HP Photosmart B8550 Compact 13x19" Photo Inkjet Printer with USB Interface, for Mac & Windows

HP Photosmart B8550 Photo Inkjet Printer, Mac/Windows

Adorama

HP Photosmart B8550 Photo Inkjet Printer...

Buy: HP Photosmart B8550 Compact 13x19" Photo Inkjet Printer with USB Interface, for Mac & Windows

The Hewlett Packard - HP Photosmart B8550 Photo Printer is an inkjet printer that can do what you need for printing photos and documents. From amazing photo enlargements to high-quality documents, the HP B8550 prints laser quality text and lab quality photos consistently with the new 5-ink printing system. Enjoy beautiful, instant-dry, smudge-resistant photos using HP Vivera ink and HP Advanced Photo Paper. You'll also be able to take the guesswork out of photo printing and get the quality you expect with HP Auto Sense technology. Wireless connectivity is optional with the purchase of an HP Bluetooth adapter and this inkjet photo printer comes with a 2.4" LCD color graphic display. The PhotoSmart B8550 is easy to use, efficient and delivers the long-lasting photo quality you demand.

Use for both digital and traditional scrap booking.   Fabulous color and clarity.  Easy on the ink, only need to change individual cartridges, no wasted ink, saves you money!  Size is the biggest con and for what you get this is well worth it!

I would buy this printer again, my 2nd 1

Great Second printer
Almost is as good as my much more excpensive printer

B8550 Exceeds Promise

I am mostly happy with this printer, although there have been some definite issues.

If you don't tell the printer you're using the HP best papers, colors look pretty rough. This printer isn't too horrible on ink IF and only if you print huge batches. If you are doing one print at a time, expect your direly needed xl cartridges to disappear alarmingly fast!

It may just be my printer, but there are issues with the feeder/rollers leaving lines (almost scratches) straight down every print. Some are far more noticeable, using semigloss paper is the best way to go. High gloss is very apparent for even tiny flaws.

I do like how little space this takes up, but there are definitely reasons this is a bargain value priced piece of equipment- the ink will make up for that initial savings quickly, and the quality is not up to professional par. Again, my particular machine may be flawed, but it's worth a warning.

I'm considering going up to the 8 ink better model, but only after I recoup some of my money (hopefully) and I will be more picky about that model. If it's not perfect, I'll be leaving HP printers for good. 

Another point of interest- My Photosmart D7560 had much brighter colors for the same prints. Unfortunately it died soon after I received this model. Fixing it seems like a waste of money (that one would turn off spontaneously after I'd selected and cropped a bunch of pics from a memory card, really annoying) but I do miss those vivid colors.

Mixed Bag...

Great product

This printer is well worth the price at [$]. I have produced several art prints for mounting that were absoulutely beautiful. The printer has the 4 color system whereas more expensive printers will use the 8 color. On the upside, the price of the ink is actually not bad however, you will go through it pretty quick especially if printing at the max size. Also, the footprint on the printer is fairly large, it takes up one whole side of my desk.

Quality product

13" x 19" is a thrilling format for high-quality digital prints.

Professional results, bargain price

I bought this because of the size prints and color quality. After printing several hundred 4X6 prints, the photo print tray would not take my paper (I use Kodak). It worked with 4X6 in the main tray for a while and quit working there. My first B8550 eventually would not take letter size Kodak paper.  The HP paper seemed to work OK. I tried 4 separate B8550s and all did the same thing. After many hours with tech support and numerous reps who I had difficulty understanding, I decided to get another brand.

Not for Kodak Paper

i wanted a large format printer and this does the job, however i have to buy a lot of ink and this printer doesn't let you fill your own ink cartridges. they have a monopoly on the ink.

thirsty printer

Today after a year of fighting with this junk pile, I am throwing it in the garbage. I have dumped hundreds of dollars in ink into this piece and countless blanks of photopaper. Wasted. It prints ok some times and terrible the others. It is an ink hog, it is slow, loud and the software is really bad. I am moving on to another product. I have never had a problem with HP printers in the past but after this mess and no help from HP, I am done. It is cheaper to send your prints to a press than to use this beast.

This printer has been a boat anchor

I have owned the B8550 for just over one year.The only thing good I could say about this printer is the high quality of prints. I purchased it for its 13X19" ability. There are a very limited numbers of printers available in this size. It prints excessively slow. The B8550 will not print black text (aqua only). All printer manufacturers make obscene profits on ink and you wonder why you don't get many prints per cartridge! Do you notice how frequently manufactures come out with new models with high breakage frequency. HP would do well to put more quality into their printers with far less printers doing the same job with a higher cartridge capacity while lowering cost. I was in marketing for over 20 years, Does it show? It is very noisy machine. The B8550 goes through a very long set-up before each usage. It is a paper waster; it wastes three pages of paper at set-up and another three pages at close-down. Its footprint is at least 50% greater than other HP printers. It frequently will not print from other (than 8 1/2X11") paper trays. It will not print directly from my Nikon camera card.

Too many faults to overcome

I have had this printer in use for just under one year and it is dead. The printhead failure somehow and HP service said since it is out of warrenty there is no way of fixing it. I had my HP 970Cse printer for over 14 years no problems ever. I wanted to upgrade to a wide format printer for those few times I wanted to print off scrapbook pages. I ma ticked that I just took my old printer to Goodwill. Now I am out $200+. I will never buy another HP printer again. now off to find a baseball bat so I can reinact the scene from "Office Space"

JUNK!

I bought this printer because it could print larger than 8.5 wide paper. I've been doing a lot of work with old Sanborn Insurance Maps. (Early 1900 blueprint type drawings of cities for insurance companys to decide rates to charge.) The work involved was anywhere from printing one sheet of 11x17 up to printing and taping together posters of 8 (4x4) - 11x17 sheets to have larger views for modeling. Most of this work has been in black and white prints. All have been great.
I also have 9 grandkids and a wall in our house full of photos. Any size and any colors and types... All Great.
Would I recommend this printer... YES

For Price... Excellent Value

After 2 yrs. of active usage (letter up to 13X38) my 8550 printer is still performing almost like brand new. Ink consumption, indeed, is probably excessive, but let's face it, HP, Epson, Canon, et al, ink sales keep all printer manufacturers' happy. Other than that, no problems at all, except I recently heard that the print head wasn't available (when I purchased mine, I believe they were), and I wish there was a direct pass through feature that could handle thicker mediums (think 9180), but anything around 60lb. or so makes the u-turn transport do-able. Personally, I still feel a dye-based printer still produces beautiful, rich, prints with less color cartridges than a pigment based printer, which also implies a cost savings. HP's 564 vivera inks theoretically have an 82 yr. lifespan when printed on their Advanced Photo paper which is significantly longer than any commercially produced color photographic medium other than Cibachrome and Dye Transfer. Maybe I am one of the "lucky" one's out there due to the nay-sayers concerning the 8550, but since I also own an "ancient" Designjet 100 that's still in operation, I can't help but applaud HP's Photosmart 8550 and it's performance for this fine art photographer. Bravo.

8550 2yr. review

The printer is the cheapest in the 13 x 19 category. Setup was easy and I used plain paper to do the alignment rather than photo paper to save ink. Everything about the printer is pefect except two things:

1. My prints turn out much darker than when the same images are printed on a canon printer. I thought it was the paper type but I have tried lots of papers and its still darker than on my other printers (same paper used in other printers.

2. I printed two 13x19 portraits of my wife and three 8x10 (HP Advanced Photo Paper, Glossy) and the yellow is finished. 

I will try other papers from HP which are non-glossy and see if the colours turn a bit lighter as seen on my other prints. Anybody knows which paper is best?
Thanks

Easy to setup

It prints beautifully but I have owned 4 other wide format printers - 2 Epson and 2 HP - and this uses way more ink than any of the others - I'm also going broke over ink purchases - I'm ready to try off brands.

