HP Photosmart C6380 all-in-one
Manufacturer: HP Part number: CD028A#ABA
- More product information:
- Editors' review
- User reviews
- Specifications
- Accessories
- Manufacturer info
- Bottom Line:
- The HP Photosmart C6380 is a good fit for beginning photographers who want more than just a simple printer. Its six-ink cartridge bay, and scanning and copying capabilities extend its versatility, and while the output quality suffers a few missteps, the C6380 remains a worthwhile deal for the money.
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CNET editors' review
HP Photosmart C6380 all-in-one price range: $102.99 - $199.99
- Reviewed by: Justin Yu
- Edited by: Rich Brown
- Reviewed on: 05/19/2009
The good: Inexpensive; dual output trays; fast output speed; painless Wi-Fi setup; comprehensive driver software; easy to use; small footprint.
The bad: Output quality will not satisfy professional photographers.
The bottom line: The HP Photosmart C6380 is a good fit for beginning photographers who want more than just a simple printer. Its six-ink cartridge bay, and scanning and copying capabilities extend its versatility, and while the output quality suffers a few missteps, the C6380 remains a worthwhile deal for the money.
Take the HP Photosmart Premium Fax all-in-one, strip away the fax machine and auto-document feeder and you have the HP Photosmart C6380. It retains all the features you need to bring your photos to life: 9,600 by 2,400dpi flatbed scanner, dual paper feed printer, standalone copier, multipurpose card reader, and wireless networking. After a thorough testing, our only gripe is that the output quality suffers from minor hiccups and lighter saturation than more expensive printers on the market. Still, at $200, the Photosmart C6380 hits the sweet spot for the photo enthusiast who wants an all-in-one without the hassle of a fax machine.
Design and features
Compared with the rounded corners and circular shape of the Photosmart Premium Fax all-in-one, the C6380 carves out a much leaner figure. Its short stature (17.79 inches long by 15.97 inches wide by and 8.17 inches deep) and rectangular control panel across the front of the device still looks like a classic printer, but with a modern twist: a 2.4-inch color LCD pops up out of the front-left corner. The screen swivels back and forth, and you can even set it flush against the printer in a variety of positions. The onscreen menus are easy to navigate, and we especially like that the top corner of the home screen contains a small graphical representation of a cartridge that shows you when it's time to buy more ink.
Whereas other printers clutter up the control panel with unnecessary buttons and stickers, we like the C6380's simplicity. Across the front, there's a directional pad and a corresponding "OK" button, a few photo editing shortcuts like zoom and red-eye removal, direct copy and scan buttons, and a "print photos" button that pulls images directly from the card reader on the bottom of the device. There's a PictBridge compatible USB port for direct printing from a digital camera as well.
The C6380 handles inbound paper and outbound prints with dual paper trays that sit on top of one another at the base of the printer. HP continues to impress us with its dual input trays: one for standard 8.5 inch by 11 inch paper, and a separate drawer for smaller 3.5 inch by 5 inch photo paper, which eliminates the need to swap out paper. It's a huge convenience that will save you a lot of time and hassle over the course of this printer's life cycle. The driver comes setup to automatically choose the correct type of media for a particular job, but you can also manually override it to choose one yourself.
The C6380 is also equipped with 802.11b/g wireless connectivity and a small LED on the far right of the control panel indicates connection status with a green light. HP has streamlined the wireless setup process for all of its printers and the C6380 is no exception. You can either access the wireless "wizard" directly through the settings in the printer's menu or use the driver CD to set up an ad-hoc wireless connection through USB. Both ways are incredibly easy and should have you up and running on a Mac or PC in less than 5 minutes. Finally, there's an Ethernet port on the back of the printer for connecting the C6380 directly to a wired network.
In our experience, no other printer comes close to HP's full service Photosmart Essential software. The easy-to-use software takes seconds to install during the initial setup, guiding you along the photo printing process with both text and videos that clearly illustrate the directions. Photosmart Essential is exactly what casual users need as a much simpler way to edit and alter their photos, especially if they don't want to dive into dedicated (read: complicated) editing software. The rest of the driver software is straightforward and includes a small pop-up window every time you assign a job to the printer, but we wish it showed the page status of the print job in addition to the ink levels in the cartridges.
Lifting open the front cover reveals the C6380's five separate ink cartridges: one large black cartridge for photos, and the standard black, cyan, magenta, and yellow. Each standard cartridge costs $10 to replace, but HP also offers XL economy priced versions as well, which we'll use for our cost-per-page analysis. Each XL colored ink (black, cyan, magenta, and yellow) costs $18 apiece for 750 color pages and the XL photo black cartridge costs $35 for 800 pages.. With those costs, a page of color will run you 2.4 cents and a page of photo black will cost 4.3 cents. Those prices are in line with today's average cost per page for an all-in-one printer.
Performance
We put the HP Photosmart C6380 up against some of the fastest all-in-one printers we've tested. While it's certainly not the fastest of the bunch, it held its ground and churned out prints at a competitive speed. It couldn't beat out the HP Photosmart Premium Fax all-in-one in printing out a page of text or graphics, but it did stomp the competition in our presentation test, rolling out 4.44 pages per minute compared with the Kodak ESP5's 2.21 pages per minute at the opposite end of the spectrum. All of the printers in the running printed a 3 inch by 5 inch photo at the same general rate, but the Epson Artisan 800 remains the leader at an impressive 2.82 color pages per minute.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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Photo speed (1 sheet) | |
Color graphics speed | |
Presentation speed | |
Color text speed |
Print quality is one of the only areas where the C6380 can use improvement. Although the output isn't the worst we've seen, it's not up to task with other all-in-ones we've tested from HP. The text prints were generally very good with a bit of stair stepping in smaller fonts, but graphics and photos were marred with a dull blue cast across the spectrum and visible without magnification. In addition, we saw significant graininess in large color blocks including portraits and shading. Overall, we're satisfied with the print quality of the C6380, and it's definitely fine for casual home users who want to print out snapshots and text, but dedicated photographers should seek out a more professional-oriented printer.
Service and support
HP backs the Photosmart Premium Fax all-in-one with its standard one-year warranty that includes 24-hour toll-free phone support with the option to upgrade to an additional two years of service for a small fee. In addition, HP offers an added Accidental Damage Protection and a Pick Up and Return program where an authorized courier will pick up your failed equipment and deliver it directly to an HP-designated repair facility. The HP Web site also features online classes, FAQs, driver downloads, troubleshooting tips, as well as a new shopping buddy that puts you in a chat room with a HP sales representative to answer your questions before you buy.
Find out more about how we test printers.
User reviews
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Such a Disappointment
by KidfreeKaye on November 13, 2008
Pros: The sleek size and classy look.
Cons: Ink consumption, Bad Photo quality, Noise, Technical Problems, Ink smudging/smearing, Poor text scanning quality.
Summary: In two weeks have had MANY problems. The first was a technical problem with Macintosh iPhoto compatibility. It simply wouldn't print on the photo paper in the photo tray, ...
Summary: In two weeks have had MANY problems. The first was a technical problem with Macintosh iPhoto compatibility. It simply wouldn't print on the photo paper in the photo tray, but always on the plain paper. After an hour on phone with HP tech (being transferred to many dept.s), it turns out you have to go thru 2 extra steps to print a photo if you are using iPhoto! (i.e. go into "Advanced" select photo tray, etc.) So, I thought I could live with that, but then noticed a lot of NOISE after each printing, and speed was not so good. Then, I noticed when I printed out my chapters (I'm a writer) to send to publishers, the black ink smeared on several pages. Printed them again, still happened! Then, 7 days after using the printer, the black ink ran out. Bought more, and the next day the Cyan ink was low. Then, after printing TWO black & white 4X6 photos, the photo black ink ran out, plus the regular black again! (2 days after I had replaced it!) So, a total of 4 ink cartridges ($40) needed to be replaced within 9 days of buying the computer. My 13-year old Epson took MONTHS before I'd replace ink. Then, it doesn't speak to Macintosh or Word software well. When I click "Reverse Print Order" (which I've been doing for years), this printer will not reverse it, no matter what I do. The scanner is fun to work with (editing, cropping, etc), but scanned TEXT from articles (that I need to send to potential publishers) is unclear and hard to read. Lastly, the photo quality is not great. Color photos are a little dark, not crisp or bright, and Black & White photos don't have good contrast. The good news is, Office Max said I can return it for a different printer tomorrow (because I bought the service agreement.) I only wish I could have found a review on this product before buying it. (I guess it was too new.) So I was the Guinea Pig for all of you!
5 out of 5 users found this user opinion helpful.
