Customer Reviews
Terrible Paper Handling 
2007-02-15
Two of six 5740 printers have had to be replaced because they failed to feed paper properly. The usage is very low, but the environment is very dirty, so that might contribute to the problem. I have good success with many different HP printer models, but would not recommend this printer.
Great Printer! 
2007-01-08
Works great and very easy to use. This is the best printer I have ever owned by far. HP makes a very good product.
Horrible 2006-12-21
Frequently jams and doesn't take in paper. Must always be feeding paper and when trying to retry printing it prints blank pages.
I am fed up with HP. They make the worst products.
OK price, nice speed, not many problems 2006-10-15
I'll keep this short...
Pros:
Prints QUICK.
Print quality ROCKS. Even pictures. I normally can see the inkjet 'dots', but this is severely limited with this printer.
While cartridges are small, if you print on "Normal" or quick printing, or degrade the saturation on default if you print a lot of for-your-own notes, the cartridges last over a semester of college (that's printing school papers, all class notes, etc)
Never had mine jam.
Ink cartridges aren't excessively expensive, and a few places give you $3 for bringing in old HP cartridges.
Cons:
Itty bitty cartridges.
Can sometimes take in more than one sheet (inconvenient when printing double sided notes)
When using the fastest setting, the printer doesn't so much as "set" the paper in the finished document holder ... it'd be more accurately described as an "emergency ejection"
Printer is a bit noisy on normal settings. On the fastest settings, it wakes the dead.
16 months and it's crapped out ! 
2006-06-14
I purchase a lot of PC's and peripherals for my job.
Just over a year ago, I ordered a few of this model.
The semi pros:
- the black ink cartridge is an enlarged one. Probably a bit short of twice the tri-color capacity.
-adequate print quality.
- average print speed.
The cons:
- only lasted 16 months and now shows indicators that it requires a trip to the local HP service center.
(We all know what that means. Pitch it and buy another unit).
- tri-color cartridge is the small size.
Conclusion:
I should have stocked up on the older, FULL SIZED cartridge HP printers in the PRO series, like the 895 (I think it was).
Still have a few of those going strong.
Horrible paper handling 2006-05-13
The HP Deskjet 5740 is a versatile printer with professional color up to 4800-optimized dpi or add 6-ink color. Create standard and custom size photos up to 8.5 x 24-inch, with or without borders. Fast speeds up to 23 ppm laser-quality black, up to 18 ppm color. Enhance black print speed up to 26 ppm with optional black cartridge.The HP Deskjet 5740 offers quick, user-friendly set-up and a convenient control panel with one-touch print cancel button, ink status display and automatic ink-backup printing. Compact design is ideal for small spaces in the home or office, and a 100-sheet input paper tray folds up for storage. Increase value and pages printed with higher volume HP black ink cartridges. With included HP photo printing software you can easily create reprints, enlargements, photo layouts and album pages. Print long-lasting, professional-quality photos with exceptional fade resistance.
Horrible Printer 2006-03-23
I had an HP Printer that held up for 4 years of undergrad and one of law school before I decided to replace it (worked fine, just was a bit slow). Since I had such good luck with my last HP (5 years of printing) I thought I would get this model. I have been consistantly disappointed with it ever since. It constantly reports that it is out of paper when it is not, routinely pulls in 2 sheets at a time, reports paper jams when there is no paper in it, and has lately taken to saying that the ink cartridge can't move, which also isn't true since just turning the thing off and on fixes that problem. Whatever you do, don't buy this printer, if possible I would give it 0 stars.
Yet another bad home printer 2006-01-17
This printer is so much worse than the "Office" printers that HP sells. Apparently, HP believes that home users will put up with a lot worse performance than office users will. This thing drinks ink like there's no tomorrow, refuses to print envelopes, and refuses to print alltogether about half the time I try to print anything. Very disappointing.
Very irritating printer 2005-12-27
We bought this printer because our old printer wasn't compatible with our new Mac. I insisted that we buy an HP because our old HP printer was so reliable. This printer, however, drives me batty. It gets frequent paper jams, and I cannot get it to print envelopes straight. Currently, it is printing black print in varying shades of brown, despite the fact that I just replaced the black ink cartridge. Most infuriating, however, is its tendency to just stop working midway through a print job. This happens about 30% of the time. It will simply stop, and I have to go into the printer box on the computer to restart it. It is a huge waste of time and paper (it spits out the half-printed page when you restart it and starts that page over), and just plain irritating. I think maybe I'll check out the other brands when I finally lose it and pitch this one through the window.
Have been a fan of HP, but not this model... 2005-11-21
I purchased the 5740 early this year as a replacement to an HP 970Cxi. It was still running great but, my printing needs had increased and I wanted a newer model. At first, I was quite pleased with my purchase. I had used it for both b/w and color prints with no problems and then one day it just stopped printing in color. I naturally replaced the color cartridge thinking it had run out. Nope, that wasn't the problem. I went through all the maintenance procedures they recommend...still nothing. I did the HP chat and he thought it might be a driver issue. I removed the printer and did a new install and for that day, the printer worked fine. I shut down my computer and when I rebooted the problem was back again. Did the whole removal...from the the registry and everything...and a fresh install. Again, it worked fine for the day and then died again. Nothing had changed on my computer...no new software or hardware. Spoke to HP again and he decided the unit was defective and suggested a replacement. I agreed. Sent back the unit, received the refurbished one and once again removed the drivers, etc and reinstalled. Bingo, this one doesn't work either. Removed the 5740 and hooked up the old HP and installed its drivers. No problems. I tried the 5740 on another computer with XP and similiar problems ensued. I've decided it's not my computer...it's the printer. Another reviewer stated the drivers weren't compatible with XP. I'd have to say that I agree.
