The HP Photosmart C8180 All-in-One is a color inkjet multifunction printer that's designed to be a one-stop photo-processing shop rather than an office workhorse. Its wealth of features--most notably, a DVD-rewritable drive--comes at a significant cost, however.
HP Photosmart C8180

Pricing
$124.95 - $458.75 From 8 Vendors Get Best Prices »
- Spec Navigator
- Core Components
- Media Handling
- Display
- Network
- Connectivity
- Platform Support
- Dimensions
- General Features
- Green
- Included Hardware
- Included Software
- Resolutions
- Scanning
- Faxing
Media Handling
| Manual Feed Slot | No |
| Maximum Number of Input Trays | 2 |
| Maximum paper size, height | 14.0 inches |
| Maximum Sheets With All Paper Trays | 100 |
| Output Tray Capacity | 50 |
| Standard Number of Input Trays | 2 |
| Maximum paper size, width | 8.5 inches |
| Standard input sheet capacity | 100 |
| Duplex printing | No |
General Features
| Printer Emulation Type | Host-based |
| Media slots |
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| PictBridge compatible | Yes |
| Printer languages supported | PCL3 |
Included Hardware
| Included Hardware |
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- Lab Tested
- How We Test Printers »
Pros
LightScribe drive; touchscreen LCD
Integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
Cons
Expensive; no ADF; no fax features
Washed-out quality on plain paper
Bottom Line
Complete digital photo processing features include a LightScribe drive for etching and burning.
HP Photosmart C8180 All-in-One Color Inkjet MFP
Photosmart C8180 Review, by Melissa Riofrio January 17, 2008
Inserting photo media into one of the front slots summons the Photosmart Express menu on the control panel's LCD. You can even send an image from a Bluetooth-equipped phone. Printing options include simple album formats, various layouts, and even video-frame capture (which I didn't try). The bundled HP Photosmart Essentials software offers more tools. There's a dedicated input tray for 4-by-6-inch photo paper. The scanner platen (with an included holder for slides and negatives) digitizes hard photo media. The printer's six total inks include light cyan and light magenta, for a broader palette when printing photos.
Included is a rewritable DVD drive with LightScribe--that means it can etch a design onto one side of a LightScribe-compatible disc. You can type out a simple word label from the Photosmart C8180's control panel, or you can use the bundled Roxio Creator Basic application to create more complex images. The process is more straightforward from the MFP; in the Roxio software, the LightScribe features are buried in a submenu. The etching time varies with the complexity of the design. One note: the drive works with your PC only if the Photosmart C8180 is connected directly to the PC via USB; if it's networked via the machine's ethernet or Wi-Fi ports, you can use it only through the control panel.
The tiltable, touch-screen LCD is a highlight. Its dynamic, well-designed menus make it easy to choose a major function and drill down to adjust settings.
The Photosmart C8180's photo-handling bias means that it's not the best MFP for everyone. Despite its high price, it lacks more work-oriented features such as an automatic document feeder, faxing capability, and automatic duplexing. (Manual duplexing is possible, with helpful on-screen prompts; and HP sells an $80 duplexing add-on.) Its 100-sheet main input tray is on the small side.
Printed images on plain paper look faded but detailed; using HP's special papers made the same images look as good as the best we've seen from other units. Copy and scan samples were good overall, as was print speed in our tests: an average of 7 pages per minute for text pages, 2.7 ppm for graphics.
Ink costs are reasonable: 2.3 cents for a text page, and 9.3 cents for a page with small amounts of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. A full-color photo will use more ink.
Serious digital shutterbugs will love the Photosmart C8180's do-it-all photo processing capabilities. Everyone else should consider HP's more businesslike OfficeJet Pro L7680 or Canon's Pixma MX700, both of which offer a more balanced blend of photo and office features.
--Melissa Riofrio
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- Rating Breakdown
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74
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81
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97
- See Complete Lab Results »
Performance Comparison with Similar Printers
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82
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Performance
| 300dpi Line Art Image (secs) | 23.16 |
| 4 by 6 Color Photo (secs) | 19.5 |
| 4 by 6 Grayscale Photo (secs) | 20.3 |
| Color Output Quality | Good |
| Color Photo Quality | Superior |
| Copy Output Quality | Good |
| Copy Quality | Good |
| Final Scan Time, 2-by-2-Inch Document, 600 dpi | 15.71 |
| Final Scan Time, 4-by-5-Inch Document, 100 dpi | 6.87 |
| Final Scan Time, One-Page Word Document, 300 dpi | 16.83 |
| Grayscale Glossy Output Quality | n/a |
| Grayscale Output Quality | Fair |
| Line Art Output Quality | Fair |
| One-Page Copy | 29.09 |
| One-Page Copy (secs) | 29.09 |
| One-Page Line Art, Maximum Resolution | Good |
| One-Page Webpage (secs) | 23.29 |
| One-Page Word Document, 300 dpi | Good |
| Overall Scan Quality | Good |
| Preview Scan, 2-by-2-Inch Document, 600 dpi | 7.22 |
| Preview Scan, 4-by-5-Inch Document, 100 dpi | 7.28 |
| Preview Scan, One-Page Word Document, 300 dpi | 7.14 |
| Sports Action Shot (secs) | 24.37 |
| Ten-Page Word Document | 111.85 |
| Ten-Page Word Document (secs) | 111.85 |
| Tested Color Speed (ppm) | 2.7 |
| Tested Glossy Photo Speed (ppm) | 2.5 |
| Tested Grayscale Speed (ppm) | 3 |
| Tested Lineart Speed (ppm) | 2.6 |
| Tested Text Speed (ppm) | 7 |
| Text Output Quality | Good |
| Three-Page Word Document | 45.29 |
| Three-Page Word Document (secs) | 45.29 |
| Total Scan Time, 2-by-2-Inch Document, 600 dpi | 15.71 |
| Total Scan Time, 4-by-5-Inch Document, 100 dpi | 6.87 |
| Total Scan Time, One-Page Word Document, 300 dpi | 16.83 |
| Two-Page Excel Document | 45.88 |
| Two-Page Excel Document (secs) | 45.88 |
Scanning
| Preview scan, 2-by-2-inch document, 600 dpi | 7.22 |
| Preview scan, 4-by-5-inch document, 100 dpi | 7.28 |
| Preview scan, one-page Word document, 300 dpi | 7.14 |
| Preview scan, one-page Word document, 300 dpi | 7.14 |
Text Printing
| Text output quality | Good |
Average User Reviews for HP Photosmart C8180
- Latest User Reviews 2 reviews
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Reviewed by: TDawe
Duration of ownership: 1 Month
Strengths: Easy set up. Card slots well marked.Software was an easy install. Bluetooth,USB, and ethernet connectivity a huge and might I add an easy plus!
