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HP's Bluetooth Inkjet is Barely Known, Why?
by
Keith Benicek
October 18, 2002
Embedded Bluetooth isn’t the only method of connectivity for the Deskjet 995c, it also has IR and USB 1.1 as well. We easily printed from a Handspring Visor Prism and a new Toshiba e740 via IR.
The Deskjet 995c
is a front loader, as are essentially all HP printers and the tray holds
150 sheets of various sized paper, including envelopes, up to 8.5 inches
wide. The paper or envelope also exits out the front onto a top tray.
Front tray loaders are great, and top (back) tray loaders are a pain
in the butt. First off, you can put front tray loader in space within
a computer desk for example, that is barely taller than the printer
is. A top loader needs the height of the printer, plus the height of
the paper, plus more space to load the paper, and that stinks. Second,
a front tray loader is the very reason the 995c can be a Duplex (two
sided printer) because of the path the paper takes (the duplex module
is at the back of the printer). We doubt that this could be done with
a top loader. Third, paper in a front loader is very unlikely to “squirm”
as it feeds during printing (and cause blurry text or image) because
the paper is “rapped” around more roller surface area than
a top loader, which has a very small contact area with the roller. Look
for your self at a Canon, Lexmark or Epson. Top loaders are cheaper
to make too and that’s why HP’s tend be a bit more expensive.
You get the engineering you pay for.
This installation software for either Bluetooth or USB is a breeze and in typical HP fashion the best in the industry. There are many print feature selections you can make, too many to mention here. Bluetooth printing is a simple choice once you get you computer set up, but not such an easy chore, you can read about that in the “Ultimate Guide: Networking PC and Mac.”
This printer supports
Windows 95 – XP and Mac OS 8.x and OS 9.x, but not OS X. Shame
on
HP for ignoring the
“Office OS of the present and future.” Seriously, we certainly
hope that HP will rectify this omission of OS X support quickly for the
sake of the SMB and Educational users that should consider buying the
Deskjet 995c.
How many of you have wanted a printer that could text, even print color, two sided? Whether it’s to save paper, or you’re creating a manual or newsletter, the Deskjet 995c is the only Inkjet we know of that has this great standard capability. Canon doesn’t have it, Epson doesn’t, and Lexmark doesn’t either. It works reliably and we loved it. One drawback of duplex printing is that it really slows down the print cycle, but clever HP wisely made the duplex feature an easily detachable module on the back of the unit.
We’ve noticed that other reviewers have bashed this printer for being very slow and not living up to HP’s quoted print specifications. We’re also sure these reviewers didn’t apparently have the smarts to remove the duplex unit to test for maximum speeds. Our test with a USB connection shows that the 995c prints average text filled pages at 16.3 ppm (almost one less than HP’s spec) and 9.8 ppm in color (about two less than HP’s spec). However, what makes up a color document is highly subjective, our test pages included three 225k color images and the rest of the page containing black text and some color text of various font types and sizes.
With the duplex unit reinstalled (takes about 15 seconds, oh beautiful engineering!) the 995c really does slow down to 5.5 ppm text and 2.3 ppm for graphics printing. You would understand why the slow output if you could see the contortions the paper path takes. Either way, this is one spectacular feature and one I’ve wanted for YEARS!
Cost of printing is pretty high on the Deskjet 995c, which uses only two cartridges (black and a tri-color) rather than the increasingly popular individual CMYK tank configurations on Canons and newer Epson’s. Text pages will cost about 4.2 cents each and color about 24 to 28 cents depending on image factors. I don’t understand why HP insists on being the last holdout against individual color tanks, except for the huge profit factor on cartridges, that is. This high cost of printing is the only “Con” we can seriously find on the 995c.
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