This is an ink hog

I was hoping this machine would be practical for use in a small graphics business. I was looking for something that would offer great image & color quality, as well as the ability to function as a standard text document printer. This was not the right choice for me. I haven't tested it with photo paper yet, but on standard paper, the color is very poor & dull. Text does not print sharply at all, and printing takes a fairly long time. It's also very noisy and tends to fuss around before printing. It's unfortunate that there aren't many wide format printers available at decent prices.

Not a Good Business Machine

I really like the printer. I use it mostly for 11 x 14's and 8.5 x 11 color graphics.

Quality is really great. I do have to tweak my colors when printing. Yellows tend to print with too much magenta in it. same with the greens. A bright green tends to look more sage. The ink saturation is really great. I think hence that is why I have some color issues. I use a matte stock as well. i just go into the color options and minus saturation. For the price I think it is worth it.

2 issues. Many times changing the yellow in cartridge I get a error message saying there is something wrong with the yellow cartridge. This happened the first day I installed it and has happened several times for the past 9 months. You just have to do the steps a few times to get it rightly installed. sometime the paper catches on the corner on it's way out and if your not there it gets sucked back in the printer roller when the printer adjust its settings. I still would recommend it. Ink is costly i print until the color fades.

Very Good

I purchased this B8550 6-7 months ago and have been very happy with the performance and quality of prints I get. I also own an HP Photosmart 1315, and B8750. The setup and installation was very easy and I was printing in no time. The printing quality is clean and has been exceptional in producing excellent color in 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10 size photos. I haven't done any larger prints on this printer, as I print larger photos on the HP8750. This is just personal preference because of the way I have my setup with the B8750 in another area. This B8550 goes through a few gyrations and makes some noises with the start up and when getting ready to print. None of that affects the quality of the prints I receive. There is a slight favortism towards the Cyan ink color, but not to the point where it changes your photo. This is more prevalent with the darker grayish/black type photos ( misty beach scene, gray sunset on the ocean) but does not affect the sharp yellows, blues, orange, greens, etc. I find the speed of prints to be excellent compared with my other printers. I feel I get great value with the ink cartridges on the smaller prints I mentioned above. You will also get better value if you buy the 564XL sizes rather than the standard 564. Also, when one of the color cartridges says it needs to be relaced soon, I keep printing until the color of the print actually changes. No need to panic. I have gotten many extra prints by doing this. You'll know when a color cartridge is about out of ink. I sell my prints and have 100% confidence in knowing that my prints will have the same color consistency from the first print until the 20th print. I highly recommend this printer to anyone who is looking for excellent printed photos and consistent color quality. Great product as are all the other HP products I have owned.

Great printer, excellent photos

I bought this for the wide format, to be used with my scrapmaking and geneology. Haven't really used it much, just testing and already out of ink. Thats a down side. No problem with Windows 7 finding it and installing it. Good buy for what I will use it for, but it is not my primary printer.

Photosmart B8550

This by far is the worst printer I have ever owned. I purchased it for the 12x12 scrapbooking ability but now wish I had gotten something else. It is very noisy and now for the 2nd time I am having problems with the printhead. The first time I was able to clean it and got the printer to work but no such luck this time. Called support and was told I could not buy a new printhead but they sure were quick to tell me I could buy another HP Printer. For as little as this printer has been used (because it is sooooo slow) it should have laster longer than 20 months as well the money spent for it $300.

Thought I could Trust HP

I was using the 8250 and wanted larger prints. The b8550 is great.
The prints are perfect. The number of inks seems to make no difference in the excellence of the finished photos. Great price and works like a charm.

Perfect prints

This printer has idiosyncracies that can bug you (the occasional series of clicks and clacks that seem to go on forever as it 'does its thing' periodically), but I put up with it for the wonderful images I got from it of any size and the ability to print 11x14 images. I bought my printer in Nov 2008 and have not had any issues until yesterday (~19 months after purchase; unit has a standard 12 month warranty and I did not purchase an extended warranty). I realize I am complaining about a unit 7 months beyond its warranty, but when I pay $250 for a printer, I expect it will last more than 12 months. Yesterday during one of its 'click and clack' sessions, I heard a 'snap' and got an error message saying 'turn off the power and check your manual'. I could not see any physical blockage of the carriage (would not move out of the right end), the drive belt looked fine, there was no paper jam of any sort. It just didn't work. Phone assistance said "we'll sell you a refurbished unit with 12 month warranty for $175, and oh, you should buy the extended warranty too". I'll buy another brand printer that lasts more than 19 months, thank you very much.

