The HP Pro B9180 Inkjet Printer - Pro Quality at an Enthusiast's Price
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A Few Notes

The HP B9180 is designed to be left on all the time. Why? That way it can automatically service the heads and keep the unit ready for printing. When the B9180 decides to service the heads and starts thumping and banging without notice, it may catch you off guard. But over time you'll get used to it.

The low ink cartridge warning comes on about three prints (13 by 19 inches) before depletion. I kept printing after the warning, and finally the B9180 just stopped in mid-print and told me I was out of ink. I popped open the printer drawer, replaced the depleted cartridge, and the B9180 went back to work and finished my print without any noticeable effect.

I mentioned at the top of the article that you must install four print heads in the B9180 when first setting it up. HP says the heads should last a few years under normal use. But if you need to replace them, you can do so for about $40 per head. With the Epson R2400, the print heads aren't designed for replacement. This means the B9180 is probably a better long-term investment than printers that don't have user-replaceable heads.

At this time, ink and paper for the B9180 is difficult to find in retail outlets where I buy my other supplies (such as ink and paper for the Epson R2400). This may change in the future, but for now you should keep a good supply on hand, because you're probably going to have to order your supplies on the web.

Bottom Line

The HP Pro B9180 Inkjet Printer is an ideal "first serious" photo printer. It produces gallery-quality output up to 13 by 19 inches, is well-designed, is very affordable (around $500 US with a set of inks and sample paper), and reasonable to maintain. Photographers ready to move up to gallery-quality output at home or in the studio should take a close look at this unit.

When I showed off prints from the B9180 and told people that it was an HP printer, some photographers looked at me curiously. Epson (and recently Canon) has been so dominant in this space that many photographers assume that's what everyone's using. But I believe that anyone with a discriminating eye and working within a budget will be pleasantly surprised by this printer. And if B&W output is important to you, try the fine art paper with gray ink only. The results can be stunning.

There are a few quirks, for sure. Paper handling could be smoother with the specialty media tray. But with a little experience, I've managed to work around most of the paper mishaps I endured early on. The main thing to keep in mind is to avoid rebooting the printer. The wait is agonizing while in the middle of a printing session.

Those nits aside, I've grown attached to the B9180. Having it alongside the Epson R2400 gives me many printing options I didn't have before. And these days, I find myself using the HP more and more. It's a real winner, and I highly recommend it.

Derrick Story is the author of The Photoshop CS4 Companion for Photographers, The Digital Photography Companion, and Digital Photography Hacks, and coauthor of iPhoto: The Missing Manual, with David Pogue. You can follow him on Twitter or visit www.thedigitalstory.com.

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