HP Photosmart Pro B8850 Professional Photo Printer (Q7161A#B1H)
Produce archival, professional-quality photos up to 13 x 19 using 8 individual high-capacity HP Vivera pigment inks. Breakthrough color consistency makes it easy for serious photographers to take their photo and fine-art printing to the next level.nts and can output them economically without sacrificing the quality of the original image. The most frequent uses of the HP PhotoSmart photo printer include photo enlargement, cropping, red-eye elimination, scratch removal, replication of snapshots, and the creation of greeting cards and other novelties. These uses require the support of a wide variety of media sizes. These media sizes include a wide variety of media types, like photo weight papers (photographic glossy or photographic matte), special project papers, transparency, and a calendar kit. A new "straight-through" paper path facilitates media types that are too thick for traditional curved paths.
The high-quality, efficient HP Photosmart Pro B8850 Photo Printer produces vivid prints in seconds, allowing you to create eye-catching marketing materials or to preserve your family memories with stunning quality--all from the comfort of your own home or studio. The printer achieves precise color printing with its eight individual, pigment-based HP Vivera inks, which provide wide-ranging color for lifelike results. It also prints stunning black-and-white photos with true neutral grays and deep blacks. And basic color calibration automatically adjusts the print settings to maintain accuracy--ensuring consistent color reproduction, print after print. When printed on HP Advanced Photo Paper, your photos will have exceptional, archival-quality that will resist fading under glass for over 200 years. The printer's high quality matches its efficiency. It can produce 4-by-6 inch-photos as quickly as 10 seconds per print. The printer's input tray holds up to 60 sheets of photo paper, and it has a 50-sheet capacity output tray. The high-capacity ink cartridges make for more affordable printing and fewer interruptions. Plus, photos are ready to handle immediately and resist water, smudges, and humidity--all designed to save you time. The printer is compatible with Adobe Photoshop CS3 for easy management and streamlined printing, and the HP color management tools fully support Adobe RGB, sRGB, and ICC profiles for greater color control. What's in the Box
Photosmart Pro B8850 printer, power supply, power code, HP 38 cartridges (photo black, matte black, gray, cyan, magenta, yellow, light cyan, light magenta), HP 70 print heads (magenta/yellow, light magenta/light cyan, matte black/cyan, photo black/light gray), CD with HP Photosmart software, user's guide, and quick start poster.
HP Photosmart Pro B8850 Professional Photo Printer (Q7161A#B1H) Accessories
 HP Advanced Gloss Photo Paper 13 X 19 Contains 25 Sheets
HP 38 Light Gray Pigment Ink Cartridge with Vivera Inks (C9414A)
HP 38 Yellow Pigment Ink Cartridge (C9417A)
HP 38 Light Magenta Pigment Ink Cartridge (C9419A)
HP 38 Photo Black Pigment Ink Cartridge (C9413A)
HP 38 Magenta Pigment Ink Cartridge (C9416A)
HP 38 Matte Black Pigment Ink Cartridge with Vivera Inks (C9412A)
HP 38 Light Cyan Pigment Ink Cartridge with Vivera Inks (C9418A)
HP 38 Cyan Pigment Ink Cartridge (C9415A)
HP Q7854A Advanced Glossy Paper/100-Sheet 8.5in x 11in
HP Photosmart Pro B8850 Professional Photo Printer (Q7161A#B1H) Reviews
The software is problematic. Paper is hard to load. When you change one setting it resets others to a default, so you have to change them again, total hassle. It's loud. You have to wait lots for it to reset itself.
The design is also terrible. This printer is terrible to use. The one I got was defective and damaged the paper as it went through. The prints look good, but it is a pain of a printer, especially when you have to return it because it leaves roller marks on your paper.
The only con is that it's a little larger than I needed and takes up a little too much room in my home office. I'm pleased to say that this printer gives me a great print at a nice price. I've been a graphic designer for 15 years and have always struggled to match my print to what I see on my screen. It's very affordable and convenient. I'd have to say I'm really impressed by the quality of print from the HP Photosmart Pro.
I want to print my lifetime photo collection for my family members and their descendants. I haven't taken delivery yet but thought I would explain why I chose the B8850. The HP has that nice feature to keep the ink heads open even if the printer is not being used for a while and the heads are replaceable at reasonable cost if they should fail. Printers and papers from Epson, Canon, Kodak, etc have also been tested by Wilhelm but achieve nowhere near the level of print longevity of the HP 8850 when used with the right HP papers.
I don't need the LCD panel nor the ability to use cardstock. The network Ethernet connection is also not needed because I will use the printer on my network by simple printer sharing. Also, there would be a risk with intermittent usage that the ink would block the print heads which are not replaceable. Several reviewers mentioned the high cost of filling the 8850 with ink but failed to point out it has relatively large cartridges - not as big as the Epson 3800 but bigger than lower end printers. So I was interested in long lasting prints. I was sorely tempted by the Epson 3800 despite the shorter life of its prints because it seemed to have a slight edge on print quality under certain circumstances but decided against it on a balance of factors.
I did read that under some circumstances print quality was not quite as good as with some Epsons, especially the Epson 3800. There are other printers in the HP range that produce similarly durable prints but the 8850 was right for me in terms of maximum print size and other features. Also from what I have read the frequent head maintenance routine of the 8850 will use less ink in the long-run than the less frequent cleaning and purging routines used in many other printers. Its prints will fade sooner, it is more expensive, and it has huge ink cartridges and with the amount of printing I would do, I would probably not use the ink within its shelf life, which Epson say is 6 months. I believe ink per unit of volume is about the same price from all the major manufacturers. I thought about the HP 9180 but it is a little slower than the 8850 and more expensive.
The HP 8850 coupled with the Vivera inks and certain HP papers is capable of producing prints that will survive for more than 250 years according to accelerated tests by Wilhelm Research [.].
HP tech support is totally aware of this and offer absolutely no fix or understanding of the problem (after numerous hours on the phone with them).this problem is being reported across the internet forums of DPREVIEW and NIKONIANS etc.check for yourself. This printer does not work with Photshop CS3 despite HP's sales hype.in particular it does not work with a color managed workflow (where photoshop manages the color) and that is very important to anyone using icc profiles etc. I even had a tech support person tell me that the HP B8850 does not support Photoshop CS3 by design, I can not imagine their marketting and design folks agreeing with that statement.
For me it's a long over do upgrade from my smaller HP 8250, which still prints beautiful prints. I wanted a 13 x 19" printer and this one fit my budget. I'm happy with this printer. I've had no problems using it with Vista.I had it up and running in no time. Since I have PCS3, I let Adobe manage the colors for the printer and the prints are beautiful using Epson photo paper most of the time and other times HP photo paper.
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