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Entered CNET Catalog: 08/14/2002
SKU: C8947C#A2L
Manufacturer: HP
Manufacturer description
With the right features at the right price, the HP Deskjet 3420 color inkjet printer is perfect for your dorm or family. It offers photo-quality results with up to 2400 color dpi (on premium photo papers) from included black and tri-color cartridges. Get up to 10 pages per minute true black text and 8 pages per minute in color. Its compact design saves valuable space.Product summary
The good: Speedy for a budget printer; creates attractive text printouts, simple and easy to set up; compact design.
The bad: So-so graphic and photo output quality; comparatively high ink costs.
The bottom line: The HP Deskjet 3420 is a compact, versatile printer that's also affordable, fast, and silent. It's great for everyday printing.
CNET editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 12/11/2002
The printer connects to your PC via a USB port. Like most other printers, however, the 3420 doesn't include a USB cable, so you'll have to pick one up at your local computer supplier.
 Compact and looks like a neck roll. |
 USB port for PC connection. |
Setting up the 3420 is extremely easy with Windows PCs (Windows 98, Me, 2000, and XP). Just pop the included CD into CD-ROM drive, and a program will automatically walk you through the whole process, from turning on the printer to inking the first page. If you have any trouble, consult the included setup poster or manual. The software CD includes Mac drivers, but the printer works with OS 9.x or later.
Though lightweight and simple, the 3420 can perform most of the tasks that more sophisticated inkjet printers can. It supports resolutions up to 2,400x1,200dpi for photos and 600x600dpi for text. It also prints envelopes and any standard-sized paper, including A4 and smaller.
The 3420's printhead uses two ink tanks: black (tank number 27) and color (tank number 28), which contains the standard cyan, magenta, and yellow inks. To enhance your output, the 3420 automatically employs HP's PhotoREt III, a technology that delivers up to 29 drops of ink to each pixel, providing as many as 3,500 different colors per dot. However, with only 768K of built-in RAM, the printer's spooling (the process of loading the document into the printer's memory) is slow; if you print a big load, your system may freeze for a few seconds.
 Standard two-ink system. |
 No separate tray for printouts. |
The 3420's intake tray can hold up to 100 sheets of plain paper, but there's no separate tray for the finished product. Instead, the sheets come out on top of the intake tray, where a thin cover, which serves as an output tray, prevents it from falling directly onto the blank paper. We found it was not wise to print a lot of pages without removing previously printed material from the output tray, as paper jams might occur.
Otherwise, this no-frills printer travels light. You'll neither get the HP Imaging software that ships with more expensive printers, nor will you find slots for printing from digital media cards. Still, we think budget-conscious consumers may be willing to sacrifice a few goodies to get such an inexpensive machine.
The 3420 is a speedy text performer. In CNET Labs' tests, it scored almost 5 pages per minutes. However, with more-demanding jobs, such as printing high-quality photos, the printer did not impress us much. It took more than 4 minutes to finish a 7x10 photo--an average score.
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 Ink costs add up in the long run. |
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Graphics and photos are a different story, however. Our jury rated the 3420 fair overall in these categories. Graphics printouts looked OK but light, grainy, and somewhat banded, while the photos appeared soft and reddish. However, considering the simplicity and the price of the printer, the results met our expectations.
Unfortunately, according to our Labs' calculations, the 3420's ink costs almost more than that of any of the other inkjets we've seen (including photo printers). Its black ink will run you about 11.5 cents per page of text and color ink about 56 cents per page of graphics. In contrast, the $350 Epson Stylus Photo 960 costs only 3 cents for black and 33 cents for color--prices we consider average.
| Inkjet printer text speed Pages per minute (longer bars indicate better performance) | ||||||||
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| Inkjet printer color photo speed Minutes to print a color photograph (shorter bars indicate better performance) | ||||||||
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Inkjet printer quality
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HP backs the 3420 with one-year standard warranty. If you have problems with your printer, you can reach phone help Monday through Friday, 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. PT. HP's toll-free, 24/7, automated phone menu understands speech quite well, so you can actually interact with it. Also, when we tried live phone support, we got hold of a capable technical assistant within a few minutes.
But before you resort to phone calls, study the included 19-page manual, which gives insightful instructions of the printer's usage and troubleshooting. Or head to the HP Web site for downloads and troubleshooting advice.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 User Rating: 
2/10
ok...for the five months that it lasted that is
Pros: good for printing word documents
Cons: you touch it, it breaks
User Rating: 2/10
Should of lasted longer
Pros: Small, compact, gets the job done, would of been a great little printer if it didn't break so soon. Was happy with it until it broke unexpectly
Cons: Broke in 15 months. UNACCEPTABLE..nothing should break that soon! Life span should of been at least 3 years!! It makes a very loud noise and it sounds like the plastic thing is going back and forth. I did everything the truobleshooting guide said, no avai
User Rating: 
7/10
The resolution is suprisingly good for a simple, desktop, ink-jet printer.
Pros: Great print quality, including resolution; lightweight, compact, low maintenance.
Cons: Slow print speed.
User Rating: 
1/10
2 years old and broken
Pros: Cheap and small
Cons: Flimsy. Not many features. Problems with the ink carriage that requires service. Not worth the price to send it in. Try an Epson.
User Rating: 
3/10
Dont buy this crap!
Pros: The value and the value/speed parameter.
Cons: This printer totally sucks! I used this for about 1 1/2 years. After this a little piece broke inside and the head couldn't move at all... Dont buy it, big crap!
User Rating: 2/10
Two broke within nine months - no support
Pros: cheap and fast while they worked
Cons: both printers broke their connection between the print head and drive cable in 8 months - HP has no online support
User Rating: 
8/10
Great Little Printer for small bucks
Pros: Easy install and works fast and documents look great.
Cons: Ink Cost. Small cartridges but for the amount of use they will not dry out like the biggies.
User Rating: 3/10
HP = Humiliation Proper Inc
Pros: None.
Cons: I bought this printer and broken few days ago. The same problem of our friend's customers :(
User Rating: 3/10
DON?T MAKE A MISTAKE! NEVER BUY THIS PRINTER!
Pros: Cheap, Simple, Comfortable, Very good printing quality.
Cons: Yes, it is small, comfortable and cheap, also easy to use and very good for all types of printing quality, BUT NEVER LASTS LONG. The Mechanical system brakes easily, right after a few weeks. Black ink goes out too soon. You can check them out on EBAY, wh
User Rating: 1/10
Avoid the roll-top at all costs!!!
Pros: It is small... Adequate picture and test.
Cons: We set up 8 of these over a couple of weeks for faculty. All 8 died within 2 months with the exact same failure. There is a tiny, weak little plastic clip that is all that attaches the ink carriage to the drive belt. This broke off in every case with n
User Rating: 2/10
Too basic
Pros: This printer is good for basic and occasional printing, has acceptional print quality, and has acceptional speed.
Cons: This printer has very small ink cartridges. (I can get the cartridges $10 cheaper than most cartridges but it is still a rip off) The drivers for it are real basic. (it won't even allow me to print in grayscale) The first time that the printer ran out
User Rating: 2/10
Don't waste your money on this piece of junk. Anything other printer would be better!
Pros:
Cons:
