Customer Reviews

HP LaserJet 3055 All-in-One Printer/Copier/Scanner/Fax (White)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

Note added October 15, 2008: Amazon still won't let me change my rating, which now would be 1 star (the lowest) based on horrendous quality control. I bought two of these and both had hardware failures within a year or two, of course outside of warranty. The one I bought for my daughter had its network card fail. She can still use it via USB, but not over the network. The one I bought for myself recently failed to scan, fax or copy when using the document feeder, which uses a separate sensing window from flatbed copying and scanning. As a flatbed copier or scanner, it still works. But when using the document feeder, the copies or scans come out blank. And, yes, I've put the paper in the right side up. I suspect that there's a separate sensor or light for that window and it's broken. On top of the horrible QC this seems to imply, my email to HP took them eight days to answer and then all they said was "this case is a hardware issue so our recommendation for you is to call 800-HP-INVENT (800-474-6836) so you can talk with a Hardware technical agent that can guide you through some trouble shooting steps to determine the cause of this problem and also give you the best solution." OK, I call and after over a significant wait time, I learn that they can help trouble shoot by phone for a fee, offer me a trade-in on a new model, or repair this one. No way am I going to waste more money on this disaster. While maybe I've just had a bad run of luck, this does not appear to be the HP I used to know, where quality was top notch.

Note added March 19 2007: Amazon won't let me change my rating from 4 to 3 stars, but I would do so if I could due to networking problems that resurfaced. I suspect that this is an issue with networked printers in general, not HP, but the time it took to solve the problem makes me wonder whether I would have bought this printer if I knew then what I know now. When the network access works, it's great, but if your network undergoes a change (I had to replace a Linksys router that went bad), be prepared to do some work. It took me several hours to get things working again. Before I had this problem, I bought one of these as a gift for my adult daughter, living in another state. She had to get the "geek squad" in to solve her similar problems, at a cost of roughly $200. The problem seems to be changes in the IP addresses in the network, and the manual didn't make it easy to figure out how to even find out the IP address that the printer currently is using. (Hint: Print a Configuration Report from the printer's front panel, using the menu. The manual does tell you how to do that, and the IP address is part of that report.) Once you have the IP address, I think getting the printer back up would be a lot easier -- but I'm not about to bring it down and find out! Hoping this helps.

I have several Macs and one Windows machine and had been using two separate printers for the two "tribes." I also had a fax machine, an old flat bed scanner, and a copier -- all taking lots of real estate. When the Samsung ML1430 that I was using on an Airport Extreme USB printer sharing system broke after three years, I decided to go with a networked printer that could be shared between the Macs and the PC. I wanted a major printer brand, and HP was at the top of that list. Why? Because Samsung had stopped supporting the Mac and, as I upgraded my OS, I had had difficulties keeping the printer working. The old driver didn't work with some OS upgrades. I hoped that a networked printer would make sharing among the Macs and the PC easy -- and to a large extent it has.

I did have minor problems getting the printer to work with the PC since I had to turn off all firewalls during the installation and Dell had two. After about an hour of on-line research and fiddling, I got it to work. Getting the Macs to recognize the printer was a snap -- sorry Redmond, Apple's ads seem on target here, though part of the problem may have been with Dell putting two firewalls on the PC.

After the initial hassle with the PC, which has nothing to do with the 3055 per se, I am very happy with all functions -- with one minor caveat below. As a printer or copier, it's fast (almost 20 pages a minute and less than 10 seconds to first page). The automatic document feeder has worked flawlessly so far -- often the Achilles heel in my experience. Some other reviews (elsewhere, not here at Amazon) noted that half-tone copies weren't the greatest and I'd agree. The pictures come out a bit dark.Some of those reviews noted that changing the default setting from text to picture (or whatever HP calls it) helps, but I haven't tried that yet which is a sign that it's not a huge problem.

I haven't used the scanner much yet, but did a few test scans which looked good. On color photos, the 300 dpi scan was poor, but setting it to 600 dpi did a nice job. The level of JPEG encoding changed from 300 to 600 dpi, with the 600 dpi scan being a much larger file, so it's not clear how much of the poor quality at 300 was due to the scanner and how much to the JPEG encoding. I also have a Fujitsu ScanSnap and will keep it since it is much faster than the HP -- but it cost as much as the HP and just does scanning, so that's not an indictment of the HP. The ScanSnap is intended only for sheet scans, not books or other flatbed material, but is excellent at what it does.

