From: kanefsky@halcyon.com (Steve Kanefsky)
Subject: Re: HP Deskwriter 550c
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 22:37:18 GMT

In article <2VesVB1w165w@netlink.cts.com> macdevil@netlink.cts.com (Leonard Cayetano) writes:
>Anyone have this and if so, how do you like it?  I looked at some printed 
>pages and it looks REALLY good.  


I had one and I just returned it.  It can be a great printer, depending on    
what your needs are.  If you need it for high-quality black-and-white
printing, and you don't really require color, it probably isn't the right  
choice.  The B&W output isn't as good as a laser printer (and there are
some laser printers in this price range, including one from Apple), and    
you have to be very careful about what paper you use or the output will
look really bad (even with the best paper, it's still not up to laser
quality, partly because of ink splatter which is independent of the paper).
Fortunately, the best paper need not be expensive, but sometimes you want
nice paper quality *and* nice print quality.  It's hard to find paper that
meets both these requirements.  I'm probably being too picky, but I just  
could not produce a printout that I would call "resume quality."

For color output, the 550C is pretty good (at least you won't find
anything better without spending a *lot* more), although once again paper
is very important.  In this case, however, cheap paper won't work.  The  
only paper that will produce a nice color print is HP's glossy paper (or 
equivalent), which lists for over $1/sheet (they include five free sheets  
with the printer, along with five free sheets of HP's transparency film  
and five free sheets of a non-glossy HP paper).  Color on normal paper 
tends to look pretty washed-out.  Also note that the color is not
continuous-tone, but rather created from separate dots of cyan, magenta,
and yellow ink.  This is analogous to the way in which B&W printers
simulate shades of grey by mixing black and white dots.  Some shades don't
come out that great because the individual dots become clearly visible.   

Other disadvantages to the Deskwriters are that there is no support for
A/UX (as far as I know) and HP recently stopped supporting label printing   
in Deskwriters, meaning that HP won't repair any damage related to 
printing labels under warranty.


Just to re-iterate what I said before:  If you understand the limitations
of the 550C (i.e. you don't mind less-than-ideal print quality, a limited
choice of papers (or very expensive paper for good color output), slow 
speed, no A/UX compatibility, and no officially-supported label printing),
then the 550C can be an good value for the money.  I made the mistake of
getting one when I really required better B&W print quality, I didn't   
really need color output, I would have liked faster prints, I may             
run A/UX in the future, and I would like to print labels.   


Currently, I'm trying to save up the difference between the 550C and the
Laserjet 4M.  The 4M has true 600dpi+resolution enhancement, 8ppm,
PostScript level 2, Appletalk (optional Ethertalk), 6MB RAM, much better
paper/envelope/transparency/label handling, etc.  Comparing the 550C     
output to the LJ4M output is like comparing Imagewriter I output to
standard 300dpi laser printer output (i.e. BIG difference).  It's not       
really fair to compare a $700 printer to a $1900 printer, but there is a      
common misconception that you don't pay a price in output quality when you  
buy an ink-jet printer.  It wasn't more than 3 seconds after I saw a page
of Laserjet 4M output before I decided to return the Deskwriter.  So, if
you want to buy a Deskwriter, make sure you don't look at the Laserjet :-)
  
--
Steve Kanefsky

Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware