HP Deskjet 6940

The Deskjet 6940's design is understated and rather prim. The boxy, silver-and-black printer measures 17.5 inches wide, 8 inches deep, and 5.5 inches tall, and it weighs a light 13.2 pounds. The paper input/output tray juts out of the printer's front face nearly 5.5 inches and doesn't fold up, which can be a pain if you're short on desk or shelf space. On the front left is a limited control panel that reflects the printer's few functions: a power button, a print cancel button, a print resume button, and a printer report button. There are also graphical LEDs to indicate low ink and a network connection. A single USB port for printing directly from a camera resides on the other side of the paper tray. The paper cartridge operates as both an input and output tray. The input tray, which sits below, holds up to 150 sheets and has two paper guides. You can buy an optional 250-sheet input tray, as well. The tray doesn't slide out for refilling, but the input tray's cover, which functions as the output tray, flips up or pulls out entirely for easy access. The output tray has a pass-through slot for feeding in smaller media, such as envelopes, 4x6 photo paper, or postcards. A pull-out extension helps keep longer paper in check.

The front cover flips up for easy access to the two ink cartridges, which are simple to switch out. For standard document printing, use the included black cartridge and the tricolor CMY cartridge. For photo printing, you can swap out the black ink for a second tricolor ink cartridge for six-color printing or for a gray cartridge for black-and-white photos. Changing ink cartridges is a simple matter: open the main cover, flip up the plastic cover for each ink tank, and pull the tank straight out. While the task is easy enough, it can be a pain if you switch back and forth often between photos and regular documents. If you're willing to sacrifice a bit of photo quality for convenience, the Canon Pixma iP4200 doesn't require changing ink tanks for photo printing. At least the HP Deskjet 6940 uses separate black and color ink tanks, though: if you print primarily black text, you won't have to waste the precious (and expensive) color ink when you run out of black. HP ships the printer with full ink tanks, but they are expensive to replace: the standard black tanks costs $29.99, and the tricolor tank costs $34.99. The gray photo and tricolor photo ink tanks cost $24.99 each. HP estimates that it costs 3.7 cents to print a page of black text and 7.8 cents for a page of color text--a little less expensive than the cost per page for the Canon Pixma iP4200.

With the PictBridge port, you can print straight from your digital camera or camera phone without touching your PC. Additionally, if you have a Bluetooth camera phone, you can connect a wireless Bluetooth adapter (sold separately) to the USB port for wireless photo printing. If you print photos from your computer, you can use the HP Real Life Technologies software to touch up photos. You can also choose between bordered or borderless photos.

The HP Deskjet 6940 did about as well or better than its competition in performance tests. It printed black text at a rate of 6.97 pages per minute (ppm) and an 8.5x11 photo at a rate of 0.6ppm. To compare, the Canon Pixma iP4200 printed black text at 6.7ppm and 8x10 photos at 0.6ppm. Its print quality is also serviceable for home or light office use. Black text looks sharp and clean to the naked eye and examining the text under a loupe showed only slight jagginess. Text was legible down to very small point sizes. In color graphics, the jagginess was a bit more apparent, but colors looked bright and saturated. We did notice banding in the gradients, however. And the printer does a poor job of remaining neutral across the entire grayscale gradient. In the photo print on HP photo paper, we noticed some graininess, but for the most part, the photo quality was good enough for casual snapshots. The overall print quality of the Deskjet 6940 will satisfy students and office workers.

CNET Labs' inket performance
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Text speed

Photo speed

HP Deskjet 6940

6.97 

0.48 

Canon Pixma iP4200

6.7 

0.6  

Lexmark P915

6.4 

0.2  

Epson Stylus C88

5 

0.4  

HP backs the Deskjet 6940 with a standard one-year warranty. Toll-free phone support is available for the length of the warranty. You can also access tech support via e-mail or online chat. HP's site has FAQs and downloadable drivers, software, and manuals.

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