Electronics For Everyone

Wirelessly print,1 copy, scan and access photos on Snapfish.com2 right from the large HP TouchSmart screen on this energy-saving all-in-one.

User Reviews about HP Photosmart Premium All-in-One Printer (CD055A#ABA)

I purchased this printer a couple of weeks ago, and have been very happy with it. It was easy to setup, easy to configure with my wireless network (Apple Time Capsule) and prints great quality pictures. I purchased this to replace an old photo scanner and old HP Photo printer that was really slow. This printer if fast and I really like the integrated photo tray. -- Easy to use printer

At 73 I needed help in setting up the printer. I would say it's performance is very good.I would recommend it as a best buy. -- A good buy

Ok. Let's start by saying that as far as print quality this printer beats most of them by far as far as an inkjet printer goes. When you have good glossy 4X6 photo paper for photos, I have NEVER had a printer yet that will print pictures without them turning out grainy or pixelated in some way. This printer beats all of that. Even if you try to print a low res picture that some software will warn you that it may be too low to print a good quality, this printer will will print it out in excellent quality. The printer seems to have some issues getting the paper to load and I at times have to re-load the paper in the photo tray in order for it to "see" or grab the paper. Other than that, it truly earns it's weight for the money as far as print quality goes.
Now, let's talk about the ink.....This is where, as with most HP printers and the like, the unit really becomes annoying and somewhat of a JOKE! I get so tired of these companies and what they put people through with their ink wars. It's not enough that the printer itself cost me over $200, but the fact that in order for it to perform the printing quality that it does, it sucks the ink dry like you wouldn't imagine. When I first installed the starter ink cartridges and only yielded about 30 pages on all colors, I thought to myself that these are just for starters until one can go out and afford more. Upon the initial puchase of this printer, my mother graciously helped me with the cost of the four 564 XL cartridges that, of course, are a bit more expensive than just the 564 standard cardridges but, she wanted me to be happy. I was until I noticed that the new full XL cartridges still only printed out about just over 100 pages. I was really upset at that point. Recently the salesmen at one of the office stores explained to me that it actually makes a difference as to what type of paper you buy as to how fast the ink is used. Never really thought about that before because of trying to save a buck these days, I have purchased the cheaper copy paper. I have since also adjusted the ink flow on the software end of things to as low as I can without suffering on the print quality. But, the pages still come out fairly damp as if the printer is stull using quite a bit of ink. I have had other inkjets that didn't leave the pages soaking with ink as this one does. The office salesman may not have been wrong but I am still going through ink like crazy and maybe only increased the output to about 130 pages until the ink runs dry. The XL cartridges theirselves boast what is supposed to be an impressive 700-800 pages per color cartridge. WOW. Is this if a person prints a small square picture in the middle of the page???? I want HP theirselves to tell me how they ever reached that type of throughput yield. I would be EXTREMELY happy with the printer if I even got close to that yield on the ink cartridges!!! Sadly, it doesn't! At least not for me.
If HP is planning on designing printers that they feel diserve a higher price tag, then at least make them ink friendly so the weary customer isn't constantly searching for money trying to afford the ink. Oh, and the great idea of going to seperate color cartridges instead of one cartridge with all 3 colors.....what a complete scam!! Granted, this enables the customer to just replace one color at a time as it goes out but on the money side of things, it also forces a customer to put out even more money for ink as they now have to buy 5 total cartridges instead of one and at a price of 7.99-9.99 for standard and $14-$17 or XL and if you times that by 5, especially for the XL, it turns out that a customer is still paying way much more than they would for a single cartridge that still yeilds about the same (if not less) page count as a single cartridge did. I am so frustrated by this at this point as I have owned this particular printer for about a year now. I am NOT by any means a new-b customer who has only had it for about a week or so and is leaving such a review as this one. I have owned many inkjet printers in my time, some being HP, and with all of them, been through the same frustrations with the ink. I have tried various refill kits which at times don't work because either you end up with globs of dried ink inside the printer that you have to eventually pull apart and clean, or the cartridges fail to print once refilled and you ending up waisting that ink without printing a single page. Upon trying again to refill the yellow cartridge last night, I waisted a few dollars worth of ink that for some reason absolutely would not go into the cartridge, rather squirting out all over (luckily) the paper towel I had down and all over my fingers staining them and most of that got rinsed down the sink. I might as well have taken a few dollars and wadded them up and threw them down my drain.
I recently, over this last Christmas, bought myself a fairly expensive Christmas present, a color laser printer, which after some tweaking on the color settings, am very pleased with the printing quality and also very pleased on the amount of pages I get per toner cartridge and recently learned of the ways to get more out of the toner cartridges after the printer displays that they are empty. And, NO, IT IS NOT AN HP LASER!!!
Has anyone else shared these same frustrations with ink and refill kits, or am I just a perfect idiot??? (I know I am opening myself up for that one!) -- I am beginning to hate HP or inkjet printers in general.