HP Photosmart C6180 Review

by Randy Connell

I recently had the pleasure of installing an HP Photosmart C6180 printer for a client.  What a pleasant surprise.  This printer has built-in wireless networking.  It was easy to setup and surprisingly good quality. 

Price:
This printer retails for about $300.  With sale prices and a rewards card my customer was able to get his for about $220.

Here's the story:
My goal was to setup a wireless network with a new HP laptop and this printer.  The setup was to be done here in Chicago then boxed up and sent to Michigan as a "plug & play" wireless network.

I picked up the laptop and printer, then went to the store to buy the wireless router and USB print server, not really paying much attention to the hardware I'd just picked up.  Once I got home and opened the box to the printer, I saw an ethernet connection.  What?!  Ethernet on an All-In-One inkjet?  I picked up the manual and saw that it also had built-in wireless G.  Holy Cow!!

Setup:
I setup the router with WPA encryption, then the laptop and finally did the same for the printer.  I was able to use the onboard menu and screen to set the password, IP address and every other function I'd need.  Once that was setup, I downloaded the latest drivers for Windows Vista and without incident was printing and scanning over a wireless network.

Maybe I've been missing this for some time, but this was the first time I was ever able to scan an image over the network (with consumer grade equipment).  I did a quick scan and then printed the image with the default settings and the quality of the printout was top-notch.

I only had the printer for about an hour, so I didn't really get to run it through its paces, but I can say for certain that when (not if) my current all-in-one breaks down, I'm going to get this or its current equivalent as a replacement!

Bottom Line:

Thumbs UP!!  Great printer, easy setup, built-in wired or wireless network.