Customer Reviews

HP OfficeJet 4215 All-in-One Printer

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I'd finally had it with my 4-year-old Canon Multifunction (C555). The fax worked fine but the printer was unreliable, torpid and, because the cartridges kept drying up, frightfully expensive. Despite my wife's warning (she's been having trouble with HP-OSX compatibility issues), I opted for this HP 4215.

When it arrived, I was immediately cheered by a box that was less than half the size of the Canon's. Upon opening it, I was further encouraged by a handy yet complete printed manual. (The Canon's was all online, and the printed-out materials seemed like a life-time of reading.) In 10 minutes I was ready to go--cartridges installed, program installed on my Powerbook, telephone line, USB cable, power cord all hooked up. The unit seemed too light and compact, the set-up too easy and automatic, but I went to a Word document, clicked and waited. Not for long, because the printer not only handled the document in record time but presented me with copy that was sharper than any I'd ever seen.

Next I went on the internet, found a richly textured, page-sized color photo and clicked "print." Same result. The machine speedily delivered a bright yet detailed and subtle color print that was an improvement on the original, even with the cheap copy paper I was using.

My plan was to keep my workhorse Epson for the bulk of my printing and use the HP for faxing, copying, and scanning (all of which it does both better and more efficiently than my old Canon). But the HP is simply too good to be anything less than a starting player. I can't remember ever being more impressed with a device, especially one this complicated, and happier about a computer or office-related purchase.

In spite of my singular success with this particular model, I've learned not to make blanket judgements about a brand or manufacturer based on one particular experience, especially in this field of competitive, rapidly changing technology. My wife just gave up on her HP printer and exchanged it for a Canon.

Look, I'm the type of person that does A LOT of research before buying a product. This one came out and I saw a couple of good reviews (New York Times, PCWORLD) and was all over it.

For what it does, you can't beat the price point. It works like a charm, prints fast and with great quality, both in color and b/w.

One of the nicest features is it's profile: it's the most compact and sleek of the all in one's, a huge bonus for the home office.

All of this complainging about not having a USB cord - yes, that's cheap, but quite frankly, more and more products are not coming with the cord - why? Because most consumers already have them - either from dig cameras, the printer they are tossing, etc. It makes more sense to hit a low price point than to add $10 to the printer itself to provide a cord that most consumers do not need. But if you don't have the cord, add it to your order OR go down to Best Buy and get a generic one for $10. (and yes, it would be nice if amazon warned you when you are checking out about this issue...).

My husband bought me this All-In-One for Mother's Day of 2005. He knew how much I wanted an All-In-One but did not want to lay out too much money. I own a rental company and work from home, so I thought this would make my life a lot easier, well I was wrong! This printer worked great for one whole month. Then the problems started.

1) The ink cartridges are way too small for something that is supposed to scan, copy and print.

2) Printing envelopes is almost impossible. Stamps.com could not format to print postage on my printer.

3) You cannot send more than a 2 or 3 page fax unless you want to feed it one page at a time. This was fun in my last real estate transaction. Most of the time I have to fax three pages, hang up, fax three more, and so on...

4) It CONSTANTLY says that "The cradle cannot move" It suggest you open it and free the jam. Problem is there is no jam. All you have to do is press ok, and it keeps going. This may seem like NO BIG DEAL, but for the last 6 months is has done it on every SINGLE page I printed, or fax I received! Every single one. NO JAM you just have to press OK and it takes FOREVER to print one page, with this problem. About 2 pages a minute! AWFUL!

5) When it pulls in paper it sounds terrible. It makes almost a screaming sound. Sounds like it is going to break any day now!!!

It is small, and if it weren't for the screaming paper feeding problem, and the constant pressing of the OK button, it would be a great addition for someone who receives or send 1 or 2 page faxes. Otherwise, save your money and buy a nicer model.

I got this for our office, after our old Canon fax machine started acting up. The Canon was great, but the BX-3 cartridge was almost $40, and had to be purchased from an office supply place. Also, when it ran out, it ran out--there was no warning!
So, we always had to keep an extra one on hand.

Thus, I thought we'd get an HP this time, since I knew we could get their cartridges at Radio Shack, or even the drug store. The black cartridge for this one is only $20, or even less on sale at the drug store. It has less ink than the BX-3, but not that much less. And it shows a warning on the machine screen when it's running low. The strange thing is it showed a warning after one month, but didn't actually run out of ink for at least 4 weeks! There is a color cartridge,too, that must be in the machine for it to operate. We rarely need a color print, so hopefully not using it much will make it last forever.

The machine itself has proved perfect for our office. We could not get a flatbed, because we often have to fax more than one sheet to another office. This one rarely has any problem loading the paper, and we only had jams in the beginning, until we relaized the table it was on was not that sturdy. Small machines need very sturdy tables. Also, it was crushing paper at first when we received faxes, but that was because we use legal size paper, and had the paper catch piece up. We leave it down now, and have no crushes, and the papers don't fall to the floor, when we receive faxes. They sometimes fall to the floor when we send them, but that's no big deal with us.

