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December 1996 Reviews This Month
By James E. Powell
Hewlett-Packard's latest $199 color printer, the DeskJet 400 (replacing the DeskJet 600 and 600C) is small in size, but not a good value.
The DeskJet 400 has a single print head. You insert a black ink cartridge to get good-looking 600x300-dot-per-inch text at about 3 pages per minute (draft mode) or 2ppm (letter quality mode). The color cartridge produces 300x300dpi images. The best results were achieved using HP's own Premium InkJet paper, but even then the color images looked washed out or grainy; sky blue came out as light purple and vibrant red was more like pink. If you're printing a black-only (text) document with the color cartridge loaded, the 400 warns you to switch cartridges, though this didn't work in all applications.
The fold-down front panel reveals the paper input tray with paper width guide. On the left is a paper-size selection lever (A4 or letter). The DeskJet 400 can handle transparencies and glossy paper, but the input tray holds only 50 sheets of regular paper. There is no output tray. To print envelopes, you must use the single-sheet feeder inconveniently located at the back of the printer.
The unit measures 6.96 by 13.7 by 6.43 inches, and it becomes 13.25 inches deep when the paper tray is folded down. It weighs 6.75 pounds. Its memory is also lightweight-there's only a 48KB input buffer.
The DeskJet 400's price is tempting, but print quality is only so-so, the rear manual feed is a headache, and cartridge-switching quickly becomes irritating. Our current Recommended List product-the Epson Stylus Color 500-or a higher-end DeskJet will overcome all these limitations.
-- Info File --
HP DeskJet 400
Price: $199
Pros: Price
Cons: Grainy colors; single ink cartridge; rear manual
feed
Platforms: 3X, 95
Hewlett-Packard Co.
800-752-0900, fax 800-333-1917
WinMag Box Score: 2.5
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