Thursday 22 August 2013

R.I.P. HP Deskjet F380. Long Live HP Deskjet 3520.

Last year, I had a problem with my HP Deskjet F380, in HP Deskjet F380 Ink Cartridge Error. On Monday 19th August, it happened again. This time, I threw the baby out with the bathwater and bought a new HP Deskjet 3520 e-All-in-One printer/scanner/copier (the F380 was over 6 years old).
From http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Printers/HP-Deskjet/CX056A

This product has mixed reviews - people either love it or they hate it.

My initial observations:- It makes a lot of whirring noises - I hope this doesn't mean that it's going to wear out quickly. I like the fact that it can do double-sided printing. I like the fact that the menu screen is easily readable, with the printer on the floor underneath a telephone table. I don't like the fact that I can no longer see a print preview when printing from Notepad. I will use WordPad from now on. I prefer to not use "fancy" word processors like Microsoft Works Word Processor or Microsoft Word for simple documents like lyric/chord sheets. I can control all functions from my lap-top. Although the product has wireless capability, I'm using a USB cable, as with the F380.

Having imported an existing lyric/chord sheet into WordPad, I've reduced all margins to 3mm, as the HP 3520 adds borders by default. I've also had to use bold face to make the text as easy to read in dim light (typical open mic night setting) as the old sheets.

2 comments:

George said...

A little late for due diligence, but a good yarn:
http://www.listener.co.nz/commentary/the-internaut/man-versus-printer-an-epic-hilarious-trademe-post/

Nigel Kinbrum said...

I went to read the rest of the article by clicking on the red link and got "This item was sold to another member." Noooooooooooooooooooo!

Apart from playing what sounds like a muffled version of the intro' to "Bittersweet symphony" upon switching the thing on, the 3520 is apparently happy being fed a diet of low-reward Tesco white multi-purpose printer paper, 80 gsm. I make sure that its food bowl is kept topped-up at all times.

When I connected the USB cable to the printer, the installation software told me that I would be unable to do *list of things that I had no intention of ever doing*. USB, for the win.

As to what happened to the F380, it was along the lines of... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv0onXhyLlE :-D