You do have to alter some of the default settings if you use legal size paper,and need very clear and sharp details, but that is simple. I guess I should mention we do not have this hooked up to a PC. We're a very old-fashioned office! And changing settings on the machine itself is simple. We haven't programmed numbers yet due to lack of time, but that looks simple, too.

The only thing I wish was different about the machine is if it loses power, it loses everything in the memory. Other than that, it's a very easy to use fax/copier machine, and very fast at faxing.

Had this 4215 All-in-one Printer for about two months. The paper feed for faxing has to be feed one by one or it will grab two pages at once. Also needs to be pushed to start as it dosent grab the pages without help. The paper tray holds about 125 sheets but HP Tech told me not to use more then 25 sheets otherwise printer grabs more then one sheet of paper. What good is an all-in-one that can only work with 25 Sheets of paper? Also uses alot of ink. Save your money and buy something else! I thought HP was better then this.

Hewlett- Packard's model 4215 multi- function machine is an office device that can be used for printing, copying, faxing, and scanning. Its multiple functions make it appealing to those who want a single machine capable of performing many functions. It is offered for a fair price, so it seems like the type of purchase where one can't go wrong.

But if one looks beneath the surface, it won't take too long to discover some of the flaws inherent in this device. I have been using this at my workplace for about seven months and there are many annoyances about this office machine that make it less than desirable. Starting with the fax, I like the fact that there are 80 preset numbers you can program for speed dialing. But I don't like the slowness of the feed and the slow, limited memory. I also don't like the fact that I often have to push the first sheet of paper to get the fax going. It often is unable to grab the first sheet on its own.

For scanning and copying, this device works ok but again it is very slow. I don't recommend its use for copying because the slowness is too much- you are better off waiting in line at a real copier than pacing back and forth while this machine attempts to make copies.

Printing is the machine's other function and here, it earns average marks at best. It feeds the paper through at a decent clip (17 ppm for black and 12 ppm for color), but it uses more ink that most printers. One ink cartridge sells for only about $20, but a single cartridge is good for only about 400 sheets using black ink (color cartridge costs about $35 and prints just 350 sheets). This is more costly than other printers in my office and that is the main reason why I don't use this device for printing.

This machine makes a decent one for faxing, but its other features rate either average or below. This isn't one of Hewlett- Packard's better printing devices and while I agree the base price is good for a multi- function device, I don't think this product is up to the usual high standards for a company like HP.

I live and work in a rain forest--no airconditioning, no dehumidifiers, 100 inches of rain in a dry year. Great place to live but really hard on electronic equipment. Given these conditions, I've been going through more than one fax machine a year and I was getting tired of it. When the last one died, I decided I'd go for an all-in-one that gave me color printing (which I don't use much), copying, and printing, as well as fax capabilities. I was looking at the bottom end (why spend more when even the more expensive ones don't make it?) and read a number of good reviews on the 4215. I'm not a fan of HP printers (good, but too expensive), but I decided to give this one a try.

I love it. After almost nine months of regular use, I'm sold. Not one hiccup. Not one jam. And only a couple of misfeeds with very damp paper, which I didn't think was possible. And VERY easy on the ink so it's far more economical to operate than I'd expected. It takes up half the space of the previous fax-only machine, is quiet and reasonably fast (color takes longer, but I'm not printing 100s of pages of color at a time). It was very easy to set up, has been very easy to operate, produces good quality copies and b&w prints, more than acceptable color prints for the average home user, and the faxes have come through in excellently clear form (which I can't say about a couple of my more expensive dedicated fax machines).

I highly recommend this machine to the average home or home business user. I'm very pleased with mine. If it ever gives in to the humidity here (which it shows absolutely no sign of doing, and after this much time that surprises me very much) I will immediately order another one, no question.

I've owned over a dozen printers and for a non-laser printer this is the best I've ever had. I've always been skeptical of the whole 'all in one' approach, but this printer genuinely prints, scans, faxes and copies perfectly. Easy to install, seamless to use and the ink cartridges seem to go on forever. I'd highly recommend this to anyone who needs an inkjet. By the way, the photo printing onto Kodak 4x6s is astonishing.

A knockout price...now an HP owner for 30 days so far...I always owned Epsons but this machine is well worth the $$$...setup easy...have used all functions but scan (wife copies for her small SpecEd class and I fax/print for bass clubs' business, etc.)and the USB cable was no big deal...software works well...I have a G4 Mac..OS 10.3.5...not Windoze so maybe that could be a diff, maybe not...so far, I would suggest all those with low/small multi needs look closer at this unit...possible college dorm room dream machine.

Good points: Very compact, great price, suprisingly good text quality, good fax interface, good-enough copying, good looks. Generous packaging: print cable (surprise!), phone cord, phone line splitter, etc.
Bad points: Bad up-take from the paper tray, no direct-from-camera printing, unacceptable quality on scanned photos, can't effectively print envelopes or heavy paper, seems rather cheaply made -- I fear about its life expectancy.

The Bad Points are serious considerations, but the 4215xi still a great buy for $80. So, it's good enough for me. I gave it three stars but I'm a tough grader, and there was no "half star" option.