HP CB277AN#140 78 Plus Tri-Color Inkjet Print Cartridge with Vivera Inks

List Price: $43.83 Discount Price: Too low to display

Features:

• Tri-Color Print Cartridge
• Equipped with HPs Vivera Inks Technology
• 72.9 Million Color Combinations for Rich/Stunning Photos and Graphics
• Average Cartridge Yield: 400 Color Graphics Pages
• 0.18 lbs (WxLxH) 1.30" x 4.50" x 5.50"

Customer Reviews:

not worth it! [Posted on 2007-10-26]
I got this cartridge for my HP DeskJet 932c. I'd been using the regular color ink cartridges and got good photos but thought this new ink would be even better. It's NOT! What's more, when I print on plain paper in "draft" mode, the color portions are wrong. I've cleaned the printer contacts twice according to HP instructions, ran all the utilities, and still cannot print in draft mode with any color. However, B&W in draft mode is great, as long as there are no color graphics or text. I realize this printer is old, but I didn't have a problem with it until I switched to this cartridge. Huge ripoff!

Vibrant ink... BUT I'd avoid it unless you can profile your printer [Posted on 2008-02-06]
I thought I'd try to get better prints from my five-year-old, dirt-cheap Deskjet 952C. HP offered a Vivera ink cartridge that fit my 952C, the 78 Plus, and I thought to give it a whirl.

Pretty colors... but sadly they didn't match the actual colors on my home planet.

The answer? I found a service that creates ICM/ICC printer profiles. There are are several around on the Web that ask you to download and print a page or two of calibration information with the Vivera ink and whatever brand of paper you want to use. You then mail the printed-out calibration target to the profiling service. They scan it into a computer, run a profiling program, and generate a 2 MB profile. You then tell your photo printing software (I use Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop CS3, but many, many printing apps are ICC/ICM-profile aware) to use the profiles... and it's like night and day. The best $40 I've spent in quite some time, and now I can turn out reasonably decent photo prints on my humble little three-ink printer.

Why four stars? I'm a bit miffed at HP. There is no good reason why they couldn't have a bunch of ICC/ICM profiles already built on their Web site. The HP Web site clearly says that the 78 Plus cartridge works great with the 952C... but it doesn't, at least not without an ICC/ICM profile.

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