HP 843 Ink
Deskjet 843 Ink Cartridges

HP 843 Printer Review

The HP Deskjet 843 is a color printer intended for home users looking for a way to print quality photos and documents for a low price. Designed to enhance school projects and reports as well as producing decent photos, this inkjet unit would satisfy most printing needs for the average family. Though compared to more recent high-tech devices the HP 843 seems slow, at one time it was HP's fastest color printer. At 8 pages per minute using black HP 843 ink, 5 pages per minute mixed and 1.4 minutes in full color printer ink, this unit does lack the speed to be considered business-ready.

Unfortunately, the 843 lacks wireless and networking capabilities, thus solidifying its inadequacy as far as office work is concerned. Personal users, however, will find many basic features that provide the quality results and ease that most people are looking for. Having a monthly duty cycle of barely 1,000, this machine will not work well for high-volume printing.

There are only two HP 843 ink cartridges in this unit, black and tricolor. The tricolor tank consists of yellow, cyan and magenta printer ink. Each Deskjet 843 ink cartridge only has a page yield of 400-500, meaning if used to the maximum, they will have to be changed twice a month. This can get costly when buying replacement tanks of HP 832 ink directly from the manufacturer, but these tanks are also available for a much lower price from third party vendors mainly found online.

The 843 is compatible with Windows and Mac and has the capability to print on banners, cards, envelopes, iron-on transfers, etc. It uses color layering technology, which dispenses little droplets of HP Deskjet 843 ink onto the page in layers, providing sharper and more accurate images. Though this is an older unit, the color HP 843 inkjet printer is still a good fit in an average home.