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It prints & scans very well & the networking is solid.
by Jussi49840 on May 23, 2009
Pros: It prints and scans very well. Color is very good on pictures and and text is clear and sharp. Menus are easily understood and easy to use. I have had this unit for several months and have not had any problems with it.
Cons: It goes through a noisy approx.30 sec. prep time before each print job. Once it starts printing it is relatively fast. The included cartridges are too small. I have bought the XL cartridges and find them to last long enough. I print pictures & text.
Summary: From my experience I think you get a lot of value for the money with this printer. I have had no problems with the networking through my Linksys Wireless-N router. ...
Summary: From my experience I think you get a lot of value for the money with this printer. I have had no problems with the networking through my Linksys Wireless-N router. I have, through the years, owned & used many brands of printers and for 9 years printed a 24 page newsletter 3 times a year. This is my first multifunction unit and, after being leery of 'all-in-ones' because of the experience of others I know, I am very pleased with this machine. It prints very clear text and also does an excellent job on photos. The scanner has enough dpi capability for most any type of job you could think of. The scanning software allows you to scan multiple images at once and give them each separate file names. That is a great time-saving feature. In general, I am very pleased with this machine. It has exceeded my expectations for a printer/copier/scanner in this price range.
3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Waste of money
by sabatu1 on September 27, 2009
Pros: Nothing, absolutely nothing. It functioned as a printer for about 3 days, then over the next month about 5 different things have gone wrong with it. Now its an oversized paperweight.
Cons: It reports a paper jam when their is no paper jam. The wireless functionality constantly fluctuates, it 'forgets' wireless network functionality. It uses an insane amount of ink when it does work.
Summary: Don't buy this printer. Please don't buy it. Its a waste of your time and money. I can't believe its actually legal for them to sell this ...
Summary: Don't buy this printer. Please don't buy it. Its a waste of your time and money. I can't believe its actually legal for them to sell this piece of **** then not take it back.
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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I'll explain the widely mixed reviews
by lw1999 on August 27, 2009
Pros: Prints quickly, easy to use, good images, fair enough ink usage (in my opinion).
Cons: I cannot fit the number of cons in this space. The printer worked beautifully...until the day that it died, after 6 months of use. Turned out the power cable was bad, but do you think HP Tech support was helpful in this matter? No! More below!
Summary: We have a 3 yr extended warranty. Instead of tech support sending us a power cable first, they sent us a refurbished replacement printer with no peripheral equipment. They had ...
Summary: We have a 3 yr extended warranty. Instead of tech support sending us a power cable first, they sent us a refurbished replacement printer with no peripheral equipment. They had us retain our ink cartridges, power cable, paper tray--everything--but send back our original printer. Surprise! The 2nd one did not work b/c of our faulty power cord. THEN they sent us a new power cord, and did that second printer (refurbished, remember?) work? NO! The holder for the ink cartridges kept sliding back and forth and would not stop and let us install them. Spent more hours on the phone explaining this to tech support (always having to go back to SQUARE ONE in our story, since no one had a clue what was going on with our case) and they finally sent us a second replacement printer--refurbished, again. Did it work? NO! It refused to print in color, and would not complete the setup alignment process. Called again, and requested a *NEW IN BOX* replacement, since their factory refurbished machines were coming to us broken. By this time we had logged, seriously, about 6 hours phone time with tech support and the Customer Complaint Department.
When the *new in box* replacement came, guess what? The little flip-up screen was broken, before we even turned it on! Back on the phone, asking AGAIN for another printer. Now we have what I thought was finally a working model. But, after about 1 month usage, I'm suddenly haven't a strange problem that seems to be out-of-the-blue, about the spooler being shut down. It refuses to print anything I send it. Hopefully there is a solution, but you can imagine that I'm extremely wary at this point. The last thing I want to do is talk to anyone in HP tech support EVER AGAIN, but I don't think this looks promising.
To be perfectly frank, the wait time for customer support is WAY too long, and then you invariably get a tech support person whose first language is NOT English. They are reading off a script and the solutions they waste your time with attempting to fix your problem are things we ALL KNOW ALREADY, like rebooting the machine. The more you try to explain the unique details of your problem, the less they seem able to help you or to even know anything about your particular model. For instance, during one call, the tech support woman asked, "Are the ink cartridges new?" Then she said, "Did you remember to peel the stickers off the cartridges?" There are no stickers on this model's cartridges. They are plastic caps that you twist and snap off. You cannot even put them into the cartridge-holder without removing the caps.
