Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Man, HP printers really get a broad mix of reviews here. I'll try to summarize my experience, since I bought this MFP to replace a 24 year old HP 5P (its maximum print speed was either 5 or 6 pages per minute!) and technology has changed quite a bit since then. First, a basic description behind my rating. The printer, once setup, is really, really fast. It scans well, and printed text is clear and contrasty. I'm impressed with it as a printer. The downside to the product: there is no SMTP scan to email feature. HP's own technical specification claims there is, and Amazon's own product images shows a checkbox next to scan to email, but it's genuinely *not there*. HP's Embedded Web Services should have an option for it, and it's not there. So I took off one star. It doesn't mean scanning isn't possible. It just means you have to be at a computer with some sort of scan software running to scan. Note: scan software comes with Mac OS and with Windows, so it's not a matter of needing difficult-to-use software -- it's strictly a matter of push-button convenience. Apart from this, the printer is fairly sleek, and it's not too loud for a laser printer. I think 4 / 5 stars is warranted, pending long-term reliability. Remember my 24 year old printer? We'll see how this one does. Second: installation, which seems to be a sticking point in the reviews below. Let me start by saying that the printer is NOT so smart that you can just turn it on, select a WiFi network from its display, and voila, you have a printer / scanner / fax on every computer. *Some* setup is needed if you want the device to show up wirelessly. The good news: it's not too difficult. The bad news: HP's instructions are a little iffy. If you just want a USB printer, just plug in the included USB cable to your computer, and any Windows machine will recognize the device and download the necessary drivers for it. As a wired printer, you don't need to follow any of HP's setup instructions. Using Windows 10, which has a built-in scan app, you can hit the ground running even with the scanner with no confusion. If, however, you want to use the printer on your local Wi-Fi network, I think you'll have to install HP's "HP Easy Start" software. (If someone else has another way, feel free to comment on this review.) This is step 6 in HP's "Getting Started" guide, but in Step 5, small text says NOT to connect the USB cable to the printer until the software has been installed. Connecting the cable before HP's software is installed and running allows Windows to grab the driver and set up the printer before HP's Easy Start does, which might cause issues later on in the installation. Once that software is installed, it will guide you through step-by-step to getting the printer on the wireless network. Once it's connected to the network, the LED of the antenna button on the touch panel will be solid blue, and you can use any computer -- Mac or Windows -- to look for devices, and the printer will be there. Realistically, once the Easy Start software is installed, it can actually be uninstalled, since the wireless settings will be written to the printer during the Easy Start setup process (via the USB cable, which the installation prompts you to plug in at the right moment). I've printed and scanned documents now from two computers, neither of which have HP Easy Start on them, as well as the computer that I originally installed Easy Start from, with no issues. I uninstalled Easy Start on the original computer I used to communicate with the printer and it can still print and scan via wireless. So, in all reality, it shouldn't be too difficult to set up the printer, even though HP's instructions are a bit of a nightmare. The main reason to go through their steps is to get the printer on the wireless network. They should read: Step 1: plug in printer to wall outlet Step 2: wait for printer to initialize Step 3: install HP Easy Start via the URL provided in the Setup Guide Step 4: run the software and follow it through* ---- Step 4 is really the last one to get the printer on wireless. The next steps aren't really different from any printer installation of any sort. ---- Step 5: uninstall Easy Start if you prefer Step 6: if you have other computers, add the printer per that operating system's normal instructions. If you're on wireless, the printer will have a complicated network name alongside its model name (M148xyz). Step 7, if needed: HP Easy Start does offer the choice to install about 300 MB of additional software, such as OCR (optical character recognition) software. It's the "full software installation" option during the installation process. Once installed, to print, simply select the printer. To scan, either open the Scan app (Windows 10) or search Spotlight for "scan" (Mac OS). The appropriate app will allow you to choose a scan filetype (e.g. PDF, PNG, TIFF, etc) and scan resolution. You can then process this file as you need to -- email, print, save, etc. HP Easy Start has some additional options that you * note that HP Easy Start includes two default settings that allow HP to monitor what the printer is doing. You can disable these during the installation process. Read the description of each service reporting data to HP and decide for yourself if you want the data to be collected and provided.