Windows Print Driver (cont.)

Basics

Clicking on the Advanced button brings up this page of settings.

Color

Color - Advanced

Services

This is the "popup" status display that is shown whenever a print job is active.

Here's the Print Preview screen. I always enable the print preview option, it is your last chance to visually confirm that you have scaled the image properly and have selected the right media size. It can save you from wasting a piece of expensive photo paper because you had 4 x 6-inch media selected instead of 8.5 x 11-inch or vice-versa.

Steve's Conclusion

For large format printing the HP8750 isn't what I would call "fast," taking 13 minutes to make a borderless 13x19" print that the Canon i9900 cranks out in two minutes and forty seconds. Not sure how HP came up with the 3.5 minute figure in their specs as no one is going to print a 13x19" photo using less than "Best" quality. The HP 8750 does produce superior black and white prints over any of the Canon printers due to its photo gray inks. The only other wide carriage printer that does B&W this well is the Epson 2200, which also has a dedicated photo grey (light black) ink cartridge.

Calculated printing times from a computer via USB - except where noted as (Card). Automatic paper sensing feature adds a few seconds to print times. Timing begins at paper feed and stops when the paper drops in the output tray, it does not include computer processing time.

One of the things I don't understand is why HP chose -not- to put a color LCD on the 8750's control panel. When used for standalone printing from a memory card you are forced to print an index page of thumbnails to select individual pictures to print. The LCD is a monochrome data display only, it can not be used for previewing images like the color LCD on the HP8450 printer. When printing in standalone fashion the printer auto-detects both the paper type and the paper size so this eliminates the need for the user to configure these items. You need only select the images you want to print, or select "Print ALL," and then hit the print button.

The printer's memory card slots work just like a high-speed USB 2.0 card reader when the printer is connected via the USB cable. Inserting a card will cause Windows to "see" a new removable drive and you can copy files to the host computer with Windows Explorer or access them directly with a graphic editor or printing application.

In addition to the high-speed USB 2.0 port the HP8750 is also equipped with an ethernet connector - just plug it into your network hub or switch and it is available as a LAN printer.

Click to see a larger (550Kb) picture!

This is a 600dpi scan (and then reduced) of a black & white print from the HP 8750. Most other photo inkjet printers are only "mediocre" black and white printers and usually induce a bluish or silver tone on the print. The HP 8750 produces deep, rich blacks and a wide range of grays thanks to its Photo Gray ink cartridge.

People always ask how expensive the printer is to operate. The truth of the matter is that we don't really use them long enough during the course of a review to make that determination. You should be aware that all inkjet printers can be quite costly to use, the ink cartridges and paper costs can add up quickly if you do a lot of printing. The HP 8750 uses three, tricolor ink cartridges which means that when any of those nine inks run out, an expensive cartridge must be replaced. The good news - HP cartridges include the thermal head so any persistent clogging problems can be fixed by simply replacing a cartridge.

The one thing that I have come to realize about owning a wide carriage printer is that even though it may be nice to have the ability to print 13x19" pictures - how many of those are you ever going to print? Will you be able to justify the extra expense of the printer over its narrow carriage version? Remember that you can always send your images out to one of the online print services when you need a really big print made. That being said - I will always own a wide carriage printer whether I can justify it or not.

But then again, I'm not married :)