I really have no faith in HP to help me with any technical problem in the future, warranty or no. And regarding this product specifically, I'm afraid it's a dud. The reason for the widely mixed reviews is simple--those who have reviewed it positively have just not had theirs break--YET. Like I said at the beginning, this printer does work very nicely, when it works. I think our experience has proved that we didn't just get one bad lemon.
Buyer beware.1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Not dependable. Good Tech support, lousy Customer Ser.
by kctodd711 on August 28, 2009
Pros: Printing speed is great. Prints beautiful pictures.
Cons: Chances of getting a machine that works the first time is very slim. This is not a dependable machine. I had to return the machine twice. HP Customer Service was no help.
Summary: If I could have gotten a machine that worked I'm sure I would of liked the printer over all. But, having to take the machine back twice I wasn'...
Summary: If I could have gotten a machine that worked I'm sure I would of liked the printer over all. But, having to take the machine back twice I wasn't willing to take the chance.
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A piece of garbage lasted 7months then broke down.
by Naladar on August 6, 2009
Pros: The quality of the pictures was good
Cons: Customer supprt is bad. The product broke when not even in use so qaulity of workman ship that went into this is really bad.
The printer cover just broke sitting on my desk.Summary: I don't use the printer much, but when I did use it the quality of pictures was good. But for a product to break down when just sitting on ...
Summary: I don't use the printer much, but when I did use it the quality of pictures was good. But for a product to break down when just sitting on the desk. (popped the hinge on the printer cover). says alot about the quality of workman ship
The service policy says the customer is responsible for the shipping of the product back to HP. Allthough they do cover the charges, says to me they hope that people won't be bothered with going to all the work of packing, (which they have strict guide lines on how it is to be packed!) and sending it back.
In short I would not recommend purchasing this HP product. -
A fairly average printer
by Merkel1 on July 9, 2009
Pros: Easy to set up, good colour quality
Cons: need too much ink and noisy
Summary: Average performance for this price category.
Summary: Average performance for this price category.
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Buy the XL ink cartridges, not the $10 ones
by Technojunkie3 on May 20, 2009
Pros: It works. It's your basic HP All-in-One. 64-bit Vista and Fedora Linux play nice with it.
Cons: Whichever marketing weasel decided to make the new, dinky ink cartridges so that refills would appear to be inexpensive to first time buyers needs to be fired. The XL series tanks are the "normal" ones. You'll probably have to mail order them.
Summary: It does everything I need and I got it at a good price, but I'm really steamed about the ink tank deception. Next time I'm more likely to ...
Summary: It does everything I need and I got it at a good price, but I'm really steamed about the ink tank deception. Next time I'm more likely to give another brand a try.
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would not recommend this printer
by 1046MCK on May 4, 2009
Pros: Get quality and wireless
Cons: Way to much ink consumption(at least one cartiridge per month for moderate printing) and too much noise and prep time before printing.
Summary: Find a different printer
Summary: Find a different printer
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Prints great, but the networking stinks
by lewisjeffm on April 2, 2009
Pros: photo printing
Cons: networking
Summary: After about a month the wireless would drop the network then pick it back up for 30sec. and drop it ago making it difficult to print remotely. HP tech support ...
Summary: After about a month the wireless would drop the network then pick it back up for 30sec. and drop it ago making it difficult to print remotely. HP tech support can't help because they cant' understand what I was saying, good example of out-sourcing. I tryed to have the person spell the words, but they didn't know enough english to associate the letter to a word. It took them about a minute to look a word up. Terrible tech support. Once I got someone who could speak clear english (4 phone calls later) they told me to call back because there was nobody currently there who could fix the problem. I sent the printer back.
