INK & TONER
HP DeskJet 3740 Review
 
Editor's Review
HP DeskJet 3740 by Geoff Coldiron 08/24/2010 OVERVIEW: The HP DeskJet 3740 is designed to be one of the most affordable and economical color ink jet printers on the market today. Carrying one of the smallest price tags and having some of the most convenient, easy to use features, and with a one year limited warranty and excellent technical support, the HP DeskJet 3740 is ideally suited to the needs of students and home users who are on a budget. A six color printing system provides stunning results when printing color images or photographs.
Editor's Pros & Cons
PROS: This sleek, bare-bones unit saves space with a small dimensional footprint and a design that allows input and output trays to be folded into the unit to conserve even more space when the printer is not in use. A print speed of 17 pages per minute can be achieved when printing in black and white at draft quality, which is at a respectable resolution of 300 x 300 dots per inch. This is ideal for printing homework assignments or letters to friends and family on the fly. The six color printing system offers impressive quality, producing sharp, crisp and clear color images and graphics, and can easily reproduce web browser content such as web pages and directions/maps. HP utilizes thermal ink jet technology with this model that yields better quality output results. Images and text documents are less likely to fade over time. The fold-out input tray holds a maximum of 80 sheets of paper, more than enough to handle basic home printing needs without the need to constantly reload. An output tray that holds a maximum of 50 sheets, which also folds out, provides up to 10 minutes of continuous printing without having to reload or remove sheets from the tray. Duplex printing is available through software tools and wizards, making it possible to print two-sided pages. A wide variety of media types are supported, such as plain paper, glossy photo paper, envelopes, cards, transparencies, labels and iron-on transfers. Standard and custom media sizes range from 3” x 5” photo to 8.5” x 14” legal size. The HP DeskJet 3740 comes equipped with USB connection capabilities, allowing for quick and convenient plug-and-play setup through HP's convenient software installation wizard that walks you through printer installation step-by-step. This printer can also be configured for printer sharing, making it easy for multiple computers on a home network to utilize this printer from anywhere in the house, whether they are connected to a wired or wireless network. HP's patented PhotoREt III technology provides enhanced print resolution that dramatically increases the quality of both photo ad text documents. CONS: Print speed is decreased to a small fraction of this printer's top speed when printing at the best quality setting for color or black and white, coming in at less than one page per minute at an output resolution of 1200 x 1200 dots per inch. Part of the bargain price tag includes less ink in the starter package. The HP DeskJet 3740 comes with one tri-color ink cartridge in the box that prints text documents in simulated black, utilizing all three ink colors at once. This is an inefficient and costly means to print text documents. The consumer is expected to purchase replacement toner cartridges early into the printer's duty cycle. The best photo quality print results require purchase of an additional tri-color cartridge with photo-quality, long lasting color ink that is exhausted rather quickly, increasing the cost per page significantly. The fold-out paper input tray can cause paper to be slightly bent in the middle, causing an unnatural paper curvature that can be inconvenient to deal with. The economically designed sheet feed system can easily cause paper to be skewed during feeding and can lead to paper jams and reduced print quality.
INK/TONER NEEDS:
The HP DeskJet 3740 comes with one tri-color ink cartridge with a maximum yield of 190 pages to get you started but is quickly consumed, requiring replacement within the first couple months of regular use. If this printer is used primarily for text document printing, a black ink cartridge can be purchased that has a maximum yield of 220 pages. The optional photo color cartridge only has a maximum yield of 140 pages. 
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