HP Photosmart 8250 Printer (Q3470A#ABA) | 
| Brand: Hewlett-Packard
List Price: $243.00
Buy New: $95.00
You Save: $148.00 (61%)
New (8) Used (2) from $52.99
Rating:  92 reviews
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Operating System: Apple MacOS X 10.2 or later
System Memory: 64
Modem: None
Shipping Weight (lbs): 30
Dimensions (in): 21 x 18.4 x 9.1
Warranty: 1 year warranty
MPN: Q3470A
Model: 8250
UPC: 829160882840
EAN: 0829160882840
ASIN: B000A6X9CU
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW FACTORY SEALED BOX, USB CABLE INCLUDED, UPC CODE INTACT. Fast and Reliable ground shipping with UPS. Sorry UPS does not deliver to PO BOX/APO/FPO. Ohio and Illinois customers will be required to pay sales tax.
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| Features:
| • | Up to 32 ppm black text, 31 ppm color text; 4x6 photo in as little as 14 seconds | | • | Individual 6-ink color with HP Vivera Inks; USB, PictBridge | | • | Photos with or without borders up to 8.5 by 24 inches, including fun panoramas | | • | Automated 4x6-inch tray for dedicated photo printing; optional auto two-sided printing | | • | Image display to view photos and videos, freeze your favorite scene and print |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Enjoy easy photo printing with the HP Photosmart 8250, the world's fastest photo printer. Easy to set up and use, it prints beautiful photos and laser-quality black text. Print a 4x6 photo in as fast as 14 seconds, or everyday documents at blazing speeds up to 32 ppm black text, up to 31 ppm color text. Six convenient individual ink tanks help avoid the hassle of running out of specific inks in the middle of a photo or page by letting you easily replace only the inks you need, when you need them. Easily preview, select, edit and print photos or video directly from memory cards using the 2.5-inch flip-up color image display or print photos directly from your PictBridge-enabled camera via front USB port. Print from notebooks, PDAs, camera phones and other wireless devices with optional Bluetooth adapter. Automatic photo tray is included. Also save valuable time and paper with optional auto two-sided printing.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 87 more reviews...
 A beautifully engineered printer for serious photographers March 2, 2006
Roger J. Buffington (Huntington Beach, CA United States)
72 out of 74 found this review helpful
This is an excellent printer for the serious photographer. The images are clear, sharp, and crisp, and professional in every way, at least to my amateur eye. I am a picky amateur photographer, and I bought this printer so that I could easily print 8x10, 5x7, and 4x6 photos from my several digital cameras. This printer does the job. This is a beautifully engineered and solid piece of equipment.
Some technical issues. Beware, when the ink first prints, it smears easily, so let it dry for a few minutes--it dries quickly enough. I am happy to say that the photo download from the card reader slot (I measured it on the CF card reader--I haven't tried it for my SD cards yet) is lightning fast, as compared to my older HP printers, I guess that is the USB 2.0 that this device features. This is a welcome improvement--earlier HP printers lagged behind even cheap card readers in speed. No more.
So far my print feeds have been flawless and jam-free. You can effortlessly switch between 4x6 and 8x10 prints, and the feeds are fine. (Haven't tried 5x7s yet, but I expect no problems.) When you first take the printer out of the box it will prompt you to put paper in the printer and let it test the ink cartridges. Beware--you need to install them first. This only takes a second, and these are the most foolproof printer cartridges I have ever seen, but the printer does not tell you that the cartridges are not yet installed, at least not until you try to run the diagnostic. No big deal; I installed them, and the printer calibrated itself perfectly!
The printer installed perfectly and effortlessly the very first time. Simply insert the supplied CD and follow the instructions. Remember not to insert the (not supplied!) USB2 cable into the computer until the software prompts you to do so.
It appears to me that some of the other reviewers (here on Amazon) of this printer made the same initial mistake I made. Specifically, here is the deal: this printer can detect what kind of paper you are feeding it (if it is HP paper anyway)--it detects it from a code on the back of the paper and it adjusts the ink application accordingly. Further, this printer is very precise as to how it applies ink to a given paper type. So if you try to manually tell it what kind of paper you are using, and if you guess wrong, you will get lousy pictures with the ink incorrectly applied. Once I figured out the rather amazing fact that this printer KNOWS what kind of paper it is printing on, I started getting wonderful pictures. (It literally never occurred to me that it could do this--I had to, you guessed it, read the manual to find this out). This is cool--you can insert different kinds of HP photo paper in the same stack, e.g. matte, glossy, etc. and expect to get perfect pictures without having to look in the printer to see what paper is next. Just tell it on the print menu to automatically select the paper type. I love the 21st century!
Personally, I think that HP has hit a home run with this one. While I cannot compare this one to its rivals from Epson or Canon (I have not reviewed these), I can say that I am completely satisfied. Recommended.
What did HP do? August 13, 2005
S. DiIorio Jr. (Baltimore, MD USA)
62 out of 77 found this review helpful
WOW! That is all I have to say about this printer. HP has finally shown that - once again - it will always lead the pack and make everyone else copy their technology. I just got this printer about a 4 days ago, and the speed and quality of the prints are faster and just as close as my i9900. The first thing that allured me was the ink and printhead being seperated - which allows for a more continuous flow of the ink - which by the way seems like it never runs out. There is a new closed tank system where the ink is recycled when it is used during maitenance procedures!!! Great plus! Also the printhead has 3900 nozzles which makes this puppy push out photos faster than some of my other pro photo takers have ever seen. I love this printer and suggest for anyone into photography from casual printers to serious ones (that can take the limit of 8.5" x 24) to go get this printer. For around the $200 price range and only $34.99 to replace the ink and get paper!!! IT IS THE BEST DEAL AVAILABLE! HP you have once again won me over. Keep the creativity flowing.