Specifications
- Manufacturer: HP
- Part number: CD028A#ABA
- Description: PRODUCT FEATURES: Enjoy the freedom of wireless printing Impressive quality that fits your budget Easily get stunning results Enjoy fast and reliable performance
General
- Printing Technology Ink-jet - Color - Photo printer
- Monthly Duty Cycle (max) 2500 impressions
- Display Diagonal Size 2.4"
- Office Machine Features Print from memory card
- Width 17.8 in
- Depth 16 in
- Height 8.1 in
- Weight 16.4 lbs
- Localization English / United States
Memory
- Standard Memory 64 MB
- Supported Flash Memory CompactFlash, Memory Stick, MultiMediaCard, SD Memory Card, xD-Picture Card, Memory Stick Duo, SDHC Memory Card
Copying
- Max Copying Speed up to 33 pages/min (mono) / up to 31 pages/min (color)
- Max Copying Resolution up to 600 x 600 dpi (mono) / up to 4800 x 4800 dpi (color)
- Max Document Enlargement 400 %
- Max Document Reduction 50 %
- Maximum Copies 50
- Automatic Duplexing None
Printing
- Inkjet Technology HP Thermal Inkjet
- Max Printing Resolution up to 600 x 600 dpi (mono) / up to 9600 x 2400 dpi (color)
- Max Printing Speed up to 33 pages/min (mono) / up to 31 pages/min (color)
- Ink Palette Supported (Colors) Cyan, magenta, yellow, photo black, pigment black
- Color 5-ink
- Printer Drivers / Emulations PCL 3
Scanning
- Optical Resolution 4800 dpi
- Interpolated Resolution 19200 dpi
- Color Depth 48 bit
Document & Media Handling
- Max Original Size Legal (8.5 in x 14 in)
- Original Type Sheets
- Max Copy Size Legal (8.5 in x 14 in)
- Min Copy Weight 60 g/m2
- Max Copy Weight 252 g/m2
- Supported Media Type Cards, Labels, Envelopes, Photo paper, Plain paper, Transparencies
- Standard Media Capacity 125 sheets
- Output Trays Capacity 50 sheets
- Document & Media Handling Details Input tray - 125 sheets - Legal (8.5 in x 14 in), Output tray - 50 sheets - Legal (8.5 in x 14 in), Input tray - 20 sheets
- Speed Details Printing : up to 12.5 pages/min ( A4 ) - B/W normal, Printing : up to 9 pages/min ( A4 ) - Color normal, Printing : up to 2.5 pages/min ( A4 ) - B/W best, Printing : up to 2.5 pages/min ( A4 ) - Color best, Printing : up to 33 pages/min ( A4 ) - B/W draft, Printing : up to 31 pages/min ( A4 ) - Color draft, Printing : 18 sec ( 4 in x 6 in ) - Photo draft, Printing : 30 sec ( 4 in x 6 in ) - Photo normal, Printing : 60 sec ( 4 in x 6 in ) - Photo best, Scanning : 21 sec ( 4 in x 6 in ) - Photo, Copying : up to 33 pages/min ( A4 ) - B/W draft, Copying : up to 31 pages/min ( A4 ) - Color draft, Copying : up to 11 pages/min ( A4 ) - B/W normal, Copying : up to 6.5 pages/min ( A4 ) - Color normal, Copying : up to 0.5 pages/min ( A4 ) - B/W best, Copying : up to 0.5 pages/min ( A4 ) - Color best
Finishing Equipment
- Collator None
- Stacker None
- Stapler None
- Binder None
PC Connectivity
- PC Connection Availability Yes
- PC Connection Hi-Speed USB, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, Ethernet 10 Base-T
- Operating System Support MS Windows XP, MS Windows Vista, Apple Mac OS X 10.4, Apple Mac OS X 10.5
- Software Included Drivers & utilities, HP Photosmart Essential
Power
- Power AC 110/230 V ( 50/60 Hz )
- Power Consumption Operational 42 Watt
- Power Consumption Standby 6.6 Watt
- Power Consumption Sleep 5.2 Watt
Miscellaneous
- Direct Printing Specifications PictBridge
- Consumables Included 1 x Cartridge ( Black ) - HP 364, 1 x Cartridge ( Cyan ), 1 x Cartridge ( Magenta ), 1 x Cartridge ( Yellow ), 1 x Cartridge ( Photo black )
- Microsoft Certifications Certified for Windows Vista
- Compliant Standards CB, UL, CSA, NEMKO, EN 60825, EN 60950-1, IEC 60825-1, IEC 60950-1
Environmental Standards
- EPA Energy Star Compliant Yes
Manufacturer Warranty
- Service & Support 1 year warranty
- Service & Support Details Limited warranty - 1 year
Environmental Parameters
- Min Operating Temperature 59 °F
- Max Operating Temperature 89.6 °F
- Humidity Range Operating 20 - 80%
Accessories
Manufacturer info
- HP
- Manufacturer profile
- Browse HP products on Shopper.com
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- Website: http://www.hp.com
- Address:
3000 Hanover Street, Palo Alto, CA 94304-1185
