4800 dpi All-In-One: HP PSC 2110

The Printer

We were hoping for progress in the cartridges but were definitely in for a disappointment: the PSC 2110 costs as much to run as the PSC 950. If you print more than 10 pages a week, look elsewhere, ink for the PSC 2110 is far too cpst!

With the standard set of cartridges, text pages and combined documents (text plus illustrations) print as quickly in color as in monochrome. The characters are well-defined, blocks of color bright and even and the black very dark. On the other hand, photos tend to be reddish and, when viewed from less than 40 centimeters away, the drops of ink are visible. If you change the black cartridge for the so-called optional photo one (EU: 32.50 euros, US: $25) results are much better. The blue leaves something to be desired, but the dots have gone. Colors overall are also truer. So much so that it takes a trained eye to tell the difference between one of these prints and a professional lab one.

So there are many similarities with the deskjet 5550. But there is one big difference: the PSC 2110 does not have the paper type detector the printer has. You have to adjust the print settings yourself via the driver and that's a pity.

Even though the price of cartridges has dropped, the cost per page in standard resolution is as high as ever. The cartridge life expectancy has dropped at the same rate as the price. So these new rates which are supposed to be more attractive are by no means a giveaway, just a mathematical adjustment. The color cartridge only prints about 180 pages, where the PSC 950 did 220. Fewer pages = cheaper cartridge. That's all. Except we reckon that's not all. But as we already pointed out here , if you don't want to pay more than US$100 in ink per year, you'll have to print less than 10 pages per week. If you want to print more, then you'd better go for another model, such as the Canon SmartBase MPC400 / F30 .

With the costs per page measured, you can work out how much 3000 pages (purchase price + 1500 monochrome pages + 1500 color pages) comes to: $798 in the USA (before tax) and 946 euros in Europe (including tax). So the rates are very similar on both sides of the Atlantic. There are no favorites, we all pay the same price, far too high in our view. In comparison, printing with a PSC 2110 works out to be 40% more expensive than with the SmartBase MPC400 / F30.