 Not too bad but has some issues September 3, 2005
Christina
38 out of 39 found this review helpful
First of all, another reviewer wrote about the HP inks being "sticky". I'm guessing this was stated because previously, they seemed to take longer to dry than Canon and Epson but I have always allowed for drying time, which has always been rather quick anyhow.
I frame some of my HP prints under glass as well as in the albums with the plastic pages and I want to say that they absolutely do not stick! I have never had sticking or any moisture problem with any HP prints. I have numerous prints that have been stored in an open box that got shoved into our hot attic for a period of 3 years under humid conditions and my prints are in great shape. NO moisture, sticking together or any other problem.
I have been using HP printers for more than 10 years and began using their photo printers as they came on the market. As another reviewer mentioned, I too use office depot glossy and matte photo papers as well as a premium glossy paper by JetPrintPhoto and these are wonderful papers. Some papers require extra drying time while others dry faster.
I have used Kodak and Fuji papers with wonderful results as well as many other papers, even Canon. One does need to go into "printer options" and select the correct or most compatible paper settings for the paper you are using. You can select other options as well if you like to enhance your photos with numerous options to choose from.
Canon and Epson are known to oversaturate ink colors. This can be read about in highly professional reviews where they provide color charts, graphs, pictures, scans, and very detailed reviews. In those reviews, I read that HP inks are more true in color but that the human eye responds to oversaturated colors which maybe is in part why Canon and Epson users seem to dislike HP and the other way around. I prefer the HP colors.
For this photosmart 8250, if you play around and sample the various papers and different settings, this printer does do a nice job; but I had to go through 2 sets of inks and many kinds of paper to understand what works best with my printer, pictures expectations and the newer inks, etc..
I was finally able to print pictures which greatly reduced dpi issues in skintone but I wasted so much ink and paper getting there.
This printer produced stunning photographs of art reproductions but lesser quality when printing humans and then suddenly the results greatly improved when using JetPrint premium photo paper.
I don't know if HP copied any of Epson's technology as one reviewer claimed about HP's permanent printheads but at least I never had to buy a new printhead for any of my previous HP printers since they were already in the HP ink cartridges - therefore you got a new head with every ink change. For this newest printer, even if they did "copy", I don't care. I understand this is commonplace in business.
Also, HP is not just a printer industry.
I think the worst part about the HP8250 is the picoliters. They should be improved for better dpi. This is a wonderful printer otherwise.
Excellent Printer November 7, 2005
MT (Michigan)
24 out of 24 found this review helpful
I bought this printer a few weeks ago, and I have been delighted with the results thus far. I use the printer for some document printing, but primarily for photos. Some of the pros are: built-in image editing, support for most digital camera memory cards, USB 2.0, and individual ink cartridges.
I have to disagree with some of the issues presented by other reviewers. With regards to the "dpi issue", I too noticed the dots in some of the photos, but only when I held the photos extremely close (less than 6") to my eyes. No one looking at the photos would hold them that close, and I don't think the dots are noticeable under normal viewing conditions. Some of the other reviewers also spoke about inaccurate color rendering. I had some color issues as well when I first started using the printer, but after tweaking some of the settings, my printed colors are a dead-on match with my monitor colors. Proper color management is absolutely critical to getting accurate colors regardless of what printer you have. Whether you're working in the sRGB or AdobeRGB colorspace, this involves correctly calibrating your monitor, and correctly setting up color management in your photo editing software (I use Photoshop CS2) and printer.
The only gripe I have about the printer is that it would be nice to have larger ink-cartridges, and make them transparent so that a visual check could be done against the built in ink sensor.
 I am mad that I spent my hard earned money August 26, 2005
PaGal (Erie, PA)
20 out of 30 found this review helpful
The color is very good but my pictures are clouded and lack depth. Something is different in the cartridge ink colors - they are not as bold and this greatly reduces quality. Not a strong black ink?
My pictures come out awfully grainy and faded-looking. My camera is 6 megapixels and my older photosmart 3755 prints more impressive results than this newer model. That is the bottom line for me so I expected at least that quality or better.
This printer is fun to use and operates like a charm. It has super cool features but is not good for pictures yet is a photo printer. I got it b/c I wanted a printer for pictures only but that isn't going to happen.
The pictures are just okay but not lab quality. I do like the advanced paper but no matter what papar I use (and I have tried many) My prints do not have impressive results but I can see somewhat better results when I use the highest settings - which uses the most ink!
According to numerous Canon and Epson reps, their customers like to put their prints in water but I have not found a reason to do this. I store mine under glass or in albums and never hold them with wet hands or spit on them just so I can hope to smudge the ink...so the new paper is not that big of a deal for me! Perhaps this new paper will appeal to the Canon and Epson wet-users and, of course, the large salivary glanded people.
I can take it or leave it. It does have a nice gloss and feel to it so that part is nice. Smudge from wet ink has not been an issue for me but I HAVE had that happen a time or two and learned to let my pictures dry a tad longer. There is where the advanced paper certainly is nice.
I'm sure smudge-proof paper is a great idea for many people but I had to get my Canon & Epson digs in since they ALWAYS do on HP. See, I like HP, just not the way THIS model puts out pictures.
I will have to reload my old printer when I take this one back so perhaps the advanced paper will work with that printer but if it doesn't, I'll STILL have nice pictures from that printer.
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