Printing

I have used HP printers for many years now and never had any trouble. When we recently bought the 990C model the main requirements were performance, photo quality, price and running costs.

I also considered the Epson Series of printers, but although they may be slightly better quality print on plain paper, the print head is permanently built into the printer. When the head fails and it will, it costs about as much as the printer purchase price to replace. In the HP machines the print heads are built into the cartridges and therefore you get a new head with every cartridge.

I have noticed a big difference in speed between USB connection and the old parallel connection.

I was really impressed with the print quality especially on the photo glossy paper. I used to do a lot of photography and color printing in the darkroom in the past, and although I have seen nothing today that will match that quality this comes quite close and is acceptable expect for the most demanding printer that may be entering print competitions.