The fax features work well too, and I got rid of my fax machine, freeing up space. I haven't yet gotten rid of the copier, but might. The 3055 will enlarge and reduce by up to a factor of four -- a nice feature. Having only one toner cartridge to keep track of, instead of the three I had before (printer, copier and fax), would be nice. HP toner is about 3 cents per page, a bit more than some laser printers, but much less than ink jets and OK in my book.

The 3055 is also good on energy usage. I hooked up a power and energy meter and, after about 180 continuous hours of light use (only two of use it and we're not heavy printers), it averaged only 8 watts. When the laser engine is working, of course the power peaks up to about 500 watts, but HP has been good about making sure it doesn't use too much power when idle, while still allowing it to start up fairly quickly. I've seen the idle power drop down as low as 6 watts at times.

I'm not sure if I should have given four or five stars to this unit, with the one star loss being mostly due to my networking problems mentioned above. As I said, that's not an HP problem. So if you're looking for a networked all-in-one, consider this five stars within that category.

Note added February 22, 2008: My network did come down again, and this time I set up a static IP address for the machine. With what I'd learned in the interim, it wasn't such a big deal to do and has been working well for months. Now, I'm not worried about the network coming down and causing major problems. But you need to learn what static IP addresses work with your router (it varies!), how to set it (from the Menu on the console on the HP 3055 and choose Network Configuration, TCP/IP, Manual), and then how to tell your computer to find the device (hint: Intel Macs need the newer HP Setup Assistant and will not work with the one I had; accessible from HP's support site). On the negative side, the one I bought for my daughter seems to have a bad network card now. That cost her another $200 geek squad visit to figure out, plus now we have to figure out if it's worth fixing. My rating would now be 3-4 stars (depending if her bad card is unusual or not) if you understand networking really well or can rope a friend with that knowledge into helping you, but no stars otherwise.

I have had previous bad experience with all-in-ones, but bought this as I liked the B&W Laser and network feature (and got it during a sale at half price). I liked it so much I recommended it to a client, who replaced her aging fax machine. The copy ability, with the sheet feeder, is great, the scanner works very well, even over the network, and everything seamlessly works for Macintosh and Windows computers (I have two macs and a windows box). The scanning resolution is good enough for almost everything at 600x600.

The main downside, and why it got 4 stars and not 5, is the reliability. My machine arrived with a malfunctioning Copier. The page would come out badly distorted. Amazon sent a new one, no hassles, and I sent the old one back. The one I bought for a client was from Staples, and after she had that for 6 weeks, it started having problems. Faxes wouldn't come out unless you turned it off and on again. No warning lights - just wouldn't work. When it came back on, the faxes saved in memory for the last few days would spit out.

Frustratingly, when we called HP about this, our warranty allowed us to mail it to them, wait 3 weeks, and then they would send us the same one back repaired. No thank you - I didn't buy a machine to be without it for 3 weeks. The expedited option, which cost $50, had them send a new one and we would send the old one back. They would ship the new one next day air - after the 2 week backlog. No thanks either! So, buy the machine as it's a great machine, but keep your receipts, or consider the otherwise evil extended warranty, as there's a good chance this will have problems within a few months.

This is my first all-in-one for a home office. It's been a while since I've had an HP printer, and I had forgotten how well laid-out and well-engineered everything is. When you first set up the machine, be sure to go to HP's website and download the firmware update.

The print quality is gorgeous; I couldn't ask for any better, even when printing my intricate company logo with overlapping frames and shadings. Envelopes and even cover stock go through the machine smoothly and print perfectly.

Some extremely slick paper didn't print well on it, but that isn't especially surprising nor was it very disappointing.

The machine copies and scans well, and quite quickly for my purposes. It's plenty quiet; I've never come across a quieter laser printer.

Using the on-screen programming (for fax header, etc.) is quite easy; my only complaint is that each entry you make brings you back to the "ready" screen, which adds some unnecessary steps.

