Hewlett Packard Photosmart C6180 All-In-One InkJet Printer Review

My HP Photosmart C6180 died after only a year and a half (and after only printing/copying less than 5900 pages).

I have prior experience with both HP and Brother printers --- I have come to swear at HP for their  %^%$%&  products and customer service (aka, NONE) and have come to swear by Brother products.  I previously had a Brother laser printer that performed without fault ---- it got retired when my step-son took it off to college.  I replaced it with the HP OfficeJet K80 and then the HP Photosmart C6180 when we set up our wireless home network.  I wasn't all that happy with the OfficeJet K80 and considered another Brother printer before I purchased the HPC6180, but the footprints of the available Brother models all were too large for the space where I needed to place the printer.  I settled for the HPC6180 --- a mistake from the outset.

From the beginning, the HP6180c printed slowly (both black and color) and never scanned quite right without several attempts --- sometimes I had to settle for portions of the doc I was trying to scan.  Customer service "help" was non-existent.  Recently, I received the fatal "ink system" error message.  The first time this happened, the HP tech people did help me reset the manufacturer codes to, seemingly, correct the problem.  After 2-3 weeks of normal operation, I received a message that one of the color ink cartridges was low on ink.  I replaced it with a new HP Genuine ink cartridge and received the"low ink" message immediately again.  Turns out the printer was not properly sensing the color ink cartridge.  After three hours on the phone with tech support and numerous attempts to reset the printer's codes, the tech rep informs me the printer is experiencing a hardware malfunction and there's nothing more to be done except buy a new printer --- which HP will gladly sell me (same model, refurbished) for more than I orginally paid for the malfunctioning printer.  Moreover, if I don't buy a printer which uses the same ink cartridges as the HPC6180, I'm sorry-out-of-luck because HP will not accept returns of the ink I purchased from them if it was purchased more than 21 days earlier--- so I'm stuck with over $100 of back-up ink cartridges in the original HP packaging.  Further, the HPC6180 will not allow you to print black-only docs if one of the color cartrides is out of ink (or the cartridge is full and the printer just "thinks" it's out of ink).

I'll never buy another HP printer.  Instead, I purchased a Brother MFC-465CN.  It's footprint is smaller than the HPC6180, it prints and copies much faster (both black and color), it scans quickly and exactly what you intend to scan, it receives faxes like a charm --- overall, I'm delighted with the new printer.  The one drawback is that to print envelopes, you need to replace your letter-size paper with a stack of envelopes -- but that is done pretty easily and it prints the envelopes without jamming.  (The HPC6180 has a separate envelope insert chute, but that didn't prevent envelopes from jamming about 20% of the time,)

My counsel to you if you're thinking of buying an HP printer, think again and consider a comparable Brother product.