Customer Reviews
7960 Works well, ink miser too 
2005-11-01
This printer works really well. Unlike the person who said it printed reddish photos, I found this printer to be excellent. It is a great printer that we have used for over a year now without any trouble. Even my first grader uses it without trouble.
I like the memory card reader that's built in. Often I just load my photosmart camera pictures into the computer through my printer. It's faster and I get a nice little screen on the printer to guide me on each photo.
I've also found HP to be top when it comes to service....but haven't needed to use that on this printer yet!
Regional Coding 
2005-10-23
I cannot recommend HP to anybody anymore. The company introduced regional coding, which means printer cartridges from one region cannot be used in another. For most this is probably not an issue, for those busily traveling around it is. Also, it is an issue of principle, its bad enough for DVD, but printer cartridges? HP has introduced this rather secretely and if you don't read the box cover etc very carefully, you may not notice. The main issue is in Europe. I got caught out. I bought a 3 catridges overseas - I could not use them on my HP printer. I asked for a refund, HP Email Support (US) was nice but ineffective. HP Customer Support (Europe) was snotty and very rude. I think HP does not care about its customers and this cost me over US$75, almost 50% of my printer (my sixth and last HP). Don't buy HP.
Sad Product For HP History 2005-08-02
I bought the photosmart 7960 from Office Depot and spend over $300 doing so. 4 months later it broke down and no longer printed light magenta. After weeks of communication with HP they determined it needed to be replaced but that my warranty had expired! Evidently your 1 year warranty is actually a 4 month or less warranty! Oh they did offer to send me a "refurbished" printer at a cost of another $129 and I would have to send them my broken one at my expense.
Needless to say they did not get another $129 of my money! So after 8 months without a printer trying to decide what to do I decided I had to buy another HP photosmart because I had well over $100 worth of ink I had purchased already. So I bought a new HP photosmart online for much cheaper then HP's refurbished one. Guess what? Yep, no light magenta on this one either!
I'm not going to bother trying to get support from HP for this second one since they were of no help with the first one. My advise is DO NOT BUY THIS PRINTER!!! HP does not stand behind their product, or at least not this printer. Don't you find it odd that 2 brand new printers would have the very same problem? I sure do! But I find it disgusting that HP does not stand behind their product.
Beware, if you buy this printer your doing so at the risk of wasting a lot of time and money like I did.
As for print quality, it's great! But using 3 ink cartridges at a cost of $30 or more a piece, it is a little cheaper to print them at your local store!
Okay printer, but . . . 
2005-07-21
I've had this printer for over a year now. I give it a pretty mixed review:
What I like:
* good print quality,
* photo gray cartridge gives very good black and white images,
* set up was fairly painless (compared to what others have said)
What I don't like:
First, is the price: don't be fooled by the number of pages HP says you can get out of a set of cartridges--its way overblown. In fact, you can get 4x6 prints at almost any drug store for about the same price that you pay for just the HP 4x6 paper. It may still be worth it, especially if you can't wait the one or two hours it would take for the drug store to do it, but it is more costly. The cost of inks and paper are way overblown--that's where they make all their money.
I don't like the general lack of support from HP for photo professionals and serious hobbists. Instead, they are catering to the point, shoot, print market. For example, you can use ICC profiles with this printer but HP doesn't readily give you info. about how--you have to search deep in their online knowledge base to find the info. They don't supply ICC profiles for their own paper either. Also, the quality photo paper choices they offer are the most limited in the industry -- gloss and soft-gloss, that's it. They've done away with my favorite matte paper, so I'm especially pissed at them.
This printer will not accept many thicker photo and fine art papers, so even if you do decide to branch out and experiment, your choices will be limited. I've got it to work with some of the Moab papers, but again, I'll have to have my ICC profiles made for me.
Bottom line: a pretty good printer, if you go into it knowing what the limitations are. Good quality prints, both color and black and white. HP premium plus papers are high quality, but again, you have limited choices and with the cost of inks, prints are not as great a deal as HP would have you believe.
David.
