HP C540 Ink
DeskWriter C540 Ink Cartridges

HP C540 Printer Review

Created for the home, the HP DeskWriter C540 is a standard, simple printer. It won't be able to handle massive print jobs nor will it be able to do photos justice, but for simple text or graphic documents, it will do just fine. It doesn't have fancy features, and it is certainly outdated. Connecting only via parallel port, the C540 seems to have come from the stone-age, but surprisingly enough, it does offer both Windows and Mac capability and has a monthly duty cycle of 1,000 pages.

Only a black HP C540 ink cartridge is needed for printing, however, users can purchase an optional tricolor tank of printer ink if they so desire. The black tank has a 790 page yield, which depending on the capacity of the home, could last quite awhile. The optional tricolor DeskWriter C540 ink cartridge has a yield of 640 pages, and it is filled with cyan, magenta and yellow printer ink. To use this color tank, the HP Color Kit must be purchased.

The resolutions and speeds of the C540 are unimpressive. In its fastest mode, it will only create 3 pages per minute using black HP C540 ink. Using color ink, it will take about 1.5 minutes to print each page. This will probably keep users on the edge of their seat waiting for prints, which could really deem this inkjet printer more of a hindrance than a convenience. These speeds, however, are determined by many different things, like media size and type. Unfortunately, quality won't be too high because this machine doesn't exceed 600x300 dpi.

Replacement DeskWriter C540 ink is a little more expensive than the competition. However, even with such an ancient unit, HP C540 ink is available from third party vendors for a fraction of the price of manufacturers.