At the "FastNormal" setting, the print quality is close to LASER quality while the speed is incredible. I upgraded from a Canon BJC-4000 that has pumped out thousands of pages for me since 1994 and has put me through grade school, high school, and a 4 year engineering university. If it (the BJC-4000) were a live person, I'd buy it a six-pack - so it doesn't come easy for me to say that the 3650 is a big step up from the BJC-4000.I have not put the 3650 through any longevity tests, but installation, performance, and quality are superb. I ran into zero problems installing it on an XP Pro SP-1 PC, and didn't run into any problems sharing the printer over a LAN.
I did run into an annoyance:
When printing with just the black cartridge installed, it would always tell me that I'm missing the color cartridge.
Also whenever the printer attempts to clear the print head, it would blow out a huge wad of ink onto the pad on the left side of the printer. Each HP #27 cartridge is only 10mL (the BJC-4000's BC-20 was 22mL and would last me approximately 1000-1500 pages at draft quality text) so each drop that it wastes costs me a few dozen pages.
You must install the drivers FIRST before connecting the printer to your PC via USB. I've tested this printer on my Dell Inspiron 8100 laptop and my self-built AMD XP 2100+ PC. Both use Windows XP Pro. The printer also works flawlessly over a LAN.
After several weeks of testing I'd like to add the "X" button on the printer is a true godsend - it's for cancelling print jobs. Rather than going to the Control Panel to manually cancel a job, hitting that button stops the job and clears it from the queue w/o any problems over a LAN.
Also if you print over a LAN and the printer is OFF, it will turn on by itself. This is a big plus because I don't always have the luxury of working at the PC where the printer is physically installed.
The only complaints I have is that the paper loading mechanism sounds like someone banging on plastic pots and pans - it's very very loud!! Also it tends to gobble ink cartridge fluid rather quickly but it prints faster than the HP Laserjet V I have at work, and with the quality set at NORMAL or FastNormal, it rivals that of laser printers.
Overall I give it 5 stars out of 5 - if you know how to properly install USB devices on PCs then you'll get it to work. I wouldn't recommend installing it on an older PC that isn't running Windows 2000 or XP.
UPDATE: After using it for a longer period of time, I did in fact notice that the small ink cartridge capacity limits its maximum time for operation in an office environment.
The cost is not an issue since I found a bulk supplier of ink refills that would save me a bundle. What was important was the ease of changing cartridges (pull the lid and the cartridge holder comes into changing position) and the quality of printing w/ non-standard ink.
Make sure you clean the cartridge if you start to see lines in the print out. I noticed a strip of dried ink on the head unit and cleaned that off with some water and a tissue.
Overall the printer is STILL exceeding my expectations.
My impression of this printer:
Low price, Hewlett Packard quality + reliability.
