Digital Trends

The versatile 9670 is great at what it does but comes with a high price tag. We had a tough time deciding exactly what environment (business, home office or personal) this printer would fit into. HP states that the 9670 is great for businesses, creative professionals and photography enthusiasts.   In a business environment where only black text documents are used this printer would be overkill.  The business that utilizes large spreadsheets and requires color printing will find the HP 9670 fits the bill perfectly.

In the personal printer market, the 9670 reproduces true-to-life photos from small to the really large and has the capability to spit out text documents quickly.  The high price tag may make the casual home user opt for a printer of a lesser scale unless large formats are desired.  You really need to desire the wide-format options for this to be the printer for you.

We view the HP9670 as a niche printer with its high-speed black text printing to the faithful reproductions of graphics and photos and large media capability. These capabilities allow it to span several bridges and become a jack-of-all-trades. 

Other points to consider are the multiple print options that allow the end user to select optimal print speed, optimal speed and quality or optimal quality.  The versatility in ink cartridges allows you to use four-ink (HP56 black and HP57 tri-color cartridges) for everyday printing of text, images and graphics and six-ink (HP58 photo and HP57 tri-color cartridges) for photo printing.  The features and benefits of the 9670 such as the ink backup mode, automatic paper-type sensor and the powerful software tools make this a well executed, user friendly ink jet printer.    

*Edit 10-30-03: We had the price originally listed at $599.99 but found out after the review that the price is actually $499.99. We have changed the price accordingly. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused.