HP’s DeskJet 3070A multifunction printer doesn’t make a great initial impression. Its grey plastic breadbin shape and greyscale LCD display are reminiscent of designs from the 1990s.
Its paper handling is also rather crude. There’s no separate output tray, so your printed documents are get spat out on top of the main paper input tray. We were also surprised to find that inserting smaller postcard paper involves pushing your fingers quite deep inside the printer.
Fortunately, things picked up once we started to actually use the DeskJet 3070A. Like most printers, the 3070A can print a test page to help you check the print quality. However, it can also scan its own test page in order to detect any problems and calibrate itself automatically.
It has wireless connectivity for your home network, but HP’s ePrint feature also allows you to print documents by emailing them to the 3070A from any computer or other mobile device anywhere in the world that has internet and email access.
We were impressed by its printing performance too. Text output was smooth and sharp, and the 3070A turned out black and white text documents at a healthy eight pages per minute. HP’s black ink cartridges cost less than £10, which results in a competitive 3.6p per page for black and white printing, so it’s a good choice for home workers who regularly need to print multi-page mono text documents.
Colour text-and-graphics documents were a little slower at 4ppm, but that still gives it an edge over most of its rivals in this group. Printing costs were about average at about 12p per page for colour. The DeskJet 3070A uses separate cartridges for all four ink colours, so you only need to replace individual cartridges as they run out. HP also sells larger ‘XL’ cartridges that help to reduce printing costs further.
The Deskjet 3070A also performs well when printing photos, taking less than 30 seconds to print a 4x6in postcard. We discovered slight banding issues when printing photos on plain paper, but the results on glossy photo paper were much better, with bright colours that were only marginally oversaturated.
Comments
E Taniajura said: This is the worst printer Ive had
edtheplumber said: Goes through ink like mad and if it cant use it up it says it has been used or counterfit The set up cartridges lasted about 30 pages of normal documents I replaced them with genuine HP cartridges and less than 60 pages later no colour is printingBut what Really annoys me is this stupid printer is accusing me of using used or counterfit cartridgeAll are genuine HP and have only printed about 20 invoices that have black and blue
Wdi53 said: Downloaded io6on my iPad now my iPad doesent reconise my printer help its driving me mad
nwyclef said: Anyone with an idea how wheth samsung galaxy 3 can be connected on hpdeskjet 3070A printer please
nwyclef said: Talk abt the pricy cartridgesused to have same problemdo not throw away the used cartridge shellsthey can be refilled at a fraction of the original price by a local small cartridge dealerbut you must have the original shells so tht they refill wt the right inkGood luck
Bob Jacobson said: In other words a marginal entry at best
Bob Jacobson said: Anyone who buys this piece of junk deserves to get burned Firstthe HP 3070A has innumerable carriage problems having to do with a sticky carriage slideSecond the ink cartridges are impossibly small and run out of ink after printing just a few pages each Third when you run out you have two options1 Shell out dozens of dollars for one or a couple HP ink cartridges Note that they are tiny and you will be forced to come back for more 2 Buy a replacement cartridge from a reliable supplier and it wont matter it wont work HP has chosen to exercise its dictatorial power and made it impossible to use a third-party cartridge in the HP 3070AMy reaction as soon as I return home my 3070A gets junked I dont need an ink pig sitting on my desk The 3070A is a total failure as a printing platform and it scans only marginallyIts indicative that HPs major upgrade to this printer was to make its mainstay black-ink cartridge smaller thereby charging us the same or more for a lesser amount of ink Count on HP to find a way to squeeze its once-captive audience of users Our days of captivity are over thank goodness Goodbye HP
Myrmidon said: Had probs too but it was a whiz when i used the USB wire to hook up the printer to my laptop after i downloaded the printer driver to my laptop first It detected my wireless connection no prob Oh dont forget to manually switch on the wireless setting on the printer itself when you are doing this Good luck
Matt Egan said: Its possible you could set up a network via your PC and connect to that You wont be able to get online by plugging in the dongle to the printer
Laoana said: printer shows its connected to wifi network but when I try to print my mac reports printed off line
davcock said: I am quickly getting to the stage where I will give up on hp printers This unit is fine Small footprint everything works But WOW does it use ink I bought a looks-like set of cartridges and it would not accept them So had to shell out for HP originals The colours are already running out and I have not printed 50 pages I am reverting to trying to fill them up with a syringe If the clever little chips dont like that and refuse to let it work I will stick a big hammer through the whole thing and drop it on the desk of my retailer
purchasing said: nice features had some difficulty with the wireless but that may be because I hate yes hate hps consumer pop-up ads I mean printer drivers Seems like my ink is being used up very fast and it is noisy but has clean functional design that does not take up much space
Rafaelfdh said: I just have the same problem with0x6100001d Do you know how to solve it
Jtwolverine8 said: Overall a good cost-for-money printerprint in draft mode to further save ink and yet the quality is still moderately good enoughfast printing toowireless is easy to set up and useAirprint is good tooConsKinda noisyOutput tray and input tray sameNo software support for double sided printingsucked in 2 sheets of papers sometimes i think this depends on the paper
Jackie1712 said: Unpacked my 3070A a couple of days ago did all the steps as per the Quick Step Up guide and have an error message 0x6100001d NOWHERE in HPs support does it indicate what that means andor how to resolve it so Ive no idea what to do with the printer Not happy