HP Deskjet 3820 InkJet Printer (HP-C8952AA2L)

HP Deskjet 3820

Deskjet 3820 InkJet Printer (HP-C8952AA2L) Review, by Dan Littman September 19, 2002

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• Reviewed by: Camillya

  Strengths: Was cheap, worked pretty good first year.

  Weaknesses: Randomly prints pages diagonally. Quality of print has diminished even though ink cartridges were halfway full. Paper gets stuck A LOT.

  Overall: The shelf life on this printer is crap. I have to fuss with the paper time and time again to get it to print correctly. Not worth the hassle. I know it's time to replace it by now, but still. I didn't use it for a year and a half, so it's not normal wear and tear. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I give up already.

• Reviewed by: gironj

  Strengths: small and compact, uses #15 Ink

  Weaknesses: not reliable, will break down in less than a year.

  Overall: I purchased 45 of these for my job to replace some legacy printers and found out that many of them started breaking down without reason. Change ink cartrigde, break down, printer = break down, etc... This happened in less than a year after purchase. The legacy printers have been in use for years and have not failed. This is a poor quality product and I do not recommend it for anyone (personal or business use). I recommend you purchase the HP 6540 printer, so far those have not had any problems.

• Reviewed by: dartfork

  Strengths: It worked for a little while

  Weaknesses: It breaks when you put new ink in it.

  Overall: It breaks when you put new ink in it. So not only have you wasted your money on a bad printer. Now you have just sunk $50 more into it for new ink. Do not buy this printer. It has totally ruined my opinion of HP. I doubt I'll ever buy one of their products again.

• Reviewed by: ede

  Strengths: BEFORE IT FAILS, the 3820 provides decent quality printing for a reasonable price. The driver & toolbox software is simple and effective.

  Weaknesses: THIS PRINTER WILL FAIL.

  Overall: My 3820 failed after about 6 months of light use - roughly 500 prints, mostly black text, near the end of the first black cartridge, and shortly after the brief 3 month warranty had expired. This is apparently a very common problem with the 3820: a small cog in the self-cleaning mechanism fails, causing the printer to stop printing altogether - it makes a lot of noise, then slowly feeds paper through, but the print head doesn't move. This is actually common enough that there is a website dedicated to it (http://fixmybrokenprinter.co.uk/), run by a guy in the UK who specializes in remanufacturing the cog (which is not practical on such a cheap machine). Read the reviews on CNET to see many other users who have had the same problem I just described.The bottom line is that if this failure occurs, you have to just buy a new printer. If you've already purchased ink cartridges, you will be stuck with them because new HP printers do not accept the cartridges used in the 3820. I bought the 3820 largely because Consumer Reports rated the 3820 a "Best Buy" in 2003 (and again the May 2004 issue). Given this problem, however, it seems that the 3820 is anything but a smart buy.

• Reviewed by: topdwg916

  Strengths: Solid printer and prints fairly well.

  Weaknesses: Loud and small paper loading tray

  Overall: I have had this printer for a long time now and found it to be a sufficient printer if you are not printing anything that requires awesome colors and dpi.