Weaknesses: Instructions for Setting up for scanning slides and negatives a bit hard to understand.
Overall: Check around! You can get awesome deals I got mine via eBay and so far have not found a better price!
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Reviewed by: brearley
Duration of ownership: 6 Days
Strengths: Software Installed easily on both USB and ethernet (on a second PC). So far, after only 6 days, it works well, and as I bought it for $199 in the boxing week sale at HP I am very pleased with it. I was very surprised to get free delivery at that price. Printing 4x6 colour prints is very fast and the prints are very scratch resistant and don't have that 3 dimensional look of prints from my old HP 1210 where the ink is very noticably on top of the paper - not in it.
Weaknesses: I bought this partly to scan slides, which it does 4 at a time; and negative film strips. Works well except it ignores dark colour slides. These are viewable slides, but it will not scan them. The photo correction tools are OK, but you can do a better job using Picasa - which is free!
Overall: So far so good.
Review Now! Already own it? Tell us What You Think
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Reviewed by: HansMunkwitz
Strengths: It doesn't work unless you first save the pix on either a memory card or on a computer.
Weaknesses: Doesn't have any that any other printer doesn't have
Overall: The design of this thing is atrocious! Why would you want to buy a scanner/copier/printer with a built in Cd/DVD drive if you can't save pictures to it directly from the scanner? In order to save scanned pictures on to the built in CD/DVD on this thing you must first save the scanned image on either one of the memory cards or on your laptop/desktop. Then you can copy the scanned image to the CD/DVD on the C8180. If I have already saved the image on my laptop why would I want to reship it back to the c8180 in order to burn it to the CD/DVD. It seems to me that it is alot quicker and much more convenient to burn it to the CD/DVD burner on my laptop diectly.This thing may be a decent scanner/printer but it is awfully cumbersome for someone that wants to scan multiple pictures/slides and save them on CD/DVD. Although I will say that the picture print quality is very good.
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Reviewed by: bluu171
Strengths: smooth and nice printer with full features andtouch screen. very quick to print
Weaknesses: inks are individual and run out sooner thanlarger ones . have to go to pick up new onestoo often.
Overall: very nice features with wireless network veryeasy to set up. very easy to use with one of the fastest printing speeds available. priceis more than expected but quality of printsis one of the best for ink jets. inks are individualfor each color and black and are of too small a size to be on such a heavily used printer.
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Reviewed by: TJ665
Strengths: USB, ethernet and bluetooth connectively, touchscreen preview screen, bulid-in flat scanner, six seperate ink carts
Weaknesses: Pricey
Overall: If you can find a great on deal on this printer, jump on it. That is exactly how exactly how I ended up with this printer. For the money, it very feature packed and photos that come out are of excellent quality. The software that comes with it is easy to use and easy to make corrections on photos and to organize them. The multiple ways to connect the printer via USB, ethernet or bluetooth makes it very flexible. I'm currently using the ethernet port and it works very fast as it should. Anyone on my network can use it. I like how it uses six inks so I can replace the color that it out instead of having to replace three colors at once. Overall, it you are looking for a all-in-one with lot of features and great quality, take a look at this printer. You will not be disappointed.
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Reviewed by: KishCabo
Strengths: Touch-screen stand alone operation; photo quality; speed
Weaknesses: Not really a weakness---but, it's not "laser-quality" and initial price of $399 was a little steep
Overall: This is a great all-in-one printer. The printing quality on photos is really vivid and almost actual "photo" quality. I've had this for about 3 months and don't really have any complaints. It is a little slow to print if you just start it up, but I leave mines on and it just goes to sleep, but instantly prints once I send a document. If you turn it off then on when you want to print, it takes a good 1-2 minutes to print. I suggest just leaving it on. This won't hurt it. I've had mine on since I bought it and haven't had any glitches.A nice perk to this is double-sided printing so you can save paper with this feature. The inks are individually loaded so you only have to replace the ink that runs out and not the whole kaboodle so it saves on ink in that way as well.The fact that it is wireless was a great selling point for me and being mac compatible was a deal maker as well, since not all printers are mac compatible. It was really easy to set up right out of the box and instantly configured to my wireless network. Overall, this is a great printer whose strengths far outweigh it's weaknesses if it even has any. Might be a little pricey and not "laser" quality, but for a wireless, jet, all-in-one photo printer, you can't go wrong.
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