Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsEasy to set up, slowest printer to print
Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2020
Update 2 years later:
I've been fighting with this printer for over two years and while it prints well, it's very frustrating to deal with. Couple things I've noticed.
1. HP stops at nothing to peddle their services and products, as well as wanting to see everything you do. Their software to allow scan to PC, print and such requires a freakin login, so they can spy on everything. When that software gets an update, it forgets who you are and you have to load it up and sign back in.
2. This is the slowest printer I've ever seen or even heard about printing the first page. I'm using this at home and don't need to print often. When I do print, this thing goes into some printer maintenance mode where it whirls and spins for 3 to 5 minutes. Eventually it figures out its ok to print and does its thing. I don't know if its doing something with the ink nozzles or what.
3. Price of ink has risen and for what little I print, I get very little printing for a lot of money on ink. I haven't tried the aftermarket/refills yet, although that's next on my list when I run out of ink again. All these inkjet printer places expect to make their $$$ off the supplies, although HP takes it step further and tracks your info to boot.
I would not purchase another HP printer if I could avoid. Sadly, it's not like there are an abundance of options for printers in the home.
Original:
I've owned a lot of printers over the years and watched all the printer/ink wars unfold. Basically with every ink printer on the market, they want to give you the printer next to free in hopes you'll spend a small fortune on ink. That's why you see some companies such as Lexmark folding on selling inkjet printers - margins are too low. And that's why you see such a low page count on the ink that comes with the printer - it's just enough to get you started so you have to buy more ink.
So when purchasing a printer, all the silly little features they like to advertise are rather meaningless unless you really do need that touch screen or whatever. What matters is how well it prints (remember the days when a cell phone was measured by the quality of calls and not how well it took a picture?) and host costly the ink is over time. HP does a fair job on cost/page for their ink, although they try to sucker you into monthly services for ink and all kinds of crap. Apparently, gone are the days of just buying a printer and being able to print without big brother watching you print, analyzing your print habits and trying to sell you crap in your own home/business.
My last printer was working fine and had about 7 years on it. What was becoming difficult was finding ink and driver support with Microshaft's poor Windows development. Around the same time, my father needed a printer and since I'm his tech support, I thought I'd buy 2 of the same kind to ease support. There's good and bad here.
The good side of this printer is that it was very easy to set up. As with so many things now, there's a mobile app to set up the device. Yet another way to peer into your privacy, although few give it any consideration these days. I had the printer set up on wireless and connected to multiple PCs in under 20 minutes.
The Windows software is a bit crappy and somewhat confusing in some places on what was going on. The first thing I wanted to do was turn off all the marketing crap (I don't need monthly ink service) and spying on me (HP does not need to know when and how much I print). They did keep some of that hidden well, so the average user won't just go ah, there are the spyware settings.
Print quality on this printer is quite good. I've been very pleased with text being crisp and close to laser quality. I do not bother with photo printing at home considering the cost of photo paper and then the ink. Helpful hint here is to visit your local Walmart and get prints made much easier and likely cheaper unless you're doing a lot of scrapbooks.
The worst downside on this printer is how slow it is to finally print something. I don't need to print every single day and apparently this printer gets a chip on its shoulder about it. When I do print, it goes into some kind of maintenance where it hums and acts like it is thinking hard about life. After 5 minutes or so, it finally spits out that precious page. I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt and guessing maybe it does something to the nozzles to prevent the ink from drying up and then has to do something to get started back up again. I'm rarely in a rush, so it's not the end of the world - just confusing when you don't know for sure what it is doing.
For the price, this is about as good as it gets though. Once up and going, it's pretty hassle free. I'd recommend it and would likely purchase again.
