The HP OfficeJet Pro 8500 is the latest incarnation of HP’s versatile printer, scanner, copier and fax machine. At an initial price of $ 499, this is close to the cost of a budget-class color laser printer.
However, they recently dropped the price to $ 369, instantly saving $ 130. You can check the latest price here You can also purchase it from Amazon.com for the lower $ 229 price tag.
Here are some of the key specifications for the HP OfficeJet Pro 8500 MFP:
- Up to 19 ppm black and 19 ppm color (normal quality).
- Monthly duty cycle 15,000 pages.
- 250-sheet input tray, second 250-sheet paper tray, 50-sheet ADF.
- Output up to 1200 x 1200 dpi for black and 4800 x 1200 dpi for color
- 384 MHz with 128 MB RAM (non expandable)
- Scan resolution up to 4800 (48 bit) dpi
- Supports CompactFlash Type I and II card slot, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, Memory Stick Pro Duo, Secure Digital (SD), SDHC, MMC, miniSD, microSD
- 1 USB 2.0 port, 1 Ethernet port, PictBridge, 1 RJ-11 fax port and 1 wireless 802.11 b / g port.
- The total weight of the printer is 33.8 lbs and the power consumption is 55W.
Overview & Summary
For those of you who don’t want to read the entire review, I’ve written a rundown of the pros and cons of the printer.
Positives:
- Print quality is high, both color and black.
- The scan is fast and reproduces the original document very well.
- The ability to scan legal size documents
- Duplex printing works well and is fast enough.
- Connecting to a wireless network is quick and easy.
- The software runs on both Mac and PC
- Memory card slots make it easy to print images and save scanned images.
- Ability to scan and automatically save digital copies of documents and images on the web.
Pros:
- High print quality, both color and black
- Scanning is fast and reproducing original document well
- Ability to scan legal-size documents
>
- Double-sided printing works well and is reasonably fast
- Wireless network connection is fast and easy
- Software runs on both Mac and PC
- Slots allow Memory Card with easy photo printing and easy erase storage
- Ability to scan digital copies of documents and photos and store them automatically in a network location
>
Cons:
- Print speed is lower than stated (about 9 ppm for black and white during my tests).
- It takes a very long time to start the printer for the first time. long time
- The software takes up more than 600 MB of hard disk space and slows down your computer.
- The software includes many programs that can confuse the novice user.
- It takes a few minutes to turn off and on the printer due to self-test.
- Energy Saver has problems, for example, the printer does not wake up when you send it a print job, which requires a complete printer restart.
- When copying documents, the printer usually skips pages altogether. This also happens when sending faxes.
- Unable to select color or black and white when scanning from the front panel.
Cons:
- Print speed is slower than advertised (approx 9ppm black and white during tests)
- It takes a long time to start the printer for the first time
- Run the program More than 600 MB of hard drive and computer slows down
- The program includes many programs that can confuse a novice user
- Turning the printer off and on and on slowing down the computer
-
- Energy saving mode has issues such as the printer not waking up when sending a print job, which requires a full restart of the printer
- When copying documents, the printer routinely skips pages completely. This also happens when sending a fax.
- Unable to choose color or black and white when wiping from the front panel
Overall, I would give the printer a 3-star rating and a buy recommendation only if you get it for $ 269. It’s a good printer, but some of the flaws it has are large enough to be considered another printer if not fixed.
What’s in the box?
- HP Officejet Pro 8500 All-in-One
- Automatic duplexer.
- Second 250 sheet paper tray.
- Black / Yellow printhead, Cyan / Magenta printhead
- 2 black ink cartridges, 2 cyan ink cartridges, 2 yellow ink cartridges and 2 magenta ink cartridges
- 1 power supply with power cord
- 1 phone cord
- 1 large installation poster
- 2 CDs (printer software Officejet and Readiris Pro 11)
What’s in the box?
- HP OfficeJet Pro 8500 All-in-One Printer
- Automatic two-sided printing accessory
- Second 250-sheet paper tray
- Black / Yellow printhead and cyan / magenta printhead
- 2 black ink cartridges, 2 cyan ink cartridges, 2 yellow ink cartridges, 2 magenta ink cartridges
- One power supply with power cord
>
- One Telephone Cord
- Large Setup Label
- Two CDs (Officejet and Readiris Pro 11 printer software)
>
Set up the printer
Taking the Officejet 8500 Pro out of the box and getting started wasn’t as quick as I expected. Unpacking the printer was easy enough, and the installation of all components, such as a duplex printer and a second paper tray, was straightforward and straightforward.
Installing the ink cartridges was also fairly simple and did not take long. Just unpack and insert them into slots. It took a few tries though to fit the printheads exactly into their slots (top image).
Once you’ve installed them, you load paper and connect your printer. Here the process took a lot of time. When you turn on the device for the first time, it takes a full 20-25 minutes to calibrate and set up.
Personally, I don’t think you really have to wait that long for the printer to work! Anyway, while you wait, he says to continue installing the printer software.
Included software
I was very unhappy with the HP software installation. Firstly, the software installation took almost half an hour, and secondly, it was full of programs that I didn’t think I was going to use.
In general, if you install the software with the default settings, it will take between 600 and 800 MB on your computer! For me, this is completely unnecessary for a multifunction printer.
If you only install the driver, it will still set you back 270MB. The software is hugely bloated and will slow down your machine.
Wireless setup
What pleased me was the wireless connection of the printer. You can do this from the front of the printer and it was able to connect to my secure wireless network without any problems.
In addition, after connecting, the program will try to automatically find the printer on the network and initialize it. There were no problems here either, i.e. problems with firewall etc.
Other features
After completing the setup, you will be presented with a menu where you can configure other advanced printer features such as digital archiving, digital fax, and others. Once configured, you can send the scanned image by email or directly to a network location.
Unfortunately, the printer speed is not as fast as I expected. Overall, however, for an inkjet printer, this is still pretty fast.
I printed a 5-page text-only document and took about 35 seconds to print. This translates to approximately 9 ppm, which is lower than the estimated 19 ppm when printing normally.
If you are printing a longer document, the print speed increases slightly to 11 pages per minute. For color documents it is also lower than the specification, but this may be due to the type of color print tested.
Finally, the duplex printing speed is about 3 ppm. If you want to do a lot of duplex printing, you won’t like this speed.
Scanning is done
Overall, I was pleased with the scan quality and speed of the Officejet 8500 Pro. You can choose to scan to email, scan to computer, scan to USB drive or memory card, or scan to reprint.
The Officejet did a very good job of reproducing images and even text documents when scanned. Colors were accurate and overall quality was very good. Scanning was probably the function of the multifunction printer that worked very well and matched the advertisements.
Copy / fax
Both of these features would have had excellent marks if it weren’t for the fact that they just didn’t work sometimes. After several tests, I found that copiers tend to skip pages when copied.
If I put a 5-page document to copy, only 4 pages would be copied almost every time. This is simply unacceptable for such a high-performance printer, especially for small offices.
The same problem occurs when sending faxes, which is awful because your clients may not receive all the pages they need. Another major issue is that the printer thinks it has copied / faxed everything, when in fact it is not! A big problem.
Conclusion
In my general opinion, the HP Officejet 8500 Pro is a very good multifunction printer, but due to several serious flaws it falls short of expectations. In general, you will be happy with your printer if you have a really fast computer with plenty of hard disk space and can manage to get a printer that does not skip pages when copying and faxing.
If you have an Officejet 8500 and have something to add about your experience, feel free to add it in the comments!
–