Good but ...

This printer puts out sharp, excellent pictures. However, it will break a poor person with all the ink it uses. I have bought and discarded several brands but always come back to HP because of the quality. I just wish I didn't have to go to the bank every time I need new ink cartridges!!

Excellent Pictures

Do not buy HP Photosmart printers if you want to print anything other then photos. Tried printing 20 business size envelopes. Jammed 14 times. HP support is no help. Recently purchased and now stuck with a piece of junk. Rating should be zero stars.
Had an older model before I purchased this one which wasn't great for printing envelopes - would sometimes jam. I incorrectly assumed that a new model would work better.

Do not buy!!

Been printing 12 x 30's, 11 x 14's and various other panoramic's since I got this maybe a couple weeks ago. Really great to be able to print the size photo's I'm doing. Not gonna say this is the best printer going cause it's the only 13" wide one I've tried. But it works good enought I ain't looking at any other's either. The folks at customer service and the store have been wonderful. B7H in New York is making a killing selling me rolls of photo paper and adorama selling me new camera equip to complement this printer. Like the way I can go into the print part and choose anysize print I want up to 13 x 44 and even make my own size's. Doing some 6.5 x 16's to use up paper I'd have thrown away. Hint, if you want to print 12 x 30 pano's, get 24" wide rolls; ya have to cut your own! And on the long photo's I remove the top tray, slide in a large manilla envelope and slide the paper in under it to keep it flat and make it feed right. Then put the top tray back and print, I'm gonin broke!

Hate to say this but submitting this is the pitt's! You guy's should make it a bit harder to do! I've tried four time's now and haven't a clue what to do now.

I'm goin broke!

This is the worst printer I have ever tried. I had to have three different printers shipped to me before I finally got one that would load photo paper and print. Now this one I got will print pictures but it takes 20 minutes of messing around with it before it will finally print. Every time I turn it on, it has to go through the setup of language and align the print cartridges before I can start printing. Furthermore, it goes through a ton of ink printing photos. I would not recommend this printer.

Disappointed

I love the quality of the printing on my B8850; the images produced by this printer are amazing. In my business I create sinage and displays, and the large format works very well for that.

I'm not particularly happy with the specialty media tray operation. I don't find it easy to load. It's bent a rather expensive 13 by 19 sheet loaded in the specialty media tray, I'm pretty sure due to improper loading. I also think that it would be more convenient if the main tray cover would be a little easier to open and close.

My other issue is that I find it a little bit greedy when it comes to ink use, especially the black ink.

The operation of the B8850 is very precise. For users who are willing to make accurate selections regarding type of paper, etc. in the printing options, the results will be very impressive.

Good But A Little Greedy

This printer has been nothing but a problem from the start, you never know what mood it is going to be in. When it works, its great, but it is not consistent at all and now the print head is screwing up, cleaned but still don`t work. Seem hp doesen`t sell the print head. and oh surprise its just out of warranty. Its a pile of junk. I do photography and need something to WORK right !

junk

I wanted to replace my Photosmart Pro B9180 with the B8550 and it just can not get close to the output performance I recieved from the B9180. It is not a geclee printer at all. It will not meet the gamut or print reliably onto canvas. The current products that HP provides that meets my requirements are the Designjet Z2100, Z3200 or Z6100. The only problem with these printers is that they are not desktop printers and are costly. My hope is that HP returns to an 8 ink desktop printer that accepts canvas and is cost effective for small shop photographers.

Not a Replacement for B9180

Love it! Using the printer to make tabloid documents was hard at first because I was using information from the web.