I often get asked to review things and blog about them on this and other blogs that I run.
A lot of the time I say no, unless a product or service is something I’m particularly interested in or would actually use – this blog is about Twitter for Business, not Freebies for Nikki after all 
When PR company Edelman approached me a couple of months ago and asked me to trial the new HP 8500 wireless printer, my first thoughts were ‘Why’? My blog isn’t about printers, I can’t even pretend to turn a blog about the 8500 into a blog about Twitter, and I already had a HP printer. Anna from Edelman told me that this printer claims to be environmentally friendly, which was a definite plus, and that it was a deskjet that was as good as a laser. Intrigued, I agreed to trial it, on the basis that I wouldn’t guarantee to blog about it.
It arrived (many thanks to Essex courier company Arrow Light Haulage for arranging delivery to France!) in an unnervingly large box, and indeed was larger than I expected. I mean, I know it’s a printer, fax, scanner and copier in one, but it’s huge! That’s a plus because it looks robust, but a minus if you have a small office – most people wantng an all in one probably want it for reasons of space as well as convenience!
Installation was easy, a touch screen menu helped with that, and within no time we were up and running, with 3 computers and a laptop able to print – something we’d struggled to achieve in the past with printers!
There’s not a lot to say that’s not been said before – the printing is bloody fast, and works well even in economy mode, and the double sided printing works a treat; as well as saving paper, it saves time, as the machine just sucks the paper back in to print the other side, rather than you having to get up and turn it all around (always putting it in the wrong way of course!).
Scanning is a breeze – the touch screen menu allows you to send the scan direct to your computer as a PDF or an image, or to email it if necessary.
I didn’t test the fax as we use an online faxing system, and the copier works as expected, in both colour and black and white mode.
HP is marketing the printer as eco friendly, money saving, and as good as a laser printer. I think the print quality is as good as a laser, and for the small or home based business, this would be as good as a laser printer.
On the energy saving front, the HP 8500 saves energy by sleeping when not in use, and only reactivating when you touch the screen or send a print job.
It also takes separate colour cartridges, so rather than replacing one colour, you can replace (for example) just the Cyan – I’ve never thought of that before but it makes sense.
So:
Pros:
- easy to install
- cheaper (it retails at around £320) than buying separate machines
- energy saving
- good print quality
- fast printing
- double sided printing
Cons:
- it’s loud – very loud – when printing
- it’s BIG
All in all, I’d definitely recommend it, and if it lives up to its money saving claims then I’m all for it!
Edelman also sent me a list of tips for saving money on printing which I’ve uploaded and you can download as a PDF – very useful, whatever your printer.
Tags: 8500, eco friendly, edelman, hewlett packard, hp 8500, printer, printing
It was our pleasure to deliver it to you Nikki, next time we will do so in person.
What is interesting reading through this, is that you found it easy to set up and we didn’t. Took us nearly 90 minutes to get it right but the wireless printing – well it’s amazing. Again something we had never achieved with ease until now.
I am now off to try and print photos with it now
Sarah
I’d just like to share my opinion of this printer just for all those who are thinking of purchasing it.
I received it just yesterday and yes it is a very large box I wasn’t expecting it be be so big but I guess I was a bit naive considering it is an all in one printer.
I unpacked it and removed all the packaging, cardboard, cellophane and sticky tape. I decided to put it all together without looking at the instructions. You can kinda figure out where everything goes but I was surprised about the print head colours, I thought the only cartridges I would have to purchase would be the ink cartridges so extra cost there. Putting the rest together e.g. duplex unit, cartridges, power cable and phone cables was pretty straight forward, I even managed to get the phone and fax working on the same line with a combination of filters and extra phone cables.
When you switch it on for the first time it does take about 20mins but advises you to install the software which I did on both Vista and XP without any problem, although it does advise you to temporarily disable the virus software which isn’t a problem. After the software was installed I set up the wireless network and the network, email and fax filing which was again vey simple.
I have tested the printing which is good quality and fast and the network filing which all worked very well. The scannng didn’t seem that good as in the picture was clear but some kind of wavy textures in the image maybe I wasn’t doing it right but may have to test further. I haven’t tested the Fax as yet but will let you know how this worked out as with the scanning.
All in all this is a very robust friendly print with excellent software both for the PC and on the printer of which I will also be having a go at.
P.S one thing I forgot to mention which is a bit of a negative is that the touch screen is increadibly difficult to navigate and found myself cleaning the print heads which takes several minutes which was a pain, so I would adivise using a stylus instead of your finger which worked alot better.
Well, unfortunately, I cannot provide positive feedback. I’ve had it 3 days and have spent 3 days trying to get the wireless working. It keeps losing connection, which I’ve found is a common problem. I’ve tried all the appropriate work-arounds (that other users have written about)….turned off firewall, added port to firewall exceptions, entered mac address into wireless router settings, etc, etc, etc… The printer says it’s online, and I can do a successful ping test, so I’m pretty sure its a software issue….software which I have installed 3 times. In fact one of the messages is “error in printing system.” If I reboot my laptop, it will work, but only for about 15 minutes before it loses connection again. It’s a shame because this unit offers a lot of features. I’m at the end of my patience, and will be returning it to the store.
Unpacked the printer and proceeded to try to install the print heads and found out that the section that holds the print heads is missing. Contacted HP got the fist level support; she kept asking the same questions over and over and over. After 40 minutes of tolerating this, she finally tells me that HP currently does not have any new printers and she will be replacing the brand new printer I just purchased and never used with a refurbished printer. How ridiculous is that?
I have owned over 30 HP printers in my lifetime, and I had never had such terrible experience. I am not sure I’ll be buying another one from them.
Hi there,
I’m Daniel and I work in product marketing and closely with the technical team at HP. I’m sorry to hear you’re having problems with your printer. Without knowing a bit more about the problem it’s difficult to recommend a fix but if you drop us a note with your contact details to ipg_support@hp.com one of our technical support team will get in touch and we’ll do our best to help.
Just looking around for information on faxing software that I can use to enhance my current business needs; moreover, I found your post quite informative, keep up the hard work.
As npayab – ours just arrived without the print heads!
Ho hum, one return and replacement about to be arranged…