Wow, a great photo printer 2005-06-17
I thought my HP 6122 office printer did a good job on photos UNTIL I bought the 7960! Try the 8 1/2 by 11 borderless - they are spectacular. The color is true and detail is excellent. Use HP paper and have a great time. I have framed some shots and they look most professional!
Good quality prints, but awful software problems!!! 2006-03-01
I bought this printer 2 years ago, thinking that since it was so expensive (almost $400) and I had previously only had good experiences with HP, that it was a safe bet. Boy was I wrong!!
The printer does make great quality photos, but it goes through ink very quickly, and the ink isn't cheap.
Also, every time the drivers need to be updated, the printer causes our computer to freeze up, so in order to use the computer, we have to unplug the printer. This wouldn't be a problem, except that if you want to update the drivers, the PRINTER HAS TO BE PLUGGED IN! Therefore, every time this happens (third time and counting) we have to take it to Best Buy and have the Geek Squad guys upload the new drivers! WHAT A ROYAL PAIN!!
This printer is not worth the money. make your life easier and get the Kodak EasyShare docking printer. I will, and I'll never buy an HP ever again.
Awesome Printer 2006-02-15
I have had this printer since it came out so almost 3 years. It is a great printer. I had a baby 2 years ago and trust me this printer passed it's job... Well done, I have so many photos that look professional. I even printed out a 8 1/2 by 11 soccer team picture and the quality was better than the professional package we had purchased, all parents were in awe. You can not beat this price it is well worth it. A lot cheaper now then when we purchased it. :-) Ink is pricey, and paper, but in the long run it still is cheaper to print your own pictures than have them made for you.
Great printer, even if it is out of date 2006-02-05
I needed a new photo printer to replace my aging HP 5550. Looking around at newer printers, they seemed pretty speedy and had a lot of grand claims, such as pictures lasting longer than the normal lifespan of most humans and amazing print speeds. However, if you look closely, you'll see that the ink tanks for most of these new printers are amazingly tiny. You'll probably spend quite a bit more money on ink cartridges than the old printer you're replacing.
This is what drove me to the HP 7960. Although it is a discontinued model that was originally introduced in late 2003, it still has amazingly good print quality. It uses the same cartridges as my old 5550 but the quality is significantly better. It's helped partially by the addition of a grey photo cartridge to create millions of additional colors. In addition to its great print quality, the speed is pretty darn good. It is slightly faster than my old 5500 but at over 20ppm on draft mode, it doesn't really matter any more for me, since I don't print large amounts at a single time.
One problem I have had with this printer is that on some text prints, text continues to smudge, despite head cleanings and many test prints. It is bearable, since it is only a small smudge on the left edge but I'm sure its nothing to worry about.
Also, this product is not offered by Amazon but but ant_online. They do have good service and I got my printer only 4 business days after I ordered it. Just be warned that you will be charged a $30 shipping fee for it.
Overall, this is a great printer, despite its age. Sometimes, staying with the old is better than jumping for the new.
"The Rest of the Story" and Printer Praise 
2006-01-14
First, I want to tell you, as Paul Harvey would say, "The Rest of the Story" regarding Tammy Tenan's (Camano Island, WA USA) review of the HP PhotoSmart 7960 printer. I work for HP and noticed her poor review of this printer while researching which HP printer to purchase for myself. I called an internal HP resource and they contacted Tammy and replaced her printer at no charge. Although there was no excuse for what happened, I hope she is now a satisfied HP customer. I'll probably never know how this experience affected her view of HP.
Second, after doing some through research on this HP printer, I purchased two for my children (18 & 21). They really enjoy them and love the print quality that the HP 7960 provides. This is a very quiet printer and has a lot of features that people would enjoy. Both my kids have HP Digital Cameras (of course) and they can now plug their memory cards into the printer and print direct or copy to their PCs for backup.
Finally, a printer I love! 2005-12-07
I can't believe I only paid $130 for this printer. I just bought a Lexmark for $100 and took it back, it was not much better than my $30 lexmark I use for documents. I wanted something that printed photos that didnt look like spotty or blurred. I ordered this one figuring it would just be one more technical headache. By the time I had the first photo printed I was in love with it. Simple to hook up, easy to use, and so many great features. The quality far exceeds the price! It is the best deal you will find anywhere.
