HP D7460 Photosmart Printer
See it at Amazon.com for $219.00Average Customer Rating
(3.5 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
Most Helpful First | Newest First
(5 out of 5)Perfect, fast prints everytime
I just got this printer today from Amazon and so far it has passed every test I have put it thorough.
First, I set it up through a wireless router and connected to my computers. Setting up the printer to the network is a breeze. You go into the touch screen and follow the prompts, select your network name and you are done.
Then I installed the software on the first of three computers. There was a problem at first of it not being able to find the computer on the network, but I realized my anti virus program was blocking access to it, so I disabled that and it found the printer and set it up. At first I couldn't get the printer to print, so I restarted my computer (it didn't prompt me to do that and it should have) and after that it worked. I printed a few test pictures and everything was great.
Then I got out my media card from my digital camera and printed a picture from that. I was able to see all the images very clearly and vividly on the touch screen and I adjusted the picture and cropped it, and it came out beautifully.
Next I set up the second computer and there was a small issue again with the firewalls and having to disable the anti virus program, but after that it restarted and worked. Another test print, this time a full page print came out nicely.
Lastly was the third computer which had a great deal of problems trying to install the software. An error message kept coming up after installing and reinstalling the program so I called tech support. Spent a whopping hour and twenty minutes on the phone with them, but got the problem fixed. This is the oldest of the three computers and the tech guy said some XP's have a problem with some of the drivers. What I eventually had to do was go into the control panel and install the printer manually without using the CD. Even though this took forever, I have noting but great things to say for HP's tech support. They even gave me a deal on ink cartridges, a whole set for $30 and 150 sheets of paper free. The ink runs about $50 for the set, and we all know how expensive photo paper is!
So then I did a few more test prints and checked the level of the inks, and they are still working fine. The picture quality is amazing when it is on `best' they are quality prints like what you get from photo machines and the ink dries in seconds. The printer doesn't take time at all to warm up, I had to unplug it several times while on the phone to tech support and each time it turned on and was ready to print right away. It is also very quiet when it prints, I was standing across the room and couldn't hear it. The speed of the printer is decent too, especially for documents.
The only thing that was annoying was that it took soooo long to install the software on the computers. And you have to keep on coming back and checking boxes, so you can't just walk away let it run. Also, I am not a fan of any of the programs it came with, the software runs extremely slow on all of the computers.
I am so happy I bought this printer; I was a little worried because I had not seen any reviews on it but decided to give it a chance anyway. I am very glad I did! The best feature by far is the wireless printing capabilities. I would recommend it to anyone who is in the market for a new printer.
**Update: I have had this printer for about 6 months now and I am still pretty happy with it, but there are a few things that I have noticed.
*Sometimes it wont connect to the router so it has to be restarted and warm up. This can take up to 5 minutes, and is VERY irritating when you are in a hurry.
*The pictures print dark sometimes and you have to adjust the color settings.
*All of the software that comes with it is HORRIBLE!! Sometimes when I turn on my computer, the install window will come up and it will say "please insert installation CD so your HP Photosmart can finish the installation." I either have to hit cancel about 10 times before it goes away or restart the computer when that doesn't work. Some of the software has to run all the time in order for the printer to be connected to the computer. If I want to open it to check the ink levels, or if I right click on it to close it, it makes my computer crash. I would really recommend installing the printer through control panel's add a printer. If you don't know how to do that, call HP for help (they are really helpful and nice) and ask them to walk you through it.
(3 out of 5)Update to: okay for everyday pictures - can produce excellent pictures
Since writing this review I have up graded my rating to 5.
After reading reviews I expected to get high quality color pictures. I have printed over 100 pictures with this printer and after comparing them to pictures printed at XXX-mart photo processing there was no comparison. Color quality and sharpness were observably inferior. Colors seem to have a brownish tint compared to crisp color of photos from XXX-mart. Along with the printer I purchased the best quality paper HP recommended for this printer, so the quality was not due to improper paper. I would suggest sampling the quality of prints before purchasing. The printer is very easy to use and the wireless feature is easy to set up and excellent for printing from my laptop. I love that feature. Just disappointed with the picture quality. I would say picures are ok for everyday, but, not suitable for framing.
I am updating an earlier review. I decided to try premium plus paper, HP's best photo paper. HP web site does not recommend this paper for this printer, but, I thought it was worth a shot. This change produced excellent crisp colors and the brownish haze produced by the advanced paper, which is the best quality HP recommends for this printer, was gone. I really like this printer now and rate it a 5, because it can produce quality pictures that are better than xxx-mart. Be sure to use premium plus paper for your best pictures.
(4 out of 5)Not Perfect but a Keeper - Use advanced options with caution
My need and experience with this product is limited to wired network connectivity with Windows XP, although the product has wireless network and USB capability. Photos printed were from a Canon 30D SLR camera.
