HP Deskjet 6980 Color Printer (C8969AB1H)

Product Description

HP's Deskjet 6980 Color Printer is an affordable performance printer for office and home. Work the way you want to with Wi-Fi wireless and wired Ethernet printing and print sharing. Work more productively with breakthrough speeds up to 36 ppm black, up to 27 ppm color in Fast Draft mode. Print professional-quality color using HP Vivera Inks up to 4800 optimized dpi or optional 6-ink color. Convenient, direct photo printing without a PC from PictBridge-enabled cameras using printer's front USB port. Create standard and custom-size photos up to 8.5 x 24 inches with or without borders. Save time and use up to 50% less paper with optional auto two-sided printing accessory. Automatic paper type sensor and optional 250-sheet plain paper tray are other convenient paper handling features. Enhance and fix photos automatically with included HP Photosmart Premier software.

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 14.5 x 17.7 x 5.7 inches ; 14.1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 19 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000CO8786
• Item model number: Deskjet 6980
  

Technical Details

• Up to 4800 optimized dpi and Print Speeds up to 36 ppm black/27 ppm color
• Direct Photo Printing without a PC from PictBridge-enabled Cameras
• Wi-Fi Wireless Capability and Wired Ethernet Printing and Print Sharing
• Print Laser-Quality Black and True-to-Life Photos with HP Vivera Inks
• 14.04" lbs. (WxLxH) 17.70" x 14.50" x 5.70"

Customer Reviews

I've had this printer for about 6 months and its been great. I'm not very technical but I got a wireless router going in the house for a laptop that we move around. I assumed getting this printer to work on the wireless network would be a problem, but the setup went fine using a wireless laptop (running the HP setup CD) and the printer hard wired into my ethernet connection per the instructions (they include the cord to do this). Once it was all lined up, I simply unplugged the printer from the ethernet and it worked great wirelessly. We have it tucked into a cabinet where it's hidden and the wireless laptop prints to it without a problem. One time it wasn't working so I pulled it out and ran throught the set up again with it plugged into the wall and its run fine wirelessly ever since. The print quality seems great also, but all we have printed are web pages and a few word documents.

I couldn't tell you what to chalk it up to, but I had none of the installation woes of some of the other users of this or the previous wi-fi model, the Deskjet 6840. Maybe it's that I wasn't connecting it to a full wireless network/router per se? Using the setup for the ad hoc wi-fi connection between just my laptop (ThinkPad, if that's relevant) and the printer, the instructions in the included setup guide worked flawlessly (and as another user noted, I didn't even have to turn off the firewall). Installation took no longer than my CD drive copying the files from the driver disc.
Printing wirelessly is pretty handy; a little slower than a wired connection, but the difference is almost negligible, and a full 8x10 photo print didn't seem like it took more than a minute or two. Print quality's about par for the course for the cheaper HP printers these days (this being HP's low-priced wi-fi printer, I guess) - it doesn't WOW you exactly, but images are nice and crisp, comparing favorably to my old DeskJet 940, not too grainy at all. I do, however, shudder to think 1. how little ink must be in these tiny ink cartridges (Vivera 96 and 97) and 2. how much replacements of these tiny cartridges will probably cost.
One oddity I did encounter in installation, though, was registering for product support. It kept trying to point me to an HP URL that apparently isn't there, giving me an error a few times until it gave up trying to connect, and suggested I visit the HP support site and register manually. Other than that, though, I've encountered no problems, and gotten pretty much exactly what I wanted: a fairly inexpensive printer that I can print to wirelessly, printing text documents and the occasional 8x10 photo of reasonably sharp quality. Overall, I'd recommend it.
(Update 6/8/06)
It's still working pretty nicely, but I figured I should note that when I close my laptop having been wirelessly connected to the printer and later reopen the laptop without the printer present or turned on, it seems like one or two of the computer's background operations pertaining to the 6980 crash occasionally. It doesn't result remotely in any sort of system instability, and I usually can still print without any issues, but I wasn't able to today. Opening the hpqtra08.exe file in C:\Program Files\HP\Digital Imaging\bin seemed to fix it, though.
(Update 7/31/06)
Perhaps this printer isn't as good as I initially thought. In the intervening months, I've discovered many a little issue. If you use a laptop, and you open and close (hibernate) it with any regularity, the printer will just keep adding more and more memory-draining copies of the same two programs, and on multiple occasions, I've woken up to find that while I closed my laptop the previous night, it hasn't shut off due to a printer spooling program preventing it, regardless of whether or not the printer is even ON. To boot, many of the apparently vital background programs for the printer have a tendency to crash for no apparent reason. Beyond that, there have now been countless times where I've been in a rush to get something printed out (which is why I bought the printer in the first place: convenience in printing quickly from a laptop), and the print queue just hangs and hangs, never doing anything until I restart the print job (if I'm LUCKY). I'd really like to love this printer, but if I were shopping, I'd hold off. It seems like HP needs another couple of years to work the kinks out of their low-priced wi-fi printer models. Their software and drivers may be updated occasionally, but that hasn't solved any of the problems I've had yet. Cartridges are indeed small and pricey!
Oh, and just for reference, I'm using XP Home, ThinkPad T42 laptop, Intel wireless, used the ethernet cable for the intial connection.