HP has come out with an All-In-One in the tradition of the old 1210, called simply the 915. While the old versions of HP’s all in ones were priced nearly in the tens of thousands, the 915 performs all of the same tasks as the 1210 did better, for thousands of pesos less.

                                             Note the big, bold buttons on top.
 

The HP 915 is a printer, scanner and copier, or to be irritatingly precise, it’s a scanner / printer – copying is after all simply a function of the 915’s scanning capability. It is targeted squarely at the entry level market, and its price of P7000 reflects that. For that price, you get a fast, competent printer attached to a 1200 x 2400 dpi scanner that can accept up to 11” A4 size papers. At the same time, you get a stand-alone copier that does not require you to turn on your computer to copy a piece of paper – a boon for those in too much of a hurry to wait for their rig to boot up.

Now if that was all there is to this peripheral, this would no longer be an HP. HP has refined and improved its printers and All-In-Ones from the original deskjets and photosmarts. With every generation of HP’s devices, incremental updates to the form, the ergonomics, performance and quality of its products have produced overall improvement on a scale that even the regular consumer is able to notice. Ergonomics of course, deal with how the user interacts with the device physically (as opposed to through software), and this is even more important for an all-in-one with its various buttons and controls that by necessity are located on top or front face of the device. Design is both an element to this, and also stands alone when it comes to the overall looks of the device.

The HP 915 has big, clearly – labeled buttons arranged logically by function. A big contrast to the old HP 1210’s buttons – which used a plastic template to indicate what the (tiny) buttons did. Design wise, the size remains nearly the same as the older generation of HP all-in-ones, but now the body seems sleeker and a bit more compact, as well as being color-coordinated in black and silver accents. The HP 1210 was made of white plastic with light blue accents – not bad, but nothing design-wise when compared to the “professional” look black-and-silver.

                                             The much more expensive HP 1210 - circa 2004.

Describing the performance delta is simple enough – 20ppm max for draft black & white printing, then roughly 4.5ppm when on normal quality color printing. Remember that this is coming from a multi function printer, and it costs around 7k – an impossible combination as early as 2004. Scanning resolution is comparable to stand-along scanners, what with the 1200 x 2400 resolution, while copying is brisk; around 20 copies per minute on black & white, with 14cpm for color copying output. Quality refers to print quality – more a factor of HP’s ink cartridges than the design of the printer.

                                             Want to recoup your expenses? Easy!

And that brings us to the most important component of this write-up: the ink cartridges. HP’s printers and All-In-Ones are all good quality, competent devices, but all the action actually reside with the ink cartridges that comes with them. They are a combination of formulated chemical compositions and intricate circuitry and microscopic nozzles, all in one tiny package. For the HP 915, the CB314A and CB315A cartridges are included, although there are actually around ten different types of black and color cartridges available that are compatible with the 915.

Due to the technology packed inside one of them, it is obvious why ink cartridges are important for a printer (and why it's so expensive), but it’s not only due to its high - tech nature – price is also an important factor. Consider: on your third ink-change of a set of black and color cartridges, you are already about to eclipse the purchase price of the printer or all-in-one itself – before factoring in the price of other consumables like paper. In return you are able to get an optimal number of printouts (450 black and white stated for this product) – not bad, but somehow discouraging when what you think that you’re supposed to be buying a printer, not a chance to consistently draw on your cash reserves, should you print often.

                                             Even with lower costing catridges, ink is still quite dear.

For the infrequent printer or home user, the HP 915 all-in-one presents the most attractive cost of ownership proposition – since only occasional printing is done, and since the 915 also has copying and scanning capability built right in, ink costs is less of an issue – especially since HP has designed the cartridge and the 915 together to produce the frugal 450 page per cartridge estimate. Just make sure you take into account potential ink costs before you allow yourself to be amazed by the capabilities and the price of this All-In-One from HP.