My only real problem -- and it's a BIG one -- is in receiving faxes. I get 99% of my business through the fax machine, and I can't depend on the 3055. I get frequent "49 error" messages when receiving a fax. The folks at tech support have been uniformly very nice and knowledgeable (and I've talked to over a dozen of them), although their knowledge does not perfectly overlap. Advice: if you don't get your problem solved with one person, call back later and talk to someone else.

After many, many hours spent with tech support, I have learned the following related to receiving faxes: this machine MUST have a two-lead phone cord, it should be plugged directly into the wall socket (no extension cords), and there's still no guarantee that it will receive faxes consistently.

My solution: I've had to add a separate fax machine (the cheapest machine Brother makes works just fine!), and I'll contact tech support again some months from now to see if they've figured out why I keep getting these "49 error" messages. (Please note: the 3055 I have is not defective, nor is there a problem with my phone line. The machine shares a phone line with my DSL, but the errors occurred even when it was hooked up to my main phone line.)

Overall, I like the machine but the fax problems I've experienced have been extremely frustrating.

Great machine but do NOT buy it for a Vista system.
Even if they state on their website the system is compatible, they forgot to mention that the scanner software is a generic one included with Vista. Scans only one sheet at a time. Does not output PDF files.
So the document feeder is useless for scanning.
They do not even have an ETA for a new driver.
If history is a good guide ....when XP was launched it took them for some of their systems a full year to get the drivers ready.

I love this all in one, it's a little big, but much better then the brother 7820N I got first, while the 7820N is smaller, 7820N had some page curl and eats 1032 watts at peak which kept tripping my computer's APC, this unit does not have paper curl and only hits 300 watts peak which is well below my circuit capacity. I would recommend this unit over all MFCs on the market, and with the currect 50% rebate going on for OCT, it cannot be beat for the price. If you need a B&W laser all in one, this is the best.

This is a great unit for copying, faxing, scanning, printing, etc. We have it setup on our home network, and use it extensively. The print and copy quality is great.

I'm disappointed, however, in the Vista support. The unit stated it was Vista compatible, however, the drivers for using the scanner do not install on Vista machines. A check on HP's web site found many other people having the same problem with installing the software. Vista does recognize the printer automatically (without the driver disk), however, HP's specialized software for scanning over the network and faxing cannot be installed. I was, however, able to install this software on an XP machine, and it worked fine...

How I use it: home office (full time). The printer is not on a network.

What I like:
- Intuiative interface: it's easy to set up & easy to use. For example, you put soemthing in the paper feed, hit the scan button & a dialog box shows up on your computer asking if you want to scan to an email, a file, etc.
- quality printing & scanning
- I have not noticed the problems w/ receiving faxes that other mention, but I don't typically receive a lot of faxes

What I do't:
- when system is in standby it makes a high pitched humming noise. HP support says this is normal fan noise. It appears that many people use this on a network & probably put it in a central locations where it is not right next to their computer. I find it annoying. HP suggested that it should be plugged directly into an outlet, not a surge protector & that this might reduce the noise. It did not. I'll probably put it back on teh surge protector: I use them for a reason & I suspect that HP will not honor the warranty if it gets fried during a thunderstorm.
- loud operating noise. This isn't as big of a deal, but don't plan on printing anything while you are on a conference call.

After 15 years, my HPIII Laser Jet finally died. It was time to look for a new printer. I was considering the Brother brand until I noticed the power consumption on those things. (Be careful with Brother as some of their printers consume as much as 10 amps.) At any rate, I purchased an HP Laser Jet 3055 All in One Printer and I love it!

I connected it to a home network (1 file server, 1 wired computer connection and 1 wireless computer connection) directly through the router (LinkSys). My system is configured for static IP addresses and I am routing the Fax through a ComSwitch 7500 phone/fax switch (for single phone line faxing). Setup was simple and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to configure the printer/fax/scanner.

Others have commented on issues getting the printer connected and configured but I had no such experience.

Pros: High quality printing, network compatible, fast, and light weight.

Cons: When shutting the top part of the printer (during the toner installation) I noticed some wires protruding near the hinge which could result in them getting pinched. I simply pushed them over away from the hinge to resolve the issue.

