HP Deskjet F380 All-in-One Review

When we reviewed the HP PSC 1210 in March 2003, we compared the compact printer/scanner/copier's shape and size to a toaster oven.

Well, the toaster keeps popping up: An improved model, the PSC 1315, crossed our desk in July 2004. And now the consumer-friendly three-function peripheral is back again, freshened up and dubbed the Deskjet F380 -- and wearing a price tag you might expect to see on a plain inkjet printer, without flatbed scanning and monochrome and color copying abilities: $80.

Naturally, the price tag brings a fair number of limitations. The F380 doesn't have the fourth side of the all-in-one triangle, fax capability. It has no automatic document feeder, so copying or scanning multipage files is a step-by-step job, putting one page at a time on the scanner glass.

Picture-takers won't find any flash-memory-card slots or PictBridge port to plug in a digital camera, nor an LCD screen to preview photos. Shutterbugs can, however, make borderless 4 by 6-inch prints, and also step up from four- to six-color printing by replacing the black ink cartridge with a photo cartridge (not included).

None of that, however, should disqualify the Deskjet from finding a home with families or dorm-room dwellers who want sharp (if slow) high-quality printing plus occasional copying or image-import or optical character recognition (OCR) scanning.

Our main complaint or caveat is that, as with all inkjet printers, what's cheap to acquire soon becomes expensive to maintain as you buy replacement ink cartridges -- and the F380's are some of the shortest-lived we've seen. You'll be lucky to print 600 pages before you've spent more on ink than you did on the printer.

It's a Snap

The hardest thing about setting up the Deskjet F380 is taking it out of the box and removing the power cord and ink cartridges stashed inside, except maybe for bending or crouching beside your desk to put the device at eye level when you snap the black and tricolor cartridges into place.

You'll need a USB 2.0 cable (not included) to connect the Deskjet to your PC or Mac, though the PC needn't be switched on when making up to nine copies -- for more (up to 99), you select the number in HP's software driver.

Pull down the front panel to install ink cartridges, and you'll see a simple how-to diagram that reminds you which cartridge goes in which holder, along with their HP part numbers to buy replacements.

An equally simple icon menu accompanies a column of control buttons next to the scanner lid -- whether to start a scan, print a black-and-white or color copy, select one through nine copies on an LED indicator, cancel a print job, or specify plain or photo paper. The LED numeral helpfully counts down during copying to show how many pages or copies are left; blinking lights and on-screen pop-ups tell you when the Deskjet is out of paper or ink.

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