Printer | Computer, Electronics, Gadget, Software Reviews

Manufacturer: Hewlett Packard
Sale Price: Too low to display

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Get professional results with this affordable, easy-to-use HP All-in-One. Watch productivity increase with print, scan, copy and fax capabilities in one device. Print high-quality color documents for less than lasers using HP Officejet inks.

Product Details

Wireless
Borderless photo printing
Up to 4800 x 1200 optimized dpi color when printing from a computer and 1200 input dpi
Direct photo printing
Color print; color copy; color scan; color fax

Customer Reviews

Having trouble? Perhaps this will help. (BTW: This really is a decent little unit)

Review Date: August 21, 2009

Reviewer: Method2Madness, Hampton Roads, VA

First, let me preface by saying that I am not "tied" to any particular brand or model. I've had, and/or still have: Epsons, Canons, HPs and Lexmarks (I tend to shy away from Lexmarks low end units, but the higher end units work fine) and they ALL have their good apples and their bad apples. I, for the life of me, simply cannot label this as a bad apple. And believe me, after reading all the negative reviews, I tried! It works without flaw on Vista 32 bit, Vista 64 bit and Windows 7 64 bit RC1(Using the Vista 64 bit drivers). Both via USB and via WiFI with an old Linksys WRT54GL.

/PREFACE OFF

I work out of my SUV and needed a small printer/copier to use while I was on the road. This so happened to be on sale a few weeks ago and was the cheapest AIO, with the exception of the Lexmark which I was not willing to purchase, so I bought it. I got it home, preformed the normal new printer setup ritual, contemplated some sort of ceremonial dance due to all the negative reviews, and dug in.

---FIRST RULE OF THUMB WHEN INSTALLING ANY NEW HARDWARE: Create a restore point! If anything goes haywire, you can just "roll back" to this restore point.

---SECOND RULE OF THUMB: Do NOT use the drivers provided in the box. Ever... Instead download the drivers and/or firmware/system updates and/or patches from HP.

---AND THE FINAL RULE OF THUMB: Unless you love bloatware(God knows, HP wants you to...), find the most BASIC and SMALLEST driver set available that still allows full feature operation. When I searched (What a novel idea, right?), there were two "junior sized" drivers for this particular unit and both gave summaries as to what they do. The first one was the "HP Officejet Basic print&scan driver" and the second was the "HP Officejet Basic Driver - IT Professional Use Only". Now, don't let the "professional use only" scare you. It installs just like the beefier versions with a setup.exe, it's just WAY faster to install and WAY smaller. Once installed, you have the normal scan and print functions, without the hassle.

I have successfully scanned via Windows Scanning & Printing (WIA) and also via Adobe Photoshop CS4 (WIA). I then printed numerous photos and documents on both photo and standard printer paper with not so much as a peep or a jam. Yes, I'm serious. And no, I'm not even close to being "easy" on it. It sits in my truck all day and night with inside temps reaching a scorching 115 degrees Fahrenheit and has worked every single time I called on it. Trust me I'm as shocked as you.

This brings me to my last point, that I'm certain someone is just dying to call me on: "Why should people have to use workarounds? Why can't it just work?". That is a very good question. But it is also a question you will find yourself asking more and more in life, as time goes on. This is, unfortunately, a fact of life. As things get cheaper and cheaper, manufacturers have to cut corners to keep up with their competitors and quite simply, things get overlooked. It sucks big time, and we as customers shouldn't HAVE to use workarounds, but if you want a machine that does everything this one does, for less than the price of just a basic inkjet a few years ago, you're gonna have to make exceptions. It's a necessary evil, folks.

In closing, might I suggest one thing: Before jumping on the Haterade bandwagon (and this includes mindlessly rating me down for no particular reason other than you couldn't get it to work for you, so therefore I must be lying), try to put forth a little effort on your part to rectify the problem. Is a simple Google search, or a simple visit to HP.com really THAT difficult? Lord knows, you'll spend MUCH more time than that on the phone with the foreign "help desk". Not to mention the time it takes to create such negative reviews.

Now this isn't to say there's been no bad hardware shipped, as I'm more than certain there are some who got lemons straight from the factory and even all the research in the world won't rectify that problem. But after reading all the reviews, I found that the majority of the issues are either due to user error, or fixed in a software driver update that the user never bothered to check for.

If you want jack of all trade items at bargain prices, sometimes you have to do a little work.

It just works (even with Linux)

Review Date: November 10, 2008

Reviewer: Robert Hoare,

First of all, I must make clear I'm using this printer with computers running Ubuntu Linux, using version 2.8.10 of the HPLIP driver software (the first version to support it). I have no comments on the Windows or Mac software that comes with the printer, as I don't use it.

I set the printer up with the control panel it has, it found my home network (802.11g, WPA2 encryption) immediately and I entered the network password and it connected first time. (after a power cut later, it reconnected itself fine).

The printer setup on my Linux computer automatically found the printer (wirelessly) without any problem and configured it in under a minute. Printed test page fine.

I've since printed other documents, done a 400MB full-page 1200dpi scan, sheet fed photocopies, enlarged photocopies etc all without any problem. All wireless (where applicable), haven't needed to plug the USB cable in. It just works. I haven't had any reason to test the fax features (don't have a landline phone).

Quality-wise, color images are not quite as good as my older (wired) HP C3180 printer, but still quite acceptable. For printing and (especially) scanning the J4680 is fairly slow, for home use that doesn't really matter.

I've even set up my Nokia E51 phone to print wirelessly to this printer, again a matter of entering the configuration details on the phone and it just worked.

