HP 612 Ink
Deskjet 612 Ink Cartridges

HP 612 Printer Review

Much like its brother the 610, the HP Deskjet 612 is about as basic as printers come. Only compatible with Windows operating systems, Mac users will have to look somewhere else to fulfill their minimal printing needs. Printing only 5 pages per minute using black HP 612 ink and 2.5 pages per minute using color, it won't hold a candle to many inkjet units in its price range. Brought to the market in 1999, the 612 is not only outdated, but discontinued as well. Still, it is easy to find the product new and used for sale all over the internet.

Weighing 11 pounds and having dimensions of 7.8x17.2x15.5 inches, don't expect to travel with this device. It creates a large footprint and its bulky nature will prove to be anything but portable. It prints on most standard forms of media—such as cards, envelopes, greeting cards, labels, glossy paper, photo paper, transparencies and plain paper. Its maximum media size is legal, however, making it less versatile than it might seem.

Upon purchase, two HP 612 ink cartridges will be included. One of these is a black printer ink and the other is a tricolor tank. The tricolor Deskjet 612 ink prints with a resolution of 600x300 dpi, and the black will print with a resolution of 600x600. These tanks won't exert high quality images by any means, but for basic printing, HP 612 ink cartridges will do just fine.

Their page yields of 350 for color printer ink and 500 for black make it seem as if these tanks would last a little while, but numerous consumers complain about the high ink consumption associated with this unit. Others complain about paper jams and low quality results using Deskjet 612 ink. Unreliability seems to be the biggest problem, and consumers will all around agree on that.