HP PhotoSmart 7660 Inkjet Printer

I have owned my machine for about 7 years now and the only problem I have is it keeps running out of ink. That's because I use it constantly and I have never found any problem with it that couldn't be fixed by a simple "unplug and replug". I had purchased a brand new Epson from Gateway, with all the bells and whistles,and it lasted about a year. I threw the thing out with the box it came in. I purchased this HP expecting to have it not last and it has never quit!! Great simple printer. I would recommend it highly.

I get paper size error messages all the time. No way to solve this.

I bought this 7660 in 2005 and overall it worked pretty well. Then all of a sudden the light next to the power button started blinking red. No error message as there is no display on the screen. Tried to follow HP's instruction for a hard reboot but if the green light is not on, it will not allow you to remove the ink cartridges as required. Got online with a service tech and was told to buy another printer. I will get a Canon.

Prints wonderfully, but I have problems with the software. I keep getting errors specially, "Paper size errors" when everything is set up correctly and the paper is located where it has to be. I cant get rid of this error.
It also does some strange thing: it always tries to start printing from the last page. It tends to do that, when reconnected to a computer. I am not sure if it's the software or just the printer sending wrong messages (sounds like the second is the problem). My mother in law bought this printer new and she spent like 400 or 500 dollars on it. They dont produce it anymore, I wonder why that happened so fast. Dont buy this printer. I am sure there are others out there to print pictures that dont have so many issues.

I purchased this printer, not knowing exactly what I would use it for, and realized that it works great for photos. I no longer make the run to the store and open up the wallet. The cartridges last for a decent amount of time and I thoroughly enjoy the convenience.

The quality of pictures is very good. However, the carriage gets stuck on the left margin and there is no solution, outside of replacement of printer. The lever to insert photo size paper is poorly designed and break easily, leaving one to hand feed paper.

This printer prints out wonderful pictures. I'm very happy with it. I have had no problems whatsoever. I think the people that had problems possibly had a bad batch. No product is perfect. But as far as I'm concerned, mine is great!!

I bought this printer with high hopes in the summer of 2004. Thought it was the best thing ever. A month later, I got the 'cartridge error' which isn't a cartridge error at all, it's a faulty cable. They sent me a free one. Same EXACT thing happened to my friend who bought the printer a couple weeks after me - sent her a new cartridge, all was well - for about a month. Still under warranty, they sent her another cable and it worked again. All was well with mine until yesterday. No longer under warranty (I think a printer should last longer than a year - my Lexmark is seven years old!) Now they want to charge me for a new cable! Over $40. This is a lemon and I am pursuing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. Search online - you'll find other EXACTLY the same complaints.

Ok, I got this printer for X'mas 2 years ago and it's still awesome. I bought this for 50 bux during a sale and in addition to a gift certificate. I am surprised how some people can give this item a bad review, I'm sure they got a lemon because I have nothing but praises for this printer. My ONLY complaint is that does have a big footprint and the inks are expensive. But otherwise, the quality is great (it also depends on the photo printer paper you use and settings). The 4x6 tray is a nice touch and the mutliple memory card inputs! I bought tons of 4x6 photo paper and its an easy load and the printouts are amazing. Brilliant colors using my Canon SD300 digital camera. It's been 2 years now and I love it.

This printer prints wonderful photos IF you can keep it printing! I constantly had error messages and cartridge incompatibility issues. Oh, and then there is the "failed cartridge" message. HP replaced the cartridge once, but I still got the error messages! I can't make them understand.. it's the PRINTER, not the cartridges! Whatever reads the cartridges is defective and HP won't own up to it! I decided to refill the cartridges and now HP won't even talk to me. Who can afford to buy their ink? Their ink is over 60 dollars! Unless you have a spare job just to keep buying cartridges for this printer forget it! Buying a HP printer just allows the company to keep their hands deep in your pockets!

I have used this for over a year now. Can print out fabulous 8x10's.

It uses two cartridges for photo quality prints. And it is an ink hog.

Cost per 8x10 photos is about $2 a page.

Best paper is Ilford pearl type of paper.

For 4x6's forget it. It's very touchy with this paper holder (built in). After a few 4x6 prints it just decides not to print anymore. I had to get a Canon CP100 (4x6 thermal printer) which does a much better print than the HP, and it is more reliable.

I love HP stuff. But I would not buy this printer again. I would try another HP model, or a Canon.

We've had the printer for about a year and have been very pleased with the quality of the prints. The borderless 4x6 prints are very nice. I was somewhat concerned with the flimsy lever mechanism for switching between the two print trays. Well sure enough, the lever broke. Now I can't switch between the two trays. Initially this was not a huge problem because we could still manually pull the 4x6 tray in and out. However, now after I've replaced an ink cartridge, it requires printing to 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper for callibration and won't recognize that I've pulled the 4x6 tray out. So now I'm out a printer (unless anyone has any suggestions).

