Customer Reviews

HP Officejet Pro 8000 Wireless Printer

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(87)

 

 

I really have no complaints about the print quality or the setup of the wireless function, which is a great convenience in a home network. The reason this printer is going to the recycler is the cost of operation due to HP's decision to gouge consumers on replacement ink cartidges.

If you look up the unit price on replacement cartridges, it does not sound unreasonable: roughly thirty USD for the black cartridge and twenty USD each for the three color cartridges. However, what you need to be aware of is that the printer decides when the cartridges need to be replaced and WILL NOT FUNCTION until you comply.

This is a change from a few years ago, when you would receive a low ink warning but could still print until the cartridge actually emptied. This disabling of all print functions may be becoming a standard industry practice but, in my experience, is particularly egregious with this HP printer.

It is no coincidence that all four cartridges are flagged as needing replacement at roughly the same time. Even if you have been printing only black and white draft copies in the interval since replacement, the color cartridges will be flagged as empty after a few months.

As this happens, at the least, twice a year, you will be spending close to two hundred dollars a year to maintain even minimum function.

After literally a mere few months, using the "high-capacity" XL cartridges and extremely rare use (I rarely print more than a dozen pages per month), this printer is once again disabled due to an entirely fictitious low-ink warning. This function is clearly not triggered by actual use, the number of pages printed or the volume of ink remaining. It is based entirely on an algortithm combining some arbitrary time since cartridge installation and HP's greed.

Again: The resident software decides when you will replace the ink cartridges (of which there are four) and it will not print so much as a single page until you do.

If you print enough pages in both black and white and color, and exhaust the cartridges in a short period of time, you may consider this printer a good value.

Read many of the four and five star reviews carefully: "I've had this printer one month and I love it", "I've had it for one day...", etc. I'm happy for them, but I have owned this printer for fifteen months and am replacing it.

This will be my last HP printer.

UPDATE: I have received (11/18/2010) notice of a settlement offer in response to three lawsuits filed against HP alleging fraudulent practices related to the issues noted above. Quote: "HP denies all these claims" but will offer coupons redeemable at the HP online store (only) as compensation. One can therefore assume they intend to continue these practices. HP is offering an insulting maximum six dollar credit for qualifying printers. For more information: hpinkjetprintersettlement dot com

This seems to be a great printer. I am using it as a replacement for my old Cannon PIXMA 3000 which just gave up the ghost. When you read the other reviews that talk about a 30 minute set up time, don't look at that as a sign of difficulty or potential incompetance on the reviewer...this unit does do a 20-30 self diagnostic as part of the set up process. Images are clean and clear. And HP finally has the message to create separate ink carts for each color rather than having to toss them all out when you run out of one single color.

What I like:
- The wireless capability. Can print from any PC in the house on this one.
- Separate Ink Cartridges
- Duplex printing
- HP has pre-sent usage pattern ready for you - like fast utility print, duplex printing, printing for photos, etc.
- Tools that help you see what your ink usage will be like.
- According to the HP site, low cost per page printing. (fingers crossed here).

Dislikes:
-Big footprint on the desk. Oh well.

Bonus: If you act before year end, your old printer may qualify for a $50 rebate when you return it to HP. See the HP product site for details. This helped knock $50 off this price.

1) Slow as all get out to install. Probably due to massive HP software that comes with it ands wants to load everything needed to control everything on your computer, tools-bars, etc. etc. etc. Even when you turn those off from installing, it's slow.
2) Slow as all get out for the printer to get itself physically initiallized to print. It runs and runs and runs for like 20 minutes, clicking and buzzing and what not ... and for what?? What can it possibly be doing man??? Never had any other printer that needed to do all that.
3) Software takes over any other HP software you may already have installed. It deleted my old scanner software and replaced it, & now I'm missing certain scanner functions I used to have. Or, if they are still there somewhere I sure can't find them, and I have looked under every button and every nook and cranny I can find. I believe some B&W vs color functions are missing, etc.
4) Now, all of the sudden the printer wants to either spool forever, or if I turn off spooling, printing directly to the printer takes forever ... or may not actually happen. I'm still waiting.
5) Two-sided printing: Before my software problems above started, when I would print 2-sided, it is VERY SLOW.
6) I bought this printer for both at home and work, 2 days apart ... Liked it at home the first 2 days so much that I bought one for work ... but since, see above ... and now the one at home has print color problems: Streaks black shades through some of the colors. No idea why or what to do about it.

Sadly, would not buy again. And, this is based on owning 2 of them right now. What are the chances I got TWO lemons? Not very good I wouldn't think.

