskjet F380 Is Easy To Use

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The HP Deskjet F380 printer is the easiest computer accessory that I have ever purchased before. I have two different operating systems in my home and this means that I usually need to buy different accessories in order to use it with each machine. However, this printer is one of the products that you need if you like Apple products and Windows products in your home. All you need to do is plug in the printer and it will start to work right away, the setup process takes just a few minutes and it will start working as it should. One of the problems I had experienced in the past was that it can take a long time to add a printer to your system, but this printer was so simple that even my son can set it up. If you doubt that you will be able to set this up, you should know that all you need to do is inset the machine into your computer and all it to do all of the work.

The HP Deskjet F380 printer is great because it prints fast, I was able to print a sheet in just over a minute and this means that it couldn’t be easier to get work done. The reason why I purchased this machine is because I need it for work. What I need to do is make copies of the bills that I need to issue every week, this HP All in one printer is ideal because it copies and it is very simple to scan also. The print quality is sharp, you will also find that the scans look great. One of the problems I had in the past was alignment, but this HP Deskjet F380 gave me a scan quality that was so great and very crisp.

In Search Of The Best Canon All-In-One Printer

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Recent business and personal needs have prompted me to purchase a new printer — one that can provide me with the capability of printing (of course!), scanning, and copying documents.

Which prompts me the question, just how do you define the best all-in-one printer? I believe that the best is always one that suits all your requirements, and is still affordable to you at the end of the day. There is just no point in me studying through all the available printers and eventually selecting a printer that is way out of my budget.

So, what are the criteria that I am looking for? For most home users and personal business users, you may find my criteria similar to yours.

Why Canon?

Simply put, I love Canon’s printers. They are affordable, their cartridges are widely available, and much cheaper than some other brands. Their maintenance rate is also the lowest among all consumer-grade brands. It is easy to focus on one brand, browsing through the printers and then selecting the printer of your choice.

Color Mode and Quality

The ability of printing color documents has somewhat became a norm for most printers. Most all-in-one printers are inkjet printers and thus it is even more unlikely to come across an all-in-one printer that prints only black ink. So, I am more concerned about the quality it can produce. Printer quality is measured by DPI (dots per inch), technical information aside, just understand that the higher the value, the better the printout quality.

I am not looking for stunning printouts, so something that “just does the job” would be more than sufficient to me.

Printing Speed

Canon uses the more accurately measure IPM (images-per-minute) mechanism to define the speed of a printer, which varies significantly from the PPM (pages-per-minute) mechanism. For non-technical users, just understand that the higher the number, the faster the printing speed.

As I do not normally print documents with urgency, this is something that I will not pay too much attention to.

Auto-Duplex Printing

This, to me, is a much needed feature. Many may not understand or appreciate what auto-duplex brings to home users. As a corporate employee, we are all used to printing full, double-sided documents from our office’s laser printer. For inkjet printers, the story is slightly different. The ability to print on both side of the paper automatically is known as “Auto Duplex Printing”, not all inkjet printers support this function, as most still require you to perform some degree of manual intervention to achieve double-sided printing.

For me, as most of my printouts are double-sided (go green, save the earth!), this is a very important functionality that I will be focusing on.

Scanning and Copier Functionalities

As a home user, as long as the scanning function works, and I am able to photocopy whatever I intend to with a reasonable quality, then I am a happy man.

For those who cares, DPI is again the measuring unit for scanning quality. Also, some may be particularly concerned about the need to connect to a laptop or PC to just get a document scanned. There are some all-in-ones that offer to scan documents and copy to your thumb-drive, which is very convenient indeed.

Wireless Printing

Home users expect printers to be shared among the occupants, and if everyone uses laptops, it will be a painful experience placing the printer at a public place that is accessible by everybody at anytime. The alternative way is to look for a printer with built-in WiFi capability. A WiFi-enabled printer can join your home broadband network, and anyone that is on the network can print documents without needing to physically connect the laptop to the printer.

For me, this is a good option, but not something that is mandatory.

So, what printer can I choose?

Considering all of the above, and the budget I hold, a laser all-in-one printer is definitely out of the question. The range of inkjet all-in-ones at Canon has a more reasonable price tag. One printer that stands out is the Canon Pixma MG5170 – it prints at an excellent speed of 9.7 ipm for mono printouts, has auto duplex printing, and the price is merely SGD 249 (about USD 180).

Printing On The Go

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Printing documents has become one of the most common computer-related action to produce deliverables, be it at business, at school, or even your personal life. We print documents for almost everything.

However, printing has always been fixed at a location — you can’t simply print anytime from anywhere you like — and that used to be true. The invention of portable printers, or mobile printers, for laptops users in particular has taken the world by storm. Business executives who are always on the go can now print high quality color documents as long as they are willing to carry that extra weight with them wherever they go.

