raptorbill's Full Review: Hewlett Packard 8500 Premier (CB025A) All-In-One I...
Now that I've found an HP OfficeJet Pro 8500 that works - I really like this printer.
However, if you buy one, do so from a local retailer so you can exchange it if it is dead on arrival. You might also consider what we eventually did - unpack and assemble it in the store before you leave! Then repack it and take it home.
I purchased the HP OfficeJet Pro 8500 Premier from Office Depot on Saturday, May 30th - The last day of their $399.00 promotional sale.
I had to go through three printers before I got one that worked properly.
The first printer had a print head problem. Interestingly the HP Support site did not have any documentation on the particular error message I got. Nor were the help PDFs on the included CD. I found a number of references in support Forums reporting similar problems and all the incidents I could find indicated that the only feasible solution was to swap the printer. By the time I got the first one assembled the Office Depot office was closed, so I had to return on Sunday to swap it.
Getting the unit back in the box was a challenge as my helper couldn't remember the orientation of the printer in the box. Nor was there any diagram on the first printer's box showing how to repack it. But we finally figured it out (hint - the printer goes in back down so it's looking up at you).
The next two units did have a packing diagram on the box flap, but by then we got so good we could unpack and repack the thing in our sleep.
OK, so Sunday morning back to Office Depot to swap for the second printer.
The second had a bad display - after a lot of swearing, I called the local Office Depot manager and discussed the problem with him. Unfortunately, he sold the last unit in stock in his store but another store, about 7 miles further from us had 2 in stock. Bobby, the store manager called the other store and had their technician start assembling one of the units, so that when I arrived, it was going through it's 20 minute long start up process - it's calibration and self test processes. This one worked flawlessly. So we packed her up and got her home.
I held my breath when I powered it up - but hooray! It still worked!
Major Kudos to the staff of our local Office Depot stores for their great customer service. Not their fault that HP's Quality Assurance is a joke. Basically I wasted over a day with bad units.
During this whole ordeal, We had to drive our Jeep SUV as the huge printer box would not fit into our Saturn SC2. The box is mostly Styrofoam blocks and packing material, which is environmentally disappointing. The assembled printer is (I estimate) less than 1/2 the volume of the box.
Assembly is pretty easy, even with the sparse instructions in the quick start guide
The unit comes in three major pieces: The printer body, the duplexer and the second paper tray. The pieces easily fit together.
Next you insert the two print heads after shaking them at least 6 times. I'm guessing they come prefilled with ink which needs to be agitated - I can't figure out why else they'd want you to shake 6 times before installing the print heads.
OK - now it's time to install the software. The HP OfficeJet Pro 8500 Premier comes with all the usual bloatware I expect from HP. After installing the software suite, I have another 41 applications in my add/remove programs listing! Why can't HP just give us a print driver and a single decent utility program?
Also, later when I did a Secunia Security Scan, I discovered that HP's Digital Image Monitor software (the software that runs in the background on your PC and gives you all of the extended All-in-One functionality: Scan, FAX, etc.) requires it's included copy of Adobe Flash 9. This version has a security exposure and the software will not run with the current version, Flash 10. HP Support and their support forums have not helped resolve this issues as yet.
I have not yet installed the free copy of the OCR suite Readiris Pro (the old release, version 11) that came gratis with the printer. I haven't decided if it has any value to me or not.
I set the 8500 up on my house wide 1GB Ethernet LAN. It came right up and acquired it's DHCP address without any need to configure it. When I installed the software suite, it found the printer on the LAN and configured it with out any special geek knowledge on my part. Is was a pretty easy and painless process to set it up on our 3 computers.
I also configured the scan to network folder and scan to email capabilities and that was pretty straightforward too. You do need an email account with SMTP access and you need to know a little about configuring SMTP to get the scan to email capability to work.
I like these features as we can scan and email a document to PDF directly, without needing any of our computers even turned on.
The 8500 also has a built in web server so you can monitor, configure and control it using a web browser.
The FAX capabilities are really great. The unit will even monitor your line for incoming FAX signals if you share and voice a FAX line. After 4 rings, our answering machine picks up and the 8500 listens for FAX modem tones. If heard, the 8500 will receive the FAX.
The printer is relatively fast. Our actual performance matches the specifications.
We bought this printer because we were looking for an all-in-one unit that would work on our home network, FAX and Scan and email documents without relying on one of our PCs. We also were looking for network printing and scanning that worked reliably.
After a week - the printer works flawlessly. Overall, I'm happy with the printer. I just wished I could have started with one that worked!
I will report back and update this review as our saga continues.
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