My wife wanted an easy to use ink jet printer at our summer house in Tucson for printing photos and maps. So she bought an HP 6980 printer a couple years ago from a big box retailer. What an awful experience it has been once again to own an HP consumer product. This is the sad tale of a once great company.
Ink cartridges for the HP printer are expensive and in our experience print only a couple hundred pages at most before the blinking LED demands you go out and boost HP's earnings statement by purchasing more expensive "razor blades" for the unit. If the color cartridge is empty, the unit refuses to print anything, even a purely black and white page. I strongly suspect this is by design and have read comments by other users online with similar experiences. Google; "HP6980 ink lights blinking broken spring". Due to a design flaw in the printer it will stop being able to use any ink cartridge because a super cheap manufacturing method breaks inside (a plastic tab holding a spring against the cartridge). Even thought this is a known design flaw, HP customers are told to pay for servicing the unit at an authorized repair site, at a cost far more than a new printer.
Back-in-the-day HP lab instruments were of very high quality. I know, I used them for 30+ years designing digital electronics circuits. However, since CEO Carly ran the company into the ground in a short term campaign to boost the price of her vested stock options, the company has developed a reputation for pushing the cheapest and worst junk into the consumer marketplace. In my experience, their software drivers are the most bloated and buggy of the industry, and that is saying something. Thank goodness the lab instruments division was spun-off several years ago.
READ the online postings of REAL HP printer customers, not the fake postings of the HP public relations department. It is a given that some customers genuinely have a good experience with the product. You have to ask yourself "Do I feel lucky?". Buyer beware. Very sad.
(94 customers reviews)
Customers Rating=4.0 / 5.0
More Detail For HP Deskjet 6980 Color Printer C8969A B1H
- Up to 4800 optimized dpi and Print Speeds up to 36 ppm black/27 ppm color
- Direct Photo Printing without a PC from PictBridge-enabled Cameras
- Wi-Fi Wireless Capability and Wired Ethernet Printing and Print Sharing
- Print Laser-Quality Black and True-to-Life Photos with HP Vivera Inks
- 14.04" lbs. (WxLxH) 17.70" x 14.50" x 5.70"
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