Not only mobile workers benefit from portable printers, for small families that do not require printing very frequently, they can simply purchase a mobile printer, bring it out as and when needed, keep them in the drawer while not in use to save space!

As technology advances, the size of the printer no longer has a significant impact on the quality of the printout. Take Canon Pixma i90 for example, with its small size it qualifies for mobility, yet the printout quality is still as stunning as a full-fledge color inkjet printer. However, it is true that such printers come with a hefty price tag, and that is what you pay for actually — mobility with quality.

However, do note that one common weakness of portable printers is the lasting power of the battery. Most mobile printers have a built-in rechargeable battery (the same one used for laptops or netbooks), which has a limit to the pages it can print. If possible, look for mobile printers that allow power being generated from USB or an external AC adapter, although the latter introducing extra weights, and is dependent on having power points, it ensures that you are able to print what you intend to print, even when the battery is out.

Canon Pixma MP648 Review

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While running through the list of all-in-one printers available on the market, I decided that a Canon all-in-one would probably be the best buy due to its printing quality, maintenance rate, and price. However, Canon has quite a handful of all-in-ones available, and it took me a few weekends to go through the details and finally decide on one particular model, which I had the luck to purchase it at a discounted price on a PC fair in Singapore. Here comes the review for the Canon Pixma MP648 that I have bought.

Appearance (Rate: B+)
The MP648 is slightly larger than I had imagined, so you would expect to find an area big enough to place it permanently. I had trouble placing it on my current working desk, so I’m leaving it to operate on the floor, until I have the time to get our new home a new working desk.

The silver surface gives a professional look to the printer, however, the plastic finishing on the black edges is a bit disappointing as constant touching with my fingers would result in stains. Perhaps is my oily palm, but I’d prefer an all-silver surface.

The MP648 features two paper feeding channel, one from the cassette tray where it only accepts A4 paper, which is right at the bottom of the printer. And the other from the rear tray, which accepts virtually all types of paper source. The cassette tray is a great idea to store paper, but I had problem opening it as the gap between the floor (or table in other people’s case) and the tray is too small. A CD tray is provided to be attached to the rear tray to print on CD labels.

Ease of Setup (Rate: B-)
I am not sure if this applies to all Canon printers, but the process of setting up the printer is nothing short of a nightmare to me. I had previous experiences in setting up HP printers and the instructions were concise and easy to follow. Although Canon did its best to visualize the whole process, and the LCD screen on the MP648 attempts to guide you through the setup process, it is still not clear enough.

It took me 30 minutes to finish installing the printer head and all 5 cartridges. An additional 10 minutes is needed to setup the WiFi connectivity. However, I am quite relieved that I would only need to go through this process once, better luck for me next time perhaps?

The only plus point I can think of the installation process is that it installs its driver on all 3 machines I have – a Windows 7 laptop, a MacBook on Snow Leopard, and a Windows Vista Business Edition laptop.

Controls (Rate: A)
The innovative 3” LCD screen found on the top of the MP648 is top notch. All the menu items are clearly laid out and controlling the printer has never been easier. The iPod like rolling control is accurately sensitive, and it took me only 30 seconds to finish entering a ten-digit wireless access point password to join the WiFi network on my router!

Printing (Rate: B+)
An MP648 is by no means designed for industry-grade performance, so the expectations need to be set right. For a text only document, the MP648 performance is decent enough at about 7-8 seconds per page. For a document with color images, the speed is slightly slower than expected, but the quality made up for it nevertheless.

As with all inkjet printers, printing on a 70 gsm paper with heavy images will drop the quality significantly, at 80 gsm quality is generally good, but the MP648 truly excel when 100 gsm papers were used. However, as we woud most probably not be using 100 gsm papers for everything we print, the benchmark should be set at 80 gsm, which produced much sharper image than the MP248 version.

For photo printing, as MP648 is labeled as an all-in-one photo printer, the quality of photo printouts are quite stunning to say the least. A standard 4R photo took about 50-60 seconds to print out, and with a few very fine scratches (which I believed was caused by the printer head) that were barely visible unless observed with a magnifying glass, the colors printed were very close to what we see on the LCD screen. The built-in image enhancement application before printing is also outstanding in optimizing your image for printing.

Scanning (Rate: B+)
Well, the flatbed scanner of MP648 serves its purpose very well. We are not very particular about the resolution of the scanning, and as long as it works like a copier, we are more than happy.

Overall (B+)
The Canon Pixma MP648 is definitely value for money at SGD $289. While the cheaper MP248 is going at a ridiculously low price at SGD $79, the big gap in printing quality and speed proves worthwhile in this investment.

On an earlier post I have indicated that Canon Pixma MG5170 is a stand out choice at SGD $249, you may be interested to have a look at it.

Canon Pixma MP648 full specifications and pricing information:
http://www.canon.com.sg/business/products/all-in-ones/inkjet-all-in-ones/pixma-mp648