HP Photosmart C7180 all-in-one user reviews

1.0 stars

"Probably the Worst HP Product Ever Released" on December 21, 2006 by rjh213

Pros: Can copy without having to have computer on.

Cons: Scan doesn't work over network; Can't print on some paper.

Summary: I can't believe HP released this product. First let me say I have been a big HP supporter for years. I have multiple HP printers in my family. Two kids off at college, Dell PC's but HP printers. Tremendous success with HP printers so never a reason to try any others. Likewise an HP scanner from quite a few years ago. It worked great, but it's starting to show its age now (bulb getting weak, I think). I decided to upgrade to an all-in-one that could scan negatives among its other features.

First problem I encountered was with the scans. As I saw in another review, scanning over the network is terrible. And I was just going across the room. Didn't HP engineers ever try it? Anything with a dark background has white spots all over it. HP personnel told me I had a bad unit so I had it replaced. Same problem. The copy function would take the same picture that scanned poorly and print a copy without the white spots, so it wasn't a problem with the picture or dirt on the scan glass. Also tried to scan some negatives and the quality of those was poor as well.

Another problem I just encountered is that I can't print CD labels on the special CD paper I have. The printer tells me either the paper is the wrong size or to put the paper back in with the printable side down, which I had already done. I tried multiple settings and had HP personnel on the phone telling me to set the paper type to automatic, then plain, then CD matte, then CD/DVD - they couldn't get it to work either. The printer is basically telling me I don't know what I'm doing and won't print on the CD label paper I have used for years that works fine with my old HP printer.

I also had trouble printing my Christmas letter this year. I had paper with a design on it. When I printed on the plain white side on the back, even with a colored picture, it printed fine and quickly. When I printed on the side with the design, with just text, it went so slow I couldn't believe it. About a page a minute. I think it sensed the design on the paper and went into a different print process. I got it to speed up by changing the paper type from "automatic" to "plain", AND, even though I was printing black text, I had to switch the option to say "use the black ink cartridge". I can't believe the printer wouldn't have been smart enough to do that on its own since I was printing plain, black, text. A couple of my Christmas letters had some color blotches that showed up where they shouldn't have, and the printer tray seems poorly designed - not easy access when you are doing special work like re-inserting paper to do the other side or removing the paper that is in there.

I am not impressed with the software. Very slow. Not very intuitive, and in some cases poorly written. For example, I ran the program called Document Viewer which sounded like it would display pictures. I went into the folder where my scanned pictures were, did a "select all" and then tried to figure out how to view them. Moving my mouse over some icons I found one that said "view selected document in full page mode". I selected it and it showed me one picture and said 1 of 1, but on the bottom it said 8 of 8, since I did "select all" on the previous page. There was no way to get to the next picture that I could find. The "next" and "back" arrows were not active. Well, I'll just cancel out of this display mode. No cancel. No exit. Once again moving my cursor around over the icons I finally found one that said "display thumbnails", and that was how to get back to where I was. Not a user friendly program at all.

This printer is a complete ripoff for the price. I am definitely returning it, since I am still in the time frame for returns to Best Buy where I got it. Even if the scans work OK connected via USB, you're paying money for the wireless option which then becomes a waste.

My choice now is to wait for the next HP all-in-one on the assumption they will have fixed all the problems they have with this one, or maybe just try a different model like a Canon or Epson. Or I may just go back to a separate scanner. This printer is like a "jack of all trades, master of none". I would not recommend this at all. Even though it does some things OK, you can get cheaper ones that will do what you want. This one is definitely not worth the money. HP should be embarrassed to have this printer on the market.