Hewlett Packard 2250tn InkJet Printer

We've been using a small fleet of these printers here for just under ten years. They have their niggles and problems like any piece of computer hardware, but we've kept with them because of overall reliability. They never pissed us off enough to move on and that's saying alot around here.

Our first cost us > $1k new in the spring of 2001. It's still running. We use them hard enough to spend $500 apeice on high end bulk ink systems as well (not the low end CIS systems available here on eBay, sadly-- those are asking for trouble as they circumvent the printer's pressurized ink feed system. I tried two and threw them away.)

Pros: They just keep working. No clogging, no complaints, they just chug right along and take care of themselves. Perfect compatability with Windows, Mac and Linux/UNIX. Some of the best output quality I've seen in a four-color printer. The built-in Postscript renderer provides much nicer results then pre-rendered pages.

Cons: They're slow. Draft mode is quite fast, but the decent output quality modes definitely are not. They're also big and ugly :-)

One person said the pickup rollers have trouble with some kinds of paper-- this is true, and was true when ours were new. Papers with a very smooth/hard polished bond surface may have pick-up issues in the top tray. The bottom tray doesn't seem to have the same problem.

These printers seem to have two major potential service problems:

The main logic boards in several production runs have a problem with the processor (BGA package) lifting itself partially off the main logic board due to repeated thermal flexing and marginal manufacturing tolerances. The symptoms: error 181, error 462, the printer randomly powering off, or occasional black lines/blocks or other hard glitches appearing in the printed output. The fix is to reseat the main processor chip with a heat gun (the way it was soldered to the board to begin with). This is the same problem and same fix as the infamous XBox360 'circle of death' flaw. We have fixed this problem in two of our own printers here without further problems.

Second problem is the horizontal encoder strip wears out and the sensor picks up debris worn off the strip and becomes too dirty to function (error 461 during 'Auto Align'). Solution is to replace the strip (they cost $5) and clean the sensor pickup. The strip itself will be damaged by both water and alcohol, so cleaning it isn't really an option.

We had one printer opened up for service turn out to have a blown cap in the PSU (the black skinny Rubicon(!) 270uF) but this does not seem to be a pattern. We checked all the other printer PSUs after finding this one blown cap and they were still solid after ten years of 24/7.

If you buy one of these and it gets through the diagnotic pages, color calibrate and auto-align, it's probably good to go almost forever. A new low-end color laser will kick this printer's butt all over the place. But you can't get a new color laser for $50 that will last as long and work out of the box with every OS made in the last ten years (if you find one, let me know!)

The Hewlett Packard 2250 Business InkJet Printer is one of the best Color Inkjet printers when it comes to cost per page (most of the Business Inkjets are in the same category). It produces very good quality prints. It has 4 Ink Tanks and 4 separate replaceable Printheads.

The Ink tanks (No 10 for Black, Nos 11 for Cyan, Magenta and Yellow) last a very long time under normal printing. They are typically around $35 each but you can find refills on web sites around $10 each.

The printheads are in the same price range ($35) although you can find them on EBay for a considerably lower price.

They are probably not the best printers for printing Color photographs, but they do a fair job.