Dan Littman

HP Deskjet 3820

The 3820 produced realistic-looking gray-scale photos, and gave color graphics and glossy photos good detail. It printed narrow parallel lines with only a bit of distortion.
The Deskjet 3820 won't win the Indy 500: Its 4.1-ppm text speed and 1.0-ppm graphics speed lag somewhat behind the corresponding speeds of a typical printer on our chart. Its photo printing speed of 0.4 ppm was about the same as other printers in its price range. Black ink for the 3820 costs 7.2 cents per page of text, which is just over 2 cents higher than the average for the printers we tested (color ink costs run just a fraction of a cent more than average per page). Text was good overall, but a bit grayish. HP's cartoonlike setup poster, 20-page reference booklet, and on-screen help files don't provide much guidance--though the printer is so easy to use that you probably won't need much help. HP's warranty on the 3820 provides a scant 90 days of coverage. In test photos, colors were a bit off and gradations did not blend smoothly.
The $99 DeskJet 3820 looks different from typical Hewlett-Packard ink jet printers, with a tall, boxy profile and white-and-blue plastic case. It still features the HP signature stacked input and output paper trays and a bypass feed for handling single envelopes, but in this design the trays fold up snugly against the front when empty. One feature seems particularly handy: The 3820's driver has a setting to optimize black prints for faxing and copying.
HP's inexpensive but somewhat sluggish Deskjet 3820 produces attractive graphics and has reasonable color ink costs.

Buying Information

HP Deskjet 3820 Rated 6.5 ppm for text/4.5 ppm for graphics, 2MB of RAM standard, 600-by-600-dpi maximum resolution, 100 sheets input, 50 output $ 99 Rated 6.5 ppm for text/4.5 ppm for graphics, 2MB of RAM standard, 600-by-600-dpi maximum resolution, 100 sheets input, 50 output http://www.hp.com 800/752-0900