Home > Consumer Reviews > HP PhotoSmart 7260 Inkjet Printer (Q3005A)

I love this printer!
I purchased it two months ago and I have already printed out more than 700 photos on it.

Assembly: I found the assembly very easy. HP provides you with a simple set of instructions that make sense.

Photo transfer to computer: HP's sofware is user friendly. The transfer of photos is very fast.

Printing: HP provides you with a number of options-quick prints, different sizes, album pages-all of which work. The speed depends on your computer to a certain degree. Mine come relatively quickly.

Support: HP support is friendly and on top of everything. At one point, I was using the wrong type of paper and my photos were blurry. I called them, they identified the problem almost immediately, and they didn't call me stupid!

Quality: Everyone has commented on the high quality of my photos. I am a camera buff and I frame my photos from my trips around my home. I can't tell the difference between these photos and the finest labs.

I received this printer On October 7, 2004. Initial results on my photo quality labels was impressive. But it didn't last. Soon the printer had problems pulling the paper into the printer and then alignment on my labels was off. Yesterday I printed some checks on cheque paper and the printing was not well aligned, i.e. crooked. I hope to return this item.

After going through so many bad printers within a year (hp 3420 & 3320) I use this photo smart printer mainly for photos which does an exceptional job. However, if you are going to use the color ink and photo ink together, avoid printing any black and white documents, it will take forever and prints in an off-black color. For me this is minor, you would expect that if you don't use a black cartridge in most photo printers. I have seperate printer for document printing.

I also have this printer for over a year and so far no problems, it does not "gulp" ink or give me much paper jams. You will be satisfied for the price you pay, reasonable fast borderless printing with professional quality and great card reader features. I highly recommend.

The Photosmart 7260 is a fabulous printer when it comes to print quality. When using the correct paper (I use the HP Premium Plus) you can get true photograph quality prints from your digital images. I really couldn't ask for better quality from that standpoint. The downside: I managed to get about 150 photos out of this printer before it decided to break on me. The mechanical gearing inside is loud and now gives me the most of my troubles. Often, the cartridges get stuck/jammed and a reset is required. Most recently, the printer color has gone bad and the printer prints images much more red than they should be and I have not been able to fix this even with the help of HP. The price is right, but with the troubles I've had over a year of ownership, I would consider other printers before this one.

I had a problem with the paper jamming on me also, until I realized it was a user malfunction, not the printer's fault. Now I have no problems with the printer at all. I haven't used it that much so far, but it does very well when I do use it.

If I was a company selling products like this I would get very frustrated at simple, impatient consumers blaming their problems on the product when a lot of the times it is simply user error.

Also, if one looks at the specs for this printer you would see it is not meant for heavy use. Says 1000 pages per month. We also have a 5550, not a photo printer as it has no memory card slots, but prints faster at the same resolution and is meant to be used up to 5000 pages per month.

The photosmart 7260 is a much quieter printer, and jerks around much less also. So far I'm happy with it. HP printers print heads are built into the ink cartridges, so if you have a problem with the print head you just have to replace the cartridge. I believe HP is the only brand that can make that claim, which may very well save you some money in the long run also.