After seeing the comment discussion from my Do You Print? I Don’t. article, I noticed some people left some really good comments listing reasons why owning a printer is worth it.

I decided to bite the bullet and actually buy a printer – but with the condition that I wanted to see how cheap I could do it because I do print infrequently, so I didn’t want to put a lot of money into this.

The end result was the HP DeskJet 1000, pictured right; the cheapest full-sheet new printer (meaning not a photo printer) you can buy off the shelf at any major department store in the US right now.

Before I talk about the 1000, if you took every single cost involved per the way I used to print, it ran me $3 every time I had to print a single sheet. $1 for the fuel cost to drive to the stationary store, and $2 for PC use and the cost of one print job combined for a total of $3. Some would consider this a ridiculous cost just to print, but I deemed this to be an acceptable cost given how infrequently I do it.

The cost of the printer itself was $29, one black replacement inkjet cartridge (an HP black "61") was $13.97, and a 500-sheet ream of above-average General Pacific paper was $5.97. The grand total with tax included was $52.37.

Where I could have shaved off cost: I didn’t need the replacement cartridge because the 1000 comes with a black and a color cart, but from experience I know the provided carts with printers are "starter", awful, and thin out quickly. I also could have shaved off 2 more bucks by going with the cheaper paper, but didn’t do it because again from experience I know that cheap paper is a smudge-extreme mess and does not hold ink as well as better GP paper does. The 2 bucks saved on paper isn’t worth it if you periodically have to print the same thing twice because of the smudging.

In order for this printer to pay for itself compared to the way I used to do it, I can do it by printing out 17.46 sheets of paper over the course of a year (17.46 x $3-per-sheet-the-old-way = $52.38). So yes, this was a good deal – even if my starter black cart dries out prematurely since the cost includes the replacement I purchased.

My impressions of the HP DeskJet 1000

I didn’t like the fact this printer doesn’t come with an included USB cable. This HP printer, like so many others, uses a standard flat end for plugging into the computer or USB hub, and a squared-off "notch" style for where it connects to the printer. This is a minor complaint because I already had such a cable, and chances are if you bought this printer, you probably have one lying around somewhere too.

I purposely didn’t bother with the included software CD when installing this printer just to see if Windows 7 would detect it automatically. It didn’t – but (and this is a reason to own Win7 by the way) – Win7 said, "Hey! This is an HP printer! Want me to automatically download and run the exactly correct driver from HP’s site?" Why yes, Windows, yes I would like that – and it did. I printed my test page and everything worked out perfect.

I like the fact this printer is small because I can’t stand big printers. The tradeoff however is that it does feel somewhat toy-like. The 1000 obviously isn’t business-grade.

The way carts are installed is weird. You don’t open up this printer at all from the top but rather open the front flap. In the picture above, you can see this handle-like thing just above the paper output tray. That’s the part that pulls open where you can get to the carts.

When clicking in the carts, I seriously thought I was going to break it. I didn’t, and everything worked, but again, this printer does feel toy-like.

The print quality is surprisingly good. Very good, actually. I attribute some of this due to fact I did buy better paper for it.

I want to make very clear that this is a very basic printer. Although it prints like it should, operates quietly (big plus) and the paper transport works like it’s supposed to, this printer is absolutely inappropriate for large print jobs. And when I say "large" I’m talking about anything over, say, 10 sheets. I’m sure it could do it, but let’s just say I wouldn’t trust something this basic with anything more than that, mainly due to the fact the output paper tray is on the small side.

In other words, yes this will work for printing things like maps, form sheets and other average stuff like that. But for something like a large manual all from one print job, no. I would never send a 25-page job to this thing, walk away and then come back on the expectation everything printed out OK. Instead I’d send out the first 10 sheets, collect the paper, then the next 10, collect, then the last 5.

The fact the carts are cheap (under $15 for black or color) is probably this printer’s best selling point. For the time being, when you need to buy ink for this thing, a price of under $15 per cart doesn’t hurt the wallet too badly at all.

I recommend this printer for basic print jobs, and it would also suit well for people where desk space is limited.

Oh, and one final note: This printer actually comes provided with a carry-bag with straps. Yes, really. It’s a nice touch if you need to bring the printer anywhere for whatever reason; this is basically as "portable" as a printer gets. And being it’s very light, anyone could move this thing around with ease.

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