I don’t usually dump all over a piece of hardware, but I’ll make an exception in the case of the HP Deskjet F4580 AIO. I bought the thing because I read the wrong reviews, apparently. Oh, boy did I! *sigh* Nice, thought I: a wireless-enabled printer by HP, a company whose printers I’d always had good experiences with in the past. Cool. That way, I wouldn’t have to leave a computer on and connected to the network with printer sharing enabled in order for users on the network to print to it.
Besides, it looked like it’d save desk space, given that I’d be able to scan documents as well. (Sure, we have a couple of other scanners, but again, to not have to have it connected to a computer… and the space issue.)
I should just have bought a device to connect our 13-year-old, failing, HP workhorse printer to the network. I’d have gotten better service. Sure, the printer was failing, but still…
Oh, when it prints, it prints very nicely. When it scans, it does that nicely too. But. Keeping it connected is a PITA. Sometimes, the only thing that I’ve been able to do to get it to connect is to completely uninstall the thing (and the humongous software package that should NOT be required to install the printer) and then reinstall it. Again and again and again.
Router shows it’s connected? Nope. The printer isn’t. Print a document and the print queue shows it’s printing? Nope. Not until the thing’s turned off and then turned on again. A whole mess of things like that. HP’s diagnostic utilities and installation wizard and cleanup utility? All junk. Utter, completely useless crap.
Oh, and did I mention that we’d scarcely printed 10 pages of text (all black ink) before the damned thing (yes, I think it was designed and manufactured by demons in hell) was reporting both cartridges nearly empty?
I was already POed at HP for some of its crappy notebooks/netbooks it’s shoved out the door recently, but this thing takes the cake. The other day, it performed a partial print of a document four times before it printed the whole thing. And I’d cleared the print queue each time it tried and failed to print the thing and did not resubmit the document at all.
What a PITA.
Oh, and the scanning? Yeh, still pretty much need to have the nearest computer on, since one has to place the document to be scanned and it’s far easier to control the scanning from a nearby computer (wirelessly, there’s pretty much only one way: via the web interface; that’s not the way it’s supposed to be, but invoking the scanning facility via one’s graphics software or even the HP imaging software has about a 50/50 chance of working at best). Of course, since most printing/scanning away from my desk is from notebooks, bringing one in and doing the scanning (via the web interface) would let me leave the always nearby compy off, I guess…
All in all, aside from the demonically-engineered and manufactured piece of crap dropping its wireless connection willy-nilly all the freakin’ time, the sheer clunkiness of the thing is irritating.
Avoid it.
Recently bought an HP 100a I think that’s the number, and when it works, it works swell.
We are however having some of the same problems you are. A wireless that doesn’t recognize all of our printers, and its a constant shut-down, turn-off, reload the software nightmare. One of our laptops keeps getting the same errors that the print cartridges are not compatible with this printer and of course they’re the cartridges that came with the printer as well as replacements we bought directly from HP when they were running a deal.
NONE of the HELP programs are word a damn, and isn’t that pitiful after all these years of the SAME problems.
Correction: its a D110 photosmart (or photodumb if you ask me). I may very well go back to cheapo Lexmarks just to have something to print the simple stuff.
You know, Fits, since the majority of our printing needs here at twc central are for B&W text, I’m seriously tempted to just get a cheap laser printer and an even cheaper print server box to connect it to a router and just leave in the network closet. It’d mean virtually writing this thing off and putting a scanner back on the desktop, but I begin to wonder if it’d be worth it… Heck, one of these lil network ready laser printer/scanner/copiers might just do the trick for our needs: http://tinyurl.com/3vtfaub