I've deducted one star for the lack of a backlight on the screen, it's really hard to read in anything other than perfect light. Other than that, I'm struggling to find anything to complain about. I'll update this review when I do find something!

big disappointment

Review Date: November 6, 2008

Reviewer: M. Martin, boston, MA

I am extremely disappointed with this printer. My main motivation for purchasing it was the wireless capability, but I have been unable to get the wireless function to work. When I print the settings page, it indicates that all is correct, yet I simply cannot get it to work wirelessly. I tried to connect the printer both to my home network and using an adhoc peer to peer connection and neither would work. very frustrating! the software installation is extremely buggy and took several tries to install the printer even using a USB connection. I am really good with computers but this product has completely baffled me...HP customer service via email is a joke. About 6 techs sent me the same link to the same solution, and when I responded to their questions, they sent me the same info again...totally useless.

UPDATE TO THIS REVIEW: months later, i upgraded my wireless router from a wireless b to a wireless g and wouldn't you know--the printer works fine now. it would have been helpful to have this in the printer documentation or TOLD TO ME BY HP WHEN I CONTACTED THEM REPEATEDLY, that you must be running a wireless g network for this device to work. i also recommend not using the software disc that comes with the product, but rather downloading the latest from the HP website & doing a custom install so that your computer does not have HP Customer Participation and all those other useless programs that are impossible to uninstall.

review for home use

Review Date: November 22, 2008

Reviewer: new purchaser,

the product is very satisfactory.the price is good considering the features.the small dimensions of the product is suitable for a small home office. the wireless feature is very useful for homes which makes use of portable devices such as laptops. the paper feeder sometimes jams. the automatic feeder for the scanner needs improvement.

J4680 best bang for your buck

Review Date: December 7, 2008

Reviewer: B. Massey, TX United States

This printer does an excellent job. I bought mine on sale (Black Friday) for $[...] from Tiger Direct. I would have preferred to get it from Amazon, but they had no such sale. I think this printer gives you all that you need if you are looking for a true all-in-one printer with fax and wireless capability. The J4680 also gives you a document feeder that works for copying/scanning/faxing documents. I was originally considering the Canon MX850 (mainly because it was ranked #1 on consumer reports). My main requirements were that the device had to have fax capability and be networkable (via ethernet or wireless). I believe both printers have a max 4800 x 1200 dpi for color scans. After reviewing the pros/cons of each device and finding the lowest Black Friday price on the MX850 to be $[...] vs. $[...] for the J4680, it was a no brainer. For one thing, the MX850 is a beast; it's huge. See the dimension comparision that follows:

MX850: 20 x 19 x 10.2 inches, 43 pounds
J4680: 17.1 x 15.8 x 8.5, 13 pounds

Some other differences to note: The MX850 is not wireless, it has an ethernet connection. So, both printers do allow you to link into your wireless printer and print wirelessly. In hindsight, I'm glad I went with the J4680, as it has a wireless (no ethernet) connection. This might come in handy one day when we move, and a CAT5 wired connections isn't ready available without a nearby router. I wanted to have as few as wires as possible. Wire-clutter is a pet peave of mine; I also wanted the printer to be as "mobile as possible" without the need for a nearby CAT5 jack.

I think ink costs for the Canon are less than the HP (if you buy brand-name HP/Canon cartridges). This wasn't a showstopper for me as I never buy brand name manufactured ink cartridges anyway as I believe they are a rip-off. You can get great generic ink cartridges that do just as good of job. Besides, if you are wanting to print pictures and get great, high quality prints, you shouldn't be printing them at your house, as you can get them printed a lot cheaper (with better dpi) from you local Walmart/Sams Club/Costco or online. Don't waste your ink.

Three other differences that came to mind when I made my decision were:

1) the J4680 lacks a media card reader (no biggie, you can get one on sale online for under $[...] if you don't have one).
2) the J4680 has no color LCD viewer--it just has a monochrome lcd display. Truly, I've never understood the big deal with LCD color viewers on printers. I'd rather view the picture on my LARGE laptop screen anyway to determine if I want to print the pic or not.
3) the J4680 doesn't print on both sides of the paper. This is a functionality I wish it had, but I wasn't willing to pay an extra $[...] to get it from the MX850(thus my 4 vs. 5 star rating). There are other printers out there that have this functionality, for a lower cost, if this is a big deal to you.

That's all for my two cents on the J4680 vs the MX850. I'm glad I went with the J4680. It is a great, small/compact device (wireless) that is a true all-in-one printer. BTW, I had no major issues setting up the wireless connection. I did have to enable MAC filtering on my router, but after I did that, the J4680 worked like a charm--and I'm printing from two different laptops, wirelessly--one with XP, the other with VISTA (btw VISTA sucks, but that's for another forum).

****Update 9-7-09******
HP released updated drivers in 05-2009. The drivers have fixed some finicky connection issues I've experienced. Prior to updating the drivers, I would sporadically not be able to wirelessly connect to the printer. It seemed the issue would occur if I went into sleep mode and came out of sleep mode--I'd lose my connection and sometimes would have to reboot before the connection would be re-established. I experienced similar problems if I took my laptop to the office and then returned home and tried to reconnect to the J4680 at home--most times I couldn't connect. Now with the updated drivers all these problems are gone. I was frustrated with the finicky connection prior to updating the drivers. Now, after updating the drivers I have no problem after going into sleep mode or connecting to the printer after coming home from work. It is working like a charm. I'm glad the HP driver division got their act together.