( 1 reviews )
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( 0 of 2 found this review helpful ) Posted: Nov 27 2006
I don't own this printer, but I saw it in action at an HP Winter Conference (Nov 2006). HP people were printing poster sized pictures (18x24 inches) that turned out really nice. I imagine the resolution of the source digital photos were quite high; when I look at the picture they printed for me, I could not see the "dots" -- it really looked nice (HP's web site says it prints color at: 2400 x 1200 dpi). These were not just "demo" pictures, as some people had brought pictures in on USB Memory Sticks so that the pictures that would be printed at this event would be specific to those of us attending (it was held in South Eastern Wisconsin, so they had photo's of the Badger Football team, etc. For this application, the paper they had was on a roll, stored on the back of the unit, and the paper then fed into the printer and out the front. When the photo was done printing, the paper was then cut from the roll. I don't know if this was manually done, or a feature of the printer, but it was a nice cut, not a tear (I've read that the cut is automatic, but I didn't see how that happened). I was "told" by the HP people that one of these full sized pictures might run about $8 to print. $2 was for the ink, $6 for the paper (NOTE - I might have those numbers reversed, but for a full sized glossy photo that looked really nice, $8 didn't sound that bad). The ink was stored up front in the unit, and each was fed to the print-head using plastic tubes. So, the ink does not travel on the print head like most smaller ink-jet printers. I got the impression that the ink was not their newest "generation" stuff, but none the less, it looked really nice. HP's web site says it uses: HP Vivera fade-resistant dye-based inks. We were told not to roll the poster sized prints for a few minutes so that the ink could fully dry. Makes sense...as that was a lot of ink. I didn't time it, but it felt like a few minutes (rough estimate, 5 minutes?) to print the poster. This printer comes in 3 variations, Q6656A, Q6656B, or Q6656C. You should do some research to learn which is right for you, and what the differences are. I believe the 90r (Q6656B) has the roll feeder, whereas the Q6656A only has an input tray, and the Q6656C comes with the roll feeder and some other software for calibration, etc). See HP's web site or an HP technician for more details.