I was very happy with the 7550 for one of my computers and after reading the discriptions for the 7660, I thought "great - uses the same cartridges as the 7550". What I didn't read in the discription was costly: it only holds two cartidges at a time
-57 & 58- for color photos (the two cartridges in the box) or
-57 & 56- for standard black & color printing which I will use most of the time, while the 58 sits in its caddy where it can dry out or get lost. Anyone wanna buy an almost new 7660 real cheap?

Confusing on what cartridges to use--two slots, 3 choices. Also cannot determine how to print photos in black and white--have to remove the color cartridge to print in grayscale or b/w, no matter the settings. Tech help is not very knowledgeable. Have had good luck in past with HP, but very disappointed in 7660 (and cartridges are extremely expensive!)

I was looking for a new printer specifically for photos. Did not want to go out and spend a fortune on a new one considering the fact that we had two other printers at home, but they were not good for photos. It just so happened that Sam's Club had in their small little section of mark downs in the back corner of the store, a brand new, never opened HP photosmart 7660w printer which also included the usb cable. I picked this up for $50!!! I spent more than that just for the ink package I purchased! The software that came with the printer was good enough. But, I'd recommend having your own photo software. It was definately worth more than what I'd paid for it. I popped in my compact flash card and played with the photo software a bit and printed up a picture that was comparable to the ones that I had made at the drug store Kodak picture maker. The quality was the same to me. If you're looking for a good deal on a quality printer, then this one will do you good. I'd have paid double for it if I had too.

I bought this printer when i bought my g5 at an excellent price, because the price was $150 but with a rebate of 100$, anyways i was so happy with my new mac and my "photosmart printer" that was supossed to work perfectly... but after 1 month i realized this printer was driving me crazy, it prints so slow and is so noisy i couldn't stand it so i sold it and bought a brand new epson stylus rx 600 i'll post my review on that one any other time... if u want this for printing ms word documents be my guest, if you use graphic programs such as photoshop, illustrator or another one just forget about buying this printer

Don't waste a lot of time shopping. Other than being a bit slow on pictures, they are excellent photos. Set up is very easy. I had a HP photosmart P1000 then tried canon & epson printers and have returned to HP. I find they still print the clearest photos I have seen. Walmart has these for just under $100. Get a #56 black cartridge when you get it and save on the photo ink. Package has a spare cartridge holder for the photo cartridge. You can insert your digital camera card, hit the print all button and walk away. Come back when the prints are done. (4 X 6 prints about 45 seconds each) Many print options. This also prints very clear text - get yours and be as happy as I am...........

I bought this printer to replace an older hp printer that was no longer performing well. This hp 7660 is awful. I've had it since 3/04 and it hasn't worked since day one. Everything printed that isn't text is covered in blue lines. I have repeatedly done what hp techs have suggested and it hasn't worked. No wonder this printer is selling so cheaply now. If you look on hp's website it even says "Pictures printed on photo paper on the HP Photosmart 7660, 7760, and 7960 printers may exhibit track markings. These markings appear as dots in a straight line. These printers use special wheels, called "star wheels," to pull the paper through the printer while printing to the edge of the page. These star wheels may cause marks noticeable under some conditions." Even happens using the premium paper like is suggested. Save your money - don't buy this product!!

update - in fairness to hp, they are sending me a new printer in exchange for the old one and it wasn't very difficult. my only guess is that a lot of people are having the same problem and they recognize that.

If you have a Mac G4, if your OS X version is 3.3.4, HP would have you believe that the printer will work out of the box, with later versions of OS X. After some 4 hours of trying to work this out on a G4 PowerBook, here are the results of trying to use the CD provided "with the printer".
1. It set up fine and showed the printer in the OSX printers window.
2. It tested itself fine in the Test and WOW! mode, printing its specimen pictures using the Powerbook
3. Trying to print a picture from Photoshop CS, caused the Adobe program to ABORT.
4, Trying to print a picture from Preview, caused the Apple program to ABORT.
5. Trying to print a picture from iPhoto caused the Apple program to ABORT.

I returned the printer the next day to Circuit City, even though it cost me a 15% restocking fee. They were selling old stock, with out-dated drivers.
I then went to Cosco, and bought the (High-End) $299 HP Printsmart 7960 Printer on sale for $179. It has the latest CD with the correct driver. This printer works as it should.
In talking with the HP Support person, I found a day later, that I could have downloaded the new driver from their site, but the store people had no clue that this would be a problem for Macintosh. They speak PC, not Mac.
And with the way it uses ink, I estimate that I will equal the price of the printer in 4 sets of ink cartridges, in about a month. They should sell the printers for free, and make their money on the ink cartridges.

