Home > Consumer Reviews > HP DeskJet 1220cse Printer

I'm an unabashedly big fan of HP inkjet printers. I have found their color management drivers, not to mention their ease of connectivity, to be completely conducive to excellent output. The quality is obviously superior to HP's chief injet rival, Epson.

This printer is no exception. Aside from the somewhat obscure color cartridges (my local suppliers don't stock a lot of them because they're only used in three other printers), I've found nothing to complain about in the two months I've been using it.

The printer is truly whisper silent, and it's massively faster than my old HP 890. I print on odd sizes of paper, so I love the fact that I can now do special jobs without having to go to a service bureau to make tabloid and larger sizes. The onboard memory is sufficiently large to allow me to dump really complicated graphical files without tying up my CPU. As an example, a full-color, legal-sized flyer with multiple graphical layers used to take something on the order of 12 minutes to send to the printer and print. Now it's a matter of 3-5 minutes. True, some the speed increase is that this printer connects through a USB port, but I suspect that even if I hooked it up with the parallel connection, there'd be a massive improvement in speed. At any rate, I used to sometimes crash my computer if I tried to do smething else while a complicated project was printing. Now, nothing I do outside of starting a 3-D game will shake my system.

I cannot recommend this machine enough. However, you should take a look at the 1220Cxi version, just in case you need the added PostScript flexibility.

I have owned quite a few printers, including Epsons, Ravens, Lexmark, and two Canons, but none of them come even close to the HP DeskJet 1220 C (Cse). Even my last Canon, a BJC-5100, which cost me quite a bit, couldn't compare to the solid performance that the 1220 delivers, and I suspect the HP will be around longer than the 10 months the 5100 lasted. After ten months the 5100 began ruining paper, leaving large bands of ink all over print jobs and even after a meticulous cleaning, it never returned to proper working status. My first experience with a 1220 Cse was at a restaurant that I worked at used it to redo their menus. Without complaint the 1220 Cse churned out 60 copies of the 8 page menu- with no flaws such as streaking. The only mistakes were ours and we had to print out another 480 pages with corrections-using the same ink cartridges. It can be hooked to your PC (or Mac) via either a serial or USB cable, (neither of which are included). After a quick software install and an alignment is done, the 1220 Cse is ready to go.

The 1220 Cse exceeded all of our expectations- both in the shear quality of print jobs, even in things like our menus which used a great deal of color in the images and text, but also with its flawless performance. Now that I have one of my own, I am delighted that it continues this trend in the home environment. It is a big printer, and it takes up a fair amount of desk space, but that is small price to pay for a gem of machine like this. It can do 2,400 x 1,200 dpi images with the right paper, and having seen that in action, I am even more convinced that this is perhaps the best small office/home printer ever made. It does everything my wife and I want- beautiful black and white text and stunning color. Plus, it is exceptionally well made- worth the extra money if you were perhaps thinking of getting a less expensive machine. That quality will go a long way to the machine's longevity. This, coupled with the fact that ink cartridges seem to last forever make it an excellent value.

I've had my printer for about 2 years. This printer does make good color prints, but I wish I had purchased an Epson, because the HP will not handle heavy card stock well at all. Using the rear manual paper feeder can be a nighmare. As in one of the previous reviews, I also ended up throwing away as much paper as I used. In order to get 65 invitations printed, I used 125 pieces of paper. That was a big disappointment. I've owned an Epson in the past, which does handle heavier papers with ease and I intend to go back to them.

The HP 1220C is a very good printer, good speed, excellent graphics with rich, vibrant colors. It's not as fast as my HP 2000C printer but I think the print quality is better, less banding. I just wish the 1220C had seperated color cartridges, but you can't have everthing. Overall, it's a very good performer with lots of nice features, i.e., the pull out area in the back of the printer for clearing paper jams. I have printed posters, digital photos, brochures, programs and have not been disappointed in its performance.

While the print quality is great, this printer is not economical. A person is likley to spend as much on HP ink cartridges each year as they do on the printer's purchase price. Further, this printer has an electronic glitch that renders it lifeless, apparently just about when the warranty expires. This means that you might expect to replace the printer every year (I have owned 2 and a colleague has gone through 1 as well). Therefore, if you use this printer to just half of its stated limits (like 2500 pages per month), you might need to discontinue annual contribtions to your IRA in order to fund this money hungry beast. I must find another solution. A good printer for casual users only.