General opinion--
After tweaking some settings in the printer properties, I am mostly satisfied for now with the photo printing results. Text printing looks great and photo printing better than most of my prior HP printers but still not as good as photo lab printing although I do have more control over how the results look than when using a lab. I think the photo printing is somewhat inferior to my old HP Photosmart 7550 printer before it broke, which is what this one is replacing.
Problems and solutions --
1. Used older HP Photo Plus Premium paper for photos. The printer did not detect this and printed as though on regular paper making the photo look extremely grainy. Solution was to create a printing shortcut in the printer properties specifying the paper type, size, etc. The shortcuts are more convenient than setting each parameter separately each time you print.
2. Even with the proper paper settings, the photos were still somewhat grainy and some had many horrible streaks running across them. When I selected preview in the printer properties, I noticed the streaks were in the preview. The solution was to turn off the Real Life Technology (RLT) in the printer properties. The RLT modifies the image after you send it to the printer in an attempt to improve its appearance. Depending on its setting it tries to improve focus, improve brightness, inprove contrast, increase sharpening, and increase color saturation. I had already adjusted the image to look good on the computer monitor. This additional adjustment pushed it over the edge, causing streaks, and trying to bring the otherwise (intentional) beautiful background blur into focus, which just made it grainy instead. Turning off the "RLT" in the printer properties for the same image fixed this problem in the preview and on the photo itself. You might want to use the RLT feature with caution if you purchase this product.
3. Even with RLT turned off, there were mild streaks and grain running orthoganal to the print direction near the leading edge of borderless print. HP FAQ on their web site suggests cleaning and if that does not work to simply print with a white border to avoid what they refer to as a defect. A brand new printer should not need cleaning but printing with a border fixed my problem, which was really not bad enough to be concerned about. It is just not quite as perfect as I would have liked or as I have had in the past.
4. Installation conflicted with my old HP Officejet 7310 printer resulting in a lockup. After a few hours of disconnecting printers and reinstalling old and new drivers, both printers are now working fine with the new software. Installation went very smoothly on pc's without these old drivers.
5. Photos appeared darker than on my computer monitor although my monitor had been calibrated by software for brightness, contrast, and color and also the monitor properly displays the photos without adjustment. I wanted to print photos straight from the camera using my pc without adjustment to the image. The solution was to use the handy customizable shortcuts in the printing properties color tab to increase brightness on photos only. After doing this, whether or not I modified the images on the pc, photos appear virtually identical on the print as they do on the computer monitor. It required about eight 4x6 test photo prints to obtain this calibration but the results are astounding. Once I make the picture look exactly the way I like on the computer monitor, I can now print with confidence that the printed photo will look the same. With these adjustments, most photos print at the proper brightness with no modifications by the pc. As mentioned above, this only works for me with "RLT" turned off. Only the brightness required adjustment. The color tones were spot-on with the monitor.
Overall, the printer is producing very good photos and page printing now that some of the advanced automatic features have been turned off and the brightness has been calibrated to the computer monitor.
(5 out of 5)Great Printer
Just bought this printer from Staples. I am using it with a 24" Intel iMac 2.4 ghz. Installation was a breeze! Followed the set up guide and within 20 minutes I was printing pics! Wirelessly!!
Word of caution: If you print pictures, use the highest resolution. The printer is fast at the lower res, but the pics are not as good. The best resolution will slow down the print, but the end result is Beautiful pictures. I printed several borderless 8.5 x 11 and could not be happier.
The 6 individual ink tanks are a real plus. If your looking for a great home printer for pics, I highly recommend this one
(1 out of 5)Good luck getting it to work, software flakey
I just bought this printer. I'm using it via wireless, and on 2 computers.
My first computer is a Vista (HP) machine. Install was no problem. However after 2 days of using it, I've notice the printer connects/disconnects all the time with no explanation, and as a result 50% of the print jobs never get processed. Pretty sad when an HP computer and HP printer don't work.
My other machine is an XP machine. When I installed it, the install failed to detect the printer. I supplied the IP address, and it then found it. Installation was fairly painful. The printer came up in "offline" mode so none of my print jobs were going through... I found this and fixed it, and cleared the queue. Similar to my first machine, the printer kept coming online and going offline, but one this machine, maybe 25% of the jobs went through. The paper selection in the driver was also kinda awkward to figure out. The driver and software was EXTREMELY slow.
To make it worse, my second machine was also hooked up to an HP 2840 printer. After giving up on the 7460, I went to scan on my 2840, and now my 2840 didn't work. The scan utility flat out wouldn't come up. I noticed pretty much everything on the 2840 was dead... couldn't scan, couldn't print, nothing.
I went to uninstall all the HP software and reinstall. Stupid 7460 installs alot of garbage. Each program requires a reboot... takes like 30 minutes to uninstall the software. I remove my 2840 and 7460, and install just the 7460 and this time don't install the optional garbage. Again, printer is extremely flakey.
HP really needs to work on their software. Its bloated and flaky. They should be embarrassed of what they put out. I'm a electrical engineer, and couldn't get this to work. I will probably have to return this printer and either buy a different brand, or stick to my non-networked printer.