In short you cannot go wrong with this printer.

As my home office was becoming increasingly cluttered, I began to consider an all-in-one machine to replace my Epson 1220 scanner, my HP 1200 B&W laser printer, and a cheap fax machine. I wanted a printer that had an EtherNet port so that I could print off of my wireless LAN. In addition, I was looking for something that would allow for faster document scanning in the hopes of archiving papers into .pdf files.

I was very pleased to read a previous review of the HP LaserJet 3055. I had been seriously looking at a Brother all-in-one, but after discovering that the HP 3055 was more energy efficient and also 50% off the $499 price because of a holiday promotion, I took the plunge and ordered one.

The machine was simple to setup, with no more than 5 or 6 parts to put into place (trays, document handler, etc.). The footprint of the device is the same as my previous Epson flatbed scanner, freeing up a considerable amount of space. I found the software setup to be equally easy. I have two Macs in my home office - an older PPC-based eMac running OS X (10.3.9) and a new MacBook Pro (Intel) running the most recent iteration of 10.4. The software sent with the 3055 was compatible with both.

The menus on the 3055 are easy to access and understand, making programming in numbers and preferences a snap. The warm-up time of the machine is short and the printing, scanning and faxing are all of excellent quality. With this one machine I saved a considerable amount of space. Based on the readings of my Kill-A-Watt meter, I found that the 3055 consumes considerably less power, both printing and in sleep mode, than the power used by the three separate components (no surprise there).[...]

11/21/06: Scanning jams have been reduced significantly due to 1) direct usb connection to device, and 2) better preparation of paper to put through the Auto Doc Feeder. I just had the opportunity to see the Dell 1815dn in person at my friend's business. Turns out that machine is much larger this HP 3055. So, i'm even happier now that I did not purchase the Dell.

The HP 3055 has continued to run without glitch. It is exceptionally quiet, quick to print/scan/copy, and the quality/resolution is terrific.

11/16/06: I have already scanned over 1000 documents on this machine in the last few days. After dealing with a multitude of configuration options and issues, it has performed solidly as a scanner. It did experience many paper Jams using the Auto Doc Feeder, however, you can reduce the frequency of these jams by NOT scanning through a wireless network - which tends to cause jams due to wirless network interference that delays communication between the mfc and your pc. Using the USB port, the jams were much less frequent.

All in all, this device is turning out to be a solid performer and a permanent part of our workforce. Love it.

10/08/06: By the way, i got the print feature to work with windows 2003. You have to install manually ("add printers method") from a pc connected through USB port. No network install is possible since the HP software does not support windows 2003.

10/08/06:

My problem with 2nd page jam scanned through the Auto Doc Feeder is still occurring. This week i'm going to get a pc with Windows xp to install their HP print/scan software and see if this scan paper jam issue still occurrs. If so, I will put a call into tech support. The problem occurrs when i put multi pages in the ADF and initiate a multi-page scan from the Iris OCR software included. The first page scans fine, but the second page always jams in the ADF forcing me to manually remove it, and restart my windows session to get rid of errors.

10/06/06:
Pros:
1. Fast printing
2. Fast First Page Out
3. Sharp print output, good resolution
4. Small footprint
5. Relatively quiet, fans/noise quickly subside after print completes
6. Copy quality and speed is good

Cons:
1. HP software does not install on Windows 2003, but the driver does.
2. Limited 2003 support (no pc-fax printing, no scan to pc from network, etc)

10/2/06:
All in all, I will probably keep this unit. My other options were the Brother 7820n or the Dell MFC. With dell, i couldn't see the unit to test it, and if i bought it, i would have to deal with a potential 15% restocking fee. The dell has a duplexer and good support for windows 2003. The Brother unit has great user history on amazon so the quality is solid and you'll know the pros and cons up front.

Despite having read on HP's site that the HP 3055 will work with Windows Server 2003, I could not, after two days, successfully get the printer software to install on my OS. I even downloaded the latest Windows 2003 software and drivers from the HP download site. Attempting to install this software was futile as well. I kept getting an error message saying that my operating system was not supported.