Review of the HP Officejet 7210xi All-in-One Multifunction Printer

So-called multifunction printers offer the ability to do more than just print. Some scan, fax, or have special photo printing capabilities. The HP Officejet 7210xi All-In-One is a multifunction printer from tech giant Hewlett-Packard. I received this printer from my parents as a gift a few years ago, and it is still running. Let me give you a little taste of what you can expect if you buy this machine.

To begin with, the machine can print in black and white and color. It can also scan and fax. It has slots that allow direct insertion of memory cards from a digital camera. You can print images directly from the cards. The unit is somewhat large, but not excessively so for a multifunction printer.

The printing speed is reasonable for an inkjet printer but certainly not what one would call fast. A simple, typewritten document will print in approximately 5 seconds, while documents that contain graphics or pictures will run you longer, depending on the complexity of the images.

With photo paper, you can print photos using this printer, but they take a while to print. Thirty seconds to a minute is about average for printing a photo that covers an entire piece of photo paper. The image quality is fair, but the colors can tend to look a bit washed-out. Black and white images are pretty good.

The printer is quite loud and shakes considerably when printing. I have it perched on a small table designed to accommodate computer printers, and anything small sitting on the table next to printer will tend to fly off.

The paper loads pretty well, and I have never had any significant trouble with paper jams. The scanning and faxing ability of the machine are decent, and scanned images look pretty close to the originals. Faxing goes quickly, and I've never had any trouble with this feature.

The ink cartridges for the 7210xi don't come cheap and run out quickly. A single HP black ink cartridge runs $24 at OfficeMax, and a color cartridge will cost you $40. I don't print on a regular basis, but I would estimate that the black ink cartridge might print around 400 pages, even though the box claims it can print around 480. The color cartridge claims to print 580 pages worth, but I've never come anywhere near that amount.

With the color cartridge, items that require blue and red drain the cartridge quickly, forcing you to get another cartridge when either one of those colors runs out. Because of this, I rarely print photos using this machine.

Another VERY annoying aspect of this printer is that it is extremely picky about what ink cartridges you use. If you do not use HP brand ink cartridges, you will run into problems. It will claim they are incompatible, out of ink, or simply not recognize that the cartridge is in the printer. This is a pain, because the HP inks are the costliest out there, and less expensive brands are simply not an option.

Finally, I have to mention the dreadful support that HP offers for its products. Having dealt with them in the past, I can truthfully say it is an abysmal experience that will make even the most patient soul curse the day that Hewlett and Packard ever decided to go into business together.

In conclusion, I would say that this printer is decent but not exceptional and suffers from the inability to use non-HP ink. It is also loud and shakes violently when printing. If you can find it at a bargain price and don't do a lot of printing(which will be very expensive given the price of the cartridges) you might consider it.