HP Photosmart 385 Compact Photo Printer (Q6387A#ABA)

CONCLUSION: Although long discontinued, this is still an excellent photo printer with just a few minor quibbles.

PROS:
-Excellent overall print quality
-Outstanding B&W print quality (thanks to a dedicated gray photo cartridge)
-Cheap ink and paper when bought together
-Supports advnaced color adjustments
-Ink carts hold more than the #110 cartridge used in the current Axxx series printers
-Printed manual
-Easy to set up
-Usually quiet
-Wide variety of printing options (sizes, papers, card slots vs. PC, etc.)

CONS:
-Prints have no water resistance whatsoever
-Slow print speeds
-HP Digital imaging monitor crashes the printer
-Printer sometimes "squeaks" when ink moves back and forth
-Very low-quality LCD screen
-Sluggish on-printer controls
-No 5x7 support!

A few years ago, I purchased a brand-new HP Photosmart 385 "GoGo" photo printer from Amazon. It had already been discontinued, so it was purchased through a seller who was selling on Amazon. The printer had never been opened, although the included ink cart was expired. No big deal. I got this printer instead of the newer Photosmart Axxx series for 3 reasons: it was cheaper, it supported the #100 gray photo cartridge, and the standard #95 and #97 color ink cartridges held more ink than the #110 that the Axxx series uses (95=7ml; 97=14ml; 110=5ml)

EASE OF SETUP: Setting up this printer was quick, painless and easy to follow. The drivers actually installed without issues (a rarity for most HP print drivers these days). Changing/aligning the ink cartridge is easy, as long as you have plain index cards (so you don't waste photo paper). One thing that surprised me was the inclusion of a full-featured, printed instruction manual. Usually, this is included as a PDF on the driver CD. Having a printed manual is a rarity these days, but certainly nice.

EASE OF USE: The interface on the printer itself is logically laid out and easy to follow. This only got 3 stars was because first of all, the printer's interface is SLOW. It takes at least 0.5 seconds for the printer to respond to a button press. Secondly, the print drivers are VERY bloated, and newer versions of HP digital imaging monitor have actually caused this printer to CRASH!! (I get a yellow screen on the printer's LCD, which shows a power symbol and "881AA0DA"). If I close Digital Imaging Monitor, the printer works perfectly!

FEATURES: This printer has features that will keep both snapshooters and advanced photographers happy. There are multiple memory card slots, a front USB port (for pictBridge and USB drives), and a rear USB port (for connecting to a PC). The card slots can be used with or without a PC (this printer doubles as a memory card reader!) The printer features some very basic editing controls if you don't have a PC (red eye removal, crop, etc.) There's a tiltable 2" (or 2.5"?) color LCD, but it's *VERY* low in resolution and quality, which makes every picture look very bad on it. The printer can make prints that are up to 4" wide (no 5x7 prints, sorry). 3x5, 4x6, 4x8, and even 4x12 prints can be made with this printer (and any size in between, I'm sure). The printer can even run on a rechargeable battery, but at $60-$70 dollars, it's awfully expensive.

NOISE: This printer is usually *very* quiet. This would be one of the quietest printers I've used, were it not for a low pitched "squeak" that the print cartridge makes as it moves back and forth. The squeak comes and goes, but it seems worse if the LCD is in the up position. When not squeaking the print cartridge is very quiet, and the paper feed is only slightly louder. Overall, it's much quieter than Dye-Sublimation printers, even when it's squeaking.

PRINT QUALITY: At first, I was concerned with all the negative reviews this printer gets regarding print quality. I am happy to tell you that the print quality very much exceeded my expectations--I didn't think a single tri-color cartridge could do so well! If you have sharp eyes like me, you will be able to see some grain up-close, but most people wouldn't be able to tell anything. The colors are very good, and blacks truly are black (using HP Premium or Premium Plus paper), which is impressive, considering that blacks are really just composite blacks. All the people I know were thoroughly impressed with the prints I showed them. Of course, it's not as good as my dad's Canon i960 or Pixma Pro9000 (better grain and clarity), but those printers have 6 and 8 inks, respectively, compared to the 385's 3 inks. Plus, I've never had color management issues once my monitor and printer were both set to sRGB.

One of the reasons I got this printer over the newer Photosmart Axxx series printers is because the 385 supports the #100 tri-gray cartridge. Instead of cyan-magenta-yellow, the 100 uses dark gray, medium gray, and light gray. This makes the 385 ideal for Black-and-White photos. (I haven't tried printing B&W prints with the 95 or 97 carts). B&W prints come out with lots of contrast, but may be a bit too dark and contrasty for some people. Thankfully, the print drivers provide lots of adjustment sliders to tweak the print output.

This printer is picky about what paper it likes. It seems to do best quality-wise with HP Premium or Premium Photo Paper. With HP Advanced Photo Paper, the blacks and dark shadows show up as dark grays, and the overall color/contrast isn't as good. The only other paper I tried was Canon's Photo Paper Pro, but the 385 refused to feed it (it kept slipping on the paper). I've heard of this printer having problems with paper jamming, but aside from the Canon paper, I've never had this printer jam once since I've owned it (3-4 years now!)

While I honestly can't measure fade resistance, the 385 supposedly has the best fade resistance in its class, which is another reason why I bought it.

The main problem quality-wise is water resistance, or lack thereof. You get any water on a print, and into the trash it goes. It'll leave a smear where the water was. Heck, even oily hands can cause problems with the prints! (especially if the prints have just come out of the printer). While you can handle the prints after they've printed, they'll feel wet a gummy for a few hours. As long as you don't get them wet, you should be fine.

PRINT SPEED: This is one area that could use improvement. A 4x6 on "best" quality takes exactly 1 minute and 39 seconds when printing from a PC (it's slightly slower when printing from a card). When you're printing a large batch of photos, this can be rather annoying. "Normal" quality brings it down to 60 seconds, but the quality suffers. "Max DPI" takes over 2 minutes and makes absolutely no difference in the quality over "best".

OTHER THOUGHTS: The ink and paper is pricey if purchased separately, but thankfully HP offers "Photo Value Packs" of 100 or 200 sheets + ink, which is a *MUCH* better deal. The 100-sheet pack equates to 29 cents/print (though I think it's gone to 32 cents/print now), and the 200-sheet pack equates to 24 cents/print. That said, the fact that you can even buy the ink and paper separately in the first place is very unique for a printer in this class, and certainly adds flexibility to what you can print (at a pretty significant cost, however).

This Photo Printer has not yet been delivered to me. I have tried tracking it and was told that it is in transit. The expected date of arrival was 09/02/2009. It is now 09/12/2009 and it still is not here. I cannot rate it if I do not receive it. I will not order from this place again.

Excellent loking; fun to use; intuitive interface.

Great gift for that loved one, even the computer illiterate.

I was pleasantly surprised by the high quality of the pictures printed by this small printer. It's compact so it doesn't take up much desk space and it's even easier to take on a trip. Overall it's an excellent printer. Another point is that the printer cartridges are reasonably priced for an HP. The only con is that isn't doesn't print 5x7's. I was very disappointed in that aspect.

This is a very good printer for the type it is. I have now seen a Thermal Film Transfer Printer which gives more of a 'developed' look but has lower Picture Quality. Prints from this printer seem to have uneven drying of the ink, which is sometimes distracting if looking at the photo from different angles. This 'problem' is easily corrected by framing the photo or putting it in a book with a gloss sheet over it.