The old printer was a HP Photosmart C8180, and it served us well for a long time. But as it got older, it would occasionally freeze up under the stress of all the work it had to churn out. Something I can definitely relate to.
Then there was that obsolete thing. With the advent of Apple AirPrint, which was not one of its capabilities, it was only a matter of time before it was taking the big dirtnap.
The good news is the price of printers has continually come down, and the technology loaded into them has steadily increased. The bad news is - and this is an odd complaint - is there are too damn many to choose from. HP. Cannon. Brother. Epson. Lexmark (never a contender). Each company making at least ten to choose from, running the gamut from inexpensive to need a co-signer.
The determining factor on price is features. Paper feeder? Yes please. Automatic double side printing? Twice the fun. 12 pages per minute? If you say so. AirPrint? How did I ever live without it.
I didn't have the cash on hand for both the new MacBook Pro I need and the new iPhone being announced next week. But I did have the $99 bucks for a new HP OfficeJet 5740 (actually I just poured a little more gas on the American Express card).
So I feel like I at least got to upgrade something.
The setup however didn't go quite as smoothly as I'd hoped. It had trouble connecting to my wireless network. I thought it'd automatically say, "Oh, Jeff's network, where you been all my life?" Not so much.
Seems I was running on a 5Ghz network, and the printer is only 2.4Ghz capable. With the help of HP Tech Support I was chatting with, who at one point told me I needed to be patient (I got your patient right here...), I created a new 2.4Ghz network for the printer to hook up with. I know, right?
Now everything's working swell, and the new printer's spitting out paper like it just took a swig of Zima.
I wonder if it'll let me print out the loan documents I'll need for the ink cartridges.