I don't usually do this kind of thing, but I'm going on this site to say something about this product. I've struggled with printers, ink, trying to use a little USB thing to talk to my old HP printer, fighting with firewalls and such - it was all a total disaster. I was thinking about getting one of the cheap color lasers, but then I went to look at ink and its not hard to see the consumer trap with ink for those things. After a lot of hand-wringing and looking around forever, I went to Office Depot and after standing in the printer isle looking lost and confused, checking sales tags and going back and forth to the ink isle for about an hour, I bought this HP Office Jet Pro 8000. First of all, when I brought it to the checkout counter, it rang up at about $70 for the printer itself, so I was happy with that but also wondering if the lady made a mistake or something. Then I got home and set it up, and installed the software, and it worked perfectly. Push "print" and it prints instantly, and surprisingly fast. I have some color graphics in my company logo and such, and the printing quality was outstanding. I was immediately super happy with the way this thing worked. Anyone in my family can push "print" from any one of their computers anywhere in the house, and walla, there it is. I've printed a bizillion things and recently I had to buy a new black ink cartridge. They make a high capacity one that prints several thousand pages, and it was cheap compared to all the other printer inks in the aisle. It is still working great for me. Best printer I've ever had, and I probably go through about a ream of paper a month.

Printer takes 5-7 minutes to print a Word document in landscape mode, after waiting an additional 3 minutes for the page to re-orient from portrait mode. Printer cannot print landscape mode in Photoshop and slows Photoshop PSD files to a crawl when opening (up to 3 minutes of wait time).

HP support is a joke. Three requests for email support were answered with an automated email saying I'd receive help within 24 hours, but I never heard back from HP which stubbornly refuses to issue new, working drivers.

Wireless has never functioned properly.

When it works, the printer has fine print quality, but if you buy this printer there's a very good chance you'll lose days of your life to sheer corporate stupidity. HP knows, HP doesn't care, HP keeps dumping this printer on the market hoping it will wear down its victims.

This, from a guy who's sworn by HP products for decades. Never again.

I have read all the reviews and would like to offer an opinion. I have had mine about a month, and I love it. Don't know what the other person was doing when doing the duplex (2 side printing) but my printouts have come out looking exactly as they do on the screen, no 50% reduction. I also experienced a 30 minutes setup time but I've come to expect that with new software. It prints great and fast, just wished the cartridges lasted longer. I have also had no pop ups under IE or Firefox. I suggest doing the custom install and choose what you want to install and what you don't. Hope this helps future buyers.

I have only had this printer a day but I am very happy with it. The installation does take a bit of time .. about 30 min [which HP said it would] but it's all done automatically from the installation software. The print quality is very good and fast depending upon the website feed. Unlike the previous reviewer, I just let the installation take it's course and I have had no problems with any HP popups so far. I am using a wireless network at home and I was very surprised how easy the HP software located all the wireless network information and connected without any problem. So far I am VERY pleased with this printer and would highly recommend it especially for wireless users.

I just installed this printer for a user (customer) via long distance.

I can only speak to two things about this printer: speed and install.

Speed: After being installed, using a USB connection, the printer did print quickly.

Install: Since I install different types of printers, I have to be careful when installing a printer to read the instructions. If you just click Next, Next, Next during this install you will install lots of options you don't want. When installing from setup.exe, you will see a screen with four choices. One of those choices are settings. I ended up de-selecting Web Smart Printing and a bunch of features that only helped HP market/sell more products to the user. Be careful when installing, otherwise HP will bother you with periodic pop-ups selling or marketing things.

Can't speak to wireless, my company doesn't support that.

So after 30 minutes with this printer installing in Windows XP via long distance, I can say it prints quickly and you need to be careful when installing.

Hope this review helps you.

This printer seemed OK at first, but within a month or two I wanted to return it (too late, regretfully). The software loads up tons of junk on your computer, a la HP. The printer WILL NOT PRINT WHEN OUT OF INK. In other words, if the red runs out YOU CANNOT PRINT A BLACK AND WHITE text page. This is unacceptable. Photo quality is worse than Canon or Lexmark. Do not buy, spend your money elsewhere.

I am an IT professional and work on equipment like this everyday. I was replacing a Dell P720 so just looking for a basic printer that would look nice in the desk area by eliminating cords. Well, the price was nice and shipment from Amazon good. The machine comes with TONS of print cartridges and was easy to put together. The main negative for me was there is a horribly placed "duplexer" in back that you MUST have plugged in at all times or print jobs will fail. This thing sticks out about 5 inches from the back of the printer, so you will never be able to place this machine flush against a wall. For me this was bad as it just doesn't look as nice as one that would sit in a corner flush to a wall.

Secondly, the wireless. Good and bad news. Bad news = I spent about 90 minutes trying to get the stupid HP software to set up my wireless for me but it kept failing with indecipherable errors. I was about to give up and return it when I decided to delete the HP set up and just set it up through Windows default printer set-up. Doing it this way, the wireless works perfectly. Thinking I fixed it, I tried the HP software again, and it still was failing and would break the wireless. SO, I gave up on the HP software and just did it through Windows and have left it alone and it works just fine. Bottom line, don't bother with the HP software and do it through Windows if you are doing wireless.

Printing is much quieter than my old printer, quality is good, and it looks nice. However, I wouldn't buy it given a second chance due to the inability to sit flush on a wall and the goofy HP software.

One other tip, through the end of the year, HP is doing a "Trade up and Save" rebate where you can get $50 back on this printer just by mailing back your old printer (doesn't even have to be working AND they give you a pre-paid label).