This is the photo printer to get! I bought mine last week from Sam's Club for under $100 (and it came with a USB cable). I researched printers for quite some time...and the HP Photsmart 7660 had just the features I was looking for. GREAT print quality, VERY quiet operation, easy to use, and it worked right out of the box. Follow the simple steps on the setup guide and you're in business. There are other HP's I looked at but most had bells & whistles I didn't need or was never going to use.

I printed color photo's, back & white photo's, and documents and I'm pleased with every print so far. I purchased the black & white print cartridge and the photo's look clean, crisp and equal to the quality from a photo lab. If you do any black & white work get the catridge, you'll be happy you did. I bought both HP photo paper and Kodak premium photo paper and I'm happy with both although the HP photo paper seemed to have a higher luster and is a bit heavier. I like the seperate 4x6 paper tray on the printer - easy to use. As a photographer I like the convenience of this printer. I can view and edit my photo's in Adobe Photoshop 7 and have great quality prints up to 8.5x11 in almost an instant.

Not sure how long the printer cartidges last yet. I bought several just in case they run out fast. I'm keeping close track of my usage so I can figure out the cost per print. I'll try to post some info on that subject at a later date. In the mean time I know I made a wise choice selecting an HP Photosmart printer.

This was the least expensive of the HP printers that I was considering. When I brought it home and started using it I definitely made the right decision. The boderless prints are great and the quality is fantastic. I also like that this printer is not as loud as my deskjet HP, a big plus. Some things to consider though it doesen't come with a usb cord, so purchase one also if you plan on buying this printer (note: be sure to get the right one) I have a usb cord but the one I have didn't fit into the slot, so I had to borrow the usb cord from my scanner instead. Also, I wanted to point out that the print cartridges, seem to run out fairly quick (they are pretty small though, so it makes sense), have a supply on hand if you plan on printing an album out like I am. Overall I like this printer for it's cost and the quality prints.

We purchased this printer when our son was born. The 4x6 borderless printing is awsome. The ink seems to last a long time and the photo quality is just like getting them developed. I use the HP premium glossy photo paper (samples come with printer). People can't belive I printed the pictures from home. For the money this printer cannot be beat! Only thing bad is if the photo gets wet the ink smears, until an affordable printer comes out that uses ink that don't smear (and with this printers same print quality) this is the printer for someone with a small budget and wants great quality.

Like other reviewers, I wasted dozens of pages trying to get printer to work initially. Printouts would give up randomly (usually with 3/4 of a page printed) with a CRC error. HP support desk blamed corrupt files on my hard disk (Windows ME)which seemed dubious as I had had no other problems suggesting corruption of files. Was about to take the printer back to the retailer, when I happened to take delivery of a new PC (XP) and decided to try it on that. It all worked perfectly on the new PC first time. I have heard of other users having perfectly working HP PCs on ME/W98, finding CRC errors on upgrading to XP. Obviously something is amiss, but for me a happy ending.

The printer is first class at highest quality settings using best glossy paper, printing flawless borderless photos to A4 with ease. It gets through a lot of coloured ink though, maybe only producing 8-12 A4 photo sheets per cartridge which is about a 1/3 of the volume my old Epsom colour printer used to produce on a similarly priced cartridge (with similar quality results). It is very slow at producing plain text, unlike my HP1512 which breezes through producing documents. It, like most HP photo/inkjet printers, is a noisy beast and there is always the concern that the grinding and banging noises emanating from its innards are fatal, but it makes them over and over again, without apparent harm. It doesn't take much paper in the in-tray so not suitable for volume use. I occasionally get 'paper not big enough' errors using some Neato CD inserts which are perhaps 1/4mm narrower than A4 - which seems a bit fussy.

The printer has multi-format card readers, so printing straight from the printer without a PC is possible by using a digital camera's memory card, but there is no preview of the photo on the small LCD monitor, so you'd have to note down the picture numbers from the camera first.

Overall I am very happy with the printer, due to the quality of the output which is its main selling point.

If you are looking for an affordable photoprinter, not a fast text printer, this is the one.

I have a 2 year old printer at home printing digital photos at 2400x1200 dpi. I printed the same photo on both my old printer and the hp 7660 at max resolution and wow the colors in the hp printer are more vivid and accurate. The photo felt more life like, similar to film prints.

The draw backs are you can not refill the ink cartridges, and you have to switch between black and the photo cartridges. It is slow printing text pages compared to a dual roll printer like a deskjet.

In summary if you want a great photo printer at a reasonable price this one is it, if you want to print say 24 page documents all the time buy another printer. This was designed to be a photo printer, not a document printer.

