Hewlett Packard Deskjet 6980 InkJet Photo Printer

I wanted a replacement Inkjet printer which had to be fast, cost-effective on consumables, offered multiple connectivity options and was reasonable priced. I was very pleased to find all of the above in the HP 6980 Inkjet Photo printer. With its built-in wireless networking, this printer can be shared as the main color output device on my network of computers running various O/S. Your output is generally waiting for you by the time you walk over one room to pick it up!

The beauty of this printer is that it's a great size. Compact, easy to move around and set up. The best part about it is it's wireless.

A few months ago I set out to find the fastest, highest quality, with extremely good resolution photo quality printer. After gathering all the facts (on-line) and deciding upon the brand and model (HP Deskjet 6980) I set out to find the lowest price. I checked all the online stores, I could find, and then check eBay. Perhaps I should have saved the time and just went to eBay to start with, but be that what it may, of coarse the lowest prices could only be found on eBay. As far as buying new my thoughts were: I could buy new and take the chance of having component mortality problems or buy used and buy a component that someone else had proven. So I went with lower priced used. Now that's smart in my book. I was so satisfied that it only took a few offers to win a farely new printer I posted and won another for my wife.
Upon receiving and setting up I found what I had discovered from all of my research that indeed the HP Deskjet 6980 was indeed what I needed. It's fast, it has fantastic quality, and the print resolution is great, all for the lowest price. The standard wireless feature was a welcome but unneeded benefit, I do use them both wirelessly. All in all a fantastic purchase... Thankyou HP, Thankyou eBay, and Thankyou for the many responsible eBayers that make eBay a place were buyers like me can buy their hearts desire.

Perfect item. Works great. Item was just as decribed and recieved very quickly. Would use this ebayer again.

QUALITY !!! My son took this printer along back to college. He said it works great ! I got this brand new for about half the price that the stores charge. Thanks, AWB

Works great ... thanks for the fast service and quick response...Keep up the good work.. It does all I need for what the work I do ... and my families needs for our reports and jobs... perfect color or black and white copies and prints.

Before buying the 6980, I was considering going with an entry level color laser printer. However, after reading many reviews, the general consensus seemed to be that for the time being, a good quality ink jet is a better idea than a basic laser. Enter the HP 6980.

In terms of print quality, the 6980 is everything you should expect from HP. Black and white is very crisp, and the standard tri-color print cartridge produces great color pages and very respectable 4x6 photo prints. The advertised print speeds of 36ppm black and 27ppm color are likely in fast draft mode, but even in normal mode the speed of the printer was very fast, definitely leaps and bounds faster than my HP PSC1200 all-in-one.

The 6980 is also very aesthetically pleasing, and is more elegant than pictures can convey. I found its construction to be much better than previous HP printers I've owned, as the 6980 feels MUCH more solid than my all-in-one (which seems to be built entirely of thin, overly-flexible plastic).

What makes the 6980 incredible is its networking capability. Sure you can connect it via a standard USB port, but you can also take advantage of WiFi, ethernet or even Bluetooth (via a HP Bluetooth dongle). This allows the 6980 to fit nicely into pretty much any network, wired or wireless. I personally use the printer using WiFi and a wireless router. Note: the 6980 includes a standard RJ-45 network cable, but no USB cable (this thing was born to be networked :) If you plan to use it via USB, the USB cable will probably cost about $5, depending on the length you need. The HP setup manual includes detailed instructions regardless of what method you choose to use. I had the printer up and running on a Windows XP PC and MacBook running OSX in a little over 30 minutes, which included unpacking the printer!

Things I like:
- Price. For under $100 this printer is a steal.
- Incredible networking
- Great photos even without the special photo cartridge
- Solid feel, and good construction/design
- Packaged software works well on both PC and Mac, and does basic photo editing (red eye removal, image enhancement etc).

Things I dislike:
- The single photo/single envelope feeder is a little strange
- No USB cable included (to be fair most USB printers don't include the cable)
- Two-sided printing works perfectly on the PC (even tells you to flip over the pages) but it doesn't seem to work on the Mac.

This printer has been an absolute joy to own so far, and if you're considering getting one, I highly recommend it!