Customer Reviews
Don't make the mistake! 
2009-01-01
I wanted a fine printer to print my photos of a recent trip to England and Wales. I researched many printers & bought the B9180 in July 2008. It printed beautifully. But within 2 months I received the error message to replace a faulty printhead. I did, but the message didn't change. The HP support person was so helpful, and I did receive a replacement printer (2 weeks ago). Tonight I set up the new printer, carefully as usual. Immediately the error message came on to remove caps & install printheads (I already had). Then the error message changed to "replace faulty printhead." I've had it! Next step is to get a refund.
Don't let the fine look of this printer sway you. It's not the product I expected.
Express Exchange Warranty Program 
2008-12-04
The express one-day warranty program is a joke. HP will only honor the warranty if they have a refurbished one available to send you. If they don't, you wait until they do! Of course, your customers will surely understand that.......
Good but not good enough 
2008-11-27
I owned HP B9180 for a year before I got tired of power cycling and ink usage so I replaced it with cheaper but equally nice if not better Epson Photo 1400! This printer produces acceptable quality prints but I did not like the gloss differential it created on semi-matte and glossy finish also printer sharpness was not as good as Epson printers. The other thing I did not like was power cycling of the printer which I never figured why it was happening!! each time it happened I had to disconnect the printer from power and wait 30 second then connect the power cord back to the printer, well you might think that is not a big deal!! but the fact is! each time you disconnect power from printer it looses its color calibration so you have to that again and that means more ink gets wasted!!
The other thing I did not like was that you have to leave the printer on all the time for the printer to maintain its health so everyday printer shoots some more ink through its print heads and that expensive ink just gets wasted again, on the top of it since printer does not have user replaceable waste tank sooner or later you get your sponge pads saturated with ink and that will cause a premature print head failure.
I also did not like the default setting of maintenance software coming on to tell you buy more ink while that ink cart still had 20% ink left in it!
Good Prints. Shameful Customer Service. 2008-11-11
I purchased the B9180 less than one year ago and also purchased the NEXT BUSINESS DAY customer care package. The unit did make good prints during that time but failed mechanically under fairly light usage. Then ownership of this printer led to the worst customer service experience I have ever encountered. A call to the support line (call center in India) led to one and a half hours of excruciating pointless documentation of irrelevant details such as the lot number and product number from all 8 color cartridges. The only troubleshooting consisted of asking me to cycle the unit off and on. A Customer Service Order was finally issued for replacement of the defective unit, but the actual replacement unit was shipped for delivery several days later, not for NEXT BUSINESS DAY as the care pack contract states. When I called to ask about the delay in violation of my contract, the customer service rep just told me "not to worry" and to wait or to "call the corporate number" to complain.
Carefully consider ink cost/consumption 2008-11-07
I'm an artist; I need to print documents and, occasionally, small prints of my work. After my Epson 1280 died, I did loads of research comparing Epson to Canon to this printer, and bought the HP Pro B9180. I've had it about 9 months, and in that time the printer has seen very light use - about one document a week, and some color photo/art prints once a month or less. I've left it on continuously, as recommended, and replaced all the inks as they ran out about 2 or 3 months ago.
A week ago, the printer indicated problems with faulty printheads. I called HP support (which is absolutely fantastic) and we went through various tests while the printer claimed a variety of printhead malfunctions (the errors it reported changed frequently). HP sent me out two new printheads, which I replaced yesterday; after half an hour of making lots of noise - presumably initializing and calibrating - the printer is showing 1% ink left in the Matte Black cartridge, which had more than 50% ink at the beginning of the week. Other cartridges are also significantly depleted during all this malfunctioning.
Given the $30+ per cartridge, I spent ~$250 several months ago in replacing all the cartridges then, and NOW need to replace several right away due to this printhead problem (it probably consumed about $100 worth of ink this week trying to find its brain)...the others will likely need replacing before the printer hits its one-year-old mark. That means $500+ spent on ink in just one year, for VERY light use. As a self-employed small businessperson, that cost hit is significant and prohibitive.
I'll be researching the current Epson and Canon printers, because I cannot afford to feed this beast.
