HP Officejet 7210

I have owned two of these machines in the last year so I'd like to comment on them. When the first one arrived, we had installation problems. Even a "normal" install takes approx 30 minutes. Every time I installed the software, the scanner wouldn't work. Eventually I used the HP telephone helpline which involved some surprisingly lengthy ( but free) phone calls to a call center in India. After no less than seven (7) attempts to install the software, suddenly everything started working correctly but we never did get to the bottom of the original problem. The software supplied DOES seem huge though, and bloated.

After approx 4 months of use, I had changed an ink cartridge and started getting "cartridge not recognised" messages. It transpired that there is a flimsy wire clip which holds the ink cartridge in place. It's really poor. This wire had punctured a hole in the ribbon cable for the ink head, making the printer unusable. I was also interested to discover that HP do NOT attempt to repair these printers in any way.

The printer was replaced under warranty and they didn't even bother asking for the first one back. Shows how much money they make out of print cartridges.

The second printer lasted approx. 3 months before it started acting up. This time it was "ink cartridge jammed" which allegedly was the problem. A quick search of the internet revealed that this is a very very common problem with the 7210 and HP have no real remedy for it, apart from of course, reinstalling your software, re-setting the printer etc etc. None of this made any difference and the printer remains unusable. I'd have to say that HP provided little support for this particular problem.

I now have an Epson printer and will never again buy an HP product. If you ARE considering buying one of these, I urge you to do a search on all the many problems people have experienced FIRST. I wish I had.