I am a prospective buyer of a HP 7660 printer and after reading the reviews, I noticed that
most them were favorable, however I was concerned about the comments of Dr. Tug, who was disturbed that when he used a refilled cartridge, that he kept getting a warning of a
low ink level whenever he went to print a document. I checked this out with P.S. Ink of Northfield, NJ, who I have used for refills on my present (now defunct) printer and was told that there are work around solutions to the problem. Altho I do not have the complete details, one involves rotating 3 different cartridges.

I'm a stickler for research. I extensively researched six of the top photo printers on the market. I eventually narrowed my search to the HP 7660 based on these attributes:

A- Picture Quality- It can't be beat! I went to the trouble of printing three pictures from the HP 7660 and compared them to the same prints I received from a well know photo lab from Bentonville, Arkansas (started by a guy named Sam). The clarity and realism are identical; perfect pictures.

B- Versatility- I wanted a photo printer that would serve as a document printer as well. It does both. And unlike the SONY X5 that doesn't print documents nor any other photo size other that a 4X6, this printer does it all. And for those that whine about having to interchange ink cartridges to print photos versus documents; so what! It takes (not an exaggeration) less than 5 seconds. HP even gives you secure cradle to rest the dormant ink cartridge in until it's ready to be used.

C- Price-- Compared to other photo printers, the price is exceptional. It will pay for itself in memories, gifts, entertainment, and convenience in no time. $150.00 is VERY reasonable.

I wanted professional picture results. I wanted to print documents. I wanted a fair price. The HP 7660 gave me everything I wanted. I am OVERLY satisfied. No hang-up on installation. No problems whatsoever. I'm very satisfied with my purchase.

I bought the printer, installed it and started using it immediately. Didn't run into any installation problems with the software.

Pros: Amazing print quality, photos come out with NO graininess at all. Couldn't be happier with its high quality printing. Also prints very fast in draft and normal modes. The flash memory reader is useful -- I use it more to copy files from it to my computer, rather than print direct.

Cons: I've done a lot of web-site printing, but I can't help but think the color print cartridge ran out fairly quickly. Printer doesn't come with USB cable -- but that seems to be par for the course. Printer handles envelopes ok -- not great.

I'm extremely happy with my printer, especially given the affordable price (pre-lifetime cartridge spending...).

If you plan to refill your own cartidges DO NOT BUY this printer. After you refill the cartidge, the HP inkjet utility will not read the new ink level. This leads to a warning before each printing. You have to stop you current work, bring the window forward, click continue each time. It took me 20 minutes to print 24 student mark updates. My old crappy Lexmark 35 did it in one click.
HP support offers nothing but "buy our over-priced cartridges at 25% of the price of the printer.

I like it, but I fear that one of the ink cartridge platforms (the one on the right) doesn't work correctly. It has claimed that two cartridges "had failed", but they were brand new.

When I fist installed the printer, I couldn`t get it to work. Then I disconnected my USB devices, then I downloaded the driver update, and reinstalled it. After reinstalling, I re-connected my USB devices to the computer and I`ve had no problems since then. It prints out fantastic photos and with great detail. I`ve got my scanner, monitor and printer all calibrated together. I print what I see on my screen. I`ve used the photo cartridge and can`t believe the print. I`ve had Epson and Canon`s and this printer exceeds them. This is my 2nd HP printer. I work in the Printing industry and have compared this with our commercial printers and the results are much better. It shows greater detail in the highlights and the shadows. Other than the USB snafu at installation, I`d recommend this printer over all the printers I`ve seen and used. And the price can`t be beat. I slide the ink saturation tab all the way over to the left and I think it helps conserve ink with no loss of quality. Don`t let `picoliter` and `ink nozzle` talk from the others sway you into making an expensive mistake. If all you want is the best picture quality and a great price, go with the HP 7660.

I just bought this item (from Circuit City) and it doesn't work from the start! I already emailed HP for support and hopefully I'll get some advice as to how to "fix it". But I plan to return to this item and replace it with the same type. I know HP is good in quality as well as longetivity. I plan to keep this item and I'll write another review as to how it goes.

I always said that I would never print photos on a printer because of the quality...until now that is. The printed photo is flawless and looks just as good if not better than traditional film processing. The four built-in memory card slots also provide compatibility with virtually any camera. I was looking for a printer for my children's schoolwork and picked up the 7660 on an impulse buy and I chose HP because of their reputation. I have owned a Lexmark and an Epson in the past and both were garbage. I am very pleased with this product and you cant beat the price for the quality, $149.00.

It prints beautiful photos and gorgeous text, if you can get it to print! It's "automatic" paper reader fails to read paper. I had photo paper that it continually told me didn't exist. In a rainstorm, it wouldn't even recognize fresh, out-of-the-box HP premium photo paper! It won't recongize envelopes as paper. unless you turn them opposite as to what the printer recommends making them very hard to format. Now my freshly bought and expensive printer cartridge has "failed."

If you want to keep your blood pressure within normal limits, stay away!