Solid Photo Printer 
2008-10-23
The HP Photosmart Pro B9180 Photo Printer delivers exceptional image quality and the best photo performance on the market. HP Vivera pigment ink technology, combined with the printer's professional colors, enables accurate and consistent color reproduction. HP's third-generation gray ink is more neutral than ever before, allowing for exceptionally smooth transitions and detail. Eight individual high-capacity ink cartridges enable high-volume printing with efficient printing speeds producing 4x6 inch photos in as fast as 10 seconds and 13x19 inch photos as fast as 1.5 minutes ideal for professional photographers and advanced amateurs. Users can print exceptional photos on digital fine art media including canvas, photo rag, watercolor, stiff pre-matte and film up to 1.5-mm thick, as well as improved HP Advanced Photo Paper. System Requirements - Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional, XP Home, XP Professional, XP64, Mac OS X v 10.2 and higher, USB 2.0 and optional Ethernet Dimensions - Width 26.6 x Depth 16.9 x Height 9.2 inches Weight - 37.7 pounds
Rugged & reliable & super-accurate 2008-10-20
I've had this printer since it was first introduced. Compared to the high-end Epsons & Canons I've had it is more reliable (no constant nozzle clogs & deep cleanings), more accurate (side by side the prints from this printer make the others look like cartoon colors) & more rugged. The black & white prints it produces are outstanding.
I moved a year ago from NY state to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. I removed the ink cartridges and print heads from the B9180, packed it in its original box & put it in storage with our furniture for 3 months (in the fall & winter) while we looked for a house. It was then shipped cross-country in January. When it arrived & I put it back together, it only needed 2 cartridges replaced (they had had low ink) & it runs beautifully & gives me gallery-quality prints every time.
Best printer I've ever owned!
Excellent Printer 
2008-10-18
The B9180 printer has proven excellent in printing repro digital prints of my oil paintings and pastels. I'm using Hahnemuhle art paper and the color is extraordinary. Using it with Photoshop, I hardly ever have to correct the colors, so I haven't wasted a lot of high end paper. Your investment will turn out to be more in the ink and paper you buy than the printer itself. I chose it over the Canon because Canon prints a wide border on the paper, and I wanted to have more flexibility with that. I can print without a border, and get buy with smaller sizes of that excellent but very expensive paper.
Poor reliability and mechanical design 2008-10-06
I agree with the few who say that don't believe all the reviews. "Built like a tank" is not a good thing on this case, especially when you have previously had some Canon Pixma printers that have excellent engineering. Tube of vaseline required to move/remove paper trays smoothly on B9180 is NOT included with the printer. And it is noisy.
I have used my printer very little and still it has developed fault where it does not understand when specialty media tray is lowered, rendering that tray useless. Small lever that reports position of the tray to printer seem to work fine mechanically, but pressing it makes no difference. Now warranty just ended and I'm stuck. In fact I have only printed about 80 sheets and have still original ink cartridges.
Printer driver is also bloatware, several hundres megabytes.
To HP's credit I must say that this printer consumes really little ink when not in use. That is probably it's best feature. I was away for 3 months and it consumed less than 5% of ink. I have had this printer over year in stand-by and still have original ink cardridges. Years ago I had a few Epsons and these were wasting most ink for head cleaning, making final prints very expensive. B9180's print head cleaning is quite intelligent and I hope other manufacturers will catch up in that respect.
Don't buy this printer if you like high gloss prints (a la Canon Photo Paper Pro) as HP does not have any good glossy paper. Buy it when you want to print mostly on matte paper like Hahnemühle Smooth Fine Art.
Overall I'm unhappy with this expensive product and will probably switch back to Canon unit. I remember that I was quite often impressed how well my previous Canon Pixma was designed and how flawlessly it operated for a mechanical product.
Excellent with XP, need some Vista work arounds... 2008-09-20
I've been comparing printers to upgrade my Photosmart 8750 for the B9180 - all said and done, HP is still ahead of the Canon and Epson photo printing peers. Taken, HP's customer service and tech support sucks, depending on who you get you may get different answers, some more helpful than others but with some luck I was able to proof the following workarounds I found on other bbs and tech support validated:
- Under vista, I was having trouble with 13x19 too, borderless leaving a 1 1/2 inch blank white tail at the end of the sheet. It seems to stop if I print at 200 dpi and manifests at 220 dpi and higher. It is a matter of spooling file size and is a Vista issue. My Desktop Photo station dual boots with XP and I do not see the problem. It occurs either with the HP plugin or "print with preview" in CS2. I wasted some materials before I fortunately found the problem.
- Another factor is CS2 isn't Vista friendly. Do a Google search: "CS2 and Vista." CS3 works much better. Lightroom 2.0 is good too.
- Another workaround is to use the specialty media tray instead of the main tray you can print any size or dpi file without the blanks areas. Does not make much sense but it seems to work for the few prints I tested.
Lastly, above workarounds resolve a Vista "May 2007" review that is outdated, since then, HP posted a firmware upgrade to the B9180 that works very well and integrates printer very tight with Photoshop CS3 version, specially for color correction under Vista.
Hope this helps,
