HP Officejet Pro 8500 All-in-one Printer

by HP

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 18 x 22.5 inches ; 36.1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 39 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B001PO6JA0
• Item model number: CB022A#B1H
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (151 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #74 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > Printers > All-In-One Printers > Inkjet All-In-One Printers
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 17, 2003

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Looking for professional-looking printing that's also affordable? Our Officejet Pro 8500 All-in-One offers impressive results at up to 50% lower color cost per page and using less energy than with laser printers. You'll be able to print, copy, scan, and fax, plus cut your paper usage in half by printing on both sides of the page.

WHY BUY?

Professional color for up to 50% lower cost per page and less energy use than lasers1

Enlarge

FUNCTIONS

FEATURES

Enlarge

Built-in Wireless Printing Print from any room without using cables Built-in Wired Networking Share your printer with multiple people Two-sided Printing Save paper by printing on both sides automatically Memory Card Slots Print photos without using a PC Color LCD Screen Edit photos and/or manage your printer easily 4 x 6 Color Photo Printing Print brilliant photos for albums or to enhance business documents High-capacity Paper Tray Refill paper less often with a tray that holds 250 sheets or more Auto Document Feeder Fax, scan and copy multiple pages automatically INCLUDED NOT INCLUDED

SPECIFICATIONS

Print Speed Maximum speeds of 35 pages per minute black, 34 ppm color2 Fax Up to 125-page fax memory, up to 99 speed dial numbers Scan Resolution up to 4800-dpi optical; maximum scan size 8.5" x 11.7" Copy Reduce/enlarge 25%–400% Paper Handling 3" x 5" to 8.5" x 14"; up to 15,000 pages per month

Enlarge

REMEMBER ORIGINAL HP INK AND PAPER

SAVE MONEY when you choose high-capacity cartridges over standard ones

RECOMMENDED HP INK3 940 1,000 pages 940XL 2,200 pages 940 900 pages 940XL 1,400 pages 940 900 pages 940XL 1,400 pages 940 900 pages 940XL 1,400 pages

RECOMMENDED HP PAPER  HP Brochure & Flyer Paper HP Presentation Paper HP Bright White Inkjet Paper

MORE INFORMATION

Datasheet (PDF)

Product Overview

WHICH HP ALL-IN-ONE IS RIGHT FOR YOU?

Compare the good, better and best, side-by-side

See Comparison Chart

---

1. Majority of color laser all-in-ones under $600, June 2008, OJ Pro with highest-capacity cartridges. Energy use based on HP testing using the ENERGY STAR^® program’s TEC test method criteria. For details, see www.hp.com/go/officejet
2. After first page; see www.hp.com/go/inkjetprinter for details.
3. Page yield values are approximate, actual yield depends on printer and specific use; for more information visit www.hpshopping.com

Product Description

The HP Officejet Pro 8500 All-in-One offers impressive results at up to 50% lower color cost per page and using less energy than with laser printers. You'll be able to print, copy, scan, and fax, plus cut your paper usage in half by printing on both sides of the page.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

80 of 83 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Comments on HP Officejet 8500a, April 15, 2009

By 

Dave R - See all my reviews

This review is from: HP Officejet Pro 8500 All-in-one Printer (Office Product)

I have been looking for a networked color laser printer suitable for home and small office use for some time. Then I received an ad for this printer. I was convinced to try it because of the new ink technology, the relatively low cost of replacement ink cartridges and the duplex printing capability. So far I've been completely satisfied. It's easily fast enough for my use. Print quality is high. It seems to have good color accuracy; I've printed a couple of photos on high quality photo paper and been quite pleased. It was a breeze to install (we are a Mac household). The scan and copy functions are easy to use. Duplex printing is slow but adequate for the times it is used. I've yet to have to replace a cartridge so I can't speak to the cost per page of printing.

200 of 219 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars HP Ink Rip-Off, Unbelievably Bad Tech Support, Communication Issues, Some Design Improvements over Predecessors, May 5, 2009

By 

P. Scott Pope "Scott Pope" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HP Officejet Pro 8500 All-in-one Printer (Office Product)

Note that ink for this printer will set you back One Hundred and fourteen dollars!!!

Before purchasing the Officejet 8500, be aware that there appears to be compatibility issues with the current drivers (as of 5/5/2009) and Windows XP. Basically, the user gets the following error: "The printer has not yet responded, but the Microsoft Office program may be able to proceed without printer information". I have spent hours on the phone with their India-based tech support and with their chat technical support. Sadly, HP provides the worst technical support that I have ever experienced. The telephone reps barely speak English and the chat reps serve multiple customers at the same time, leading to long delays between their responses. Moreover, I have been cut off during chat sessions five times, which leads me to believe it is intentional as this always seems to happen when I attempt to corner them on difficult questions. Before getting cut off today (5/5/2009) the chat technical support rep acknowledged that there are known incompatibilities between the drivers and Windows XP. Presumably, this means the software was written for Vista.

Also be aware of the astronomical ink cartridge prices that will set you back half the cost of a new printer.

This is the third HP multifunction printer I have purchased. Historically, I have purchased top-of-the-line models from the HP Officejet line for my home office. Generally, I have been rather pleased and impressed with their ability to work for years with few paper jams, either in the printer or document feeder. My primary complaints with HP and these printers are twofold: 1) the ink prices are exorbitant (i.e. pay as you go) and 2) HP has atrocious tech support. The Officejet 8500 appears to have all-around better construction than the other HP Officejet multifunction printers I have owned. Yet it hasn't been without problems.

Looking back at my other purchases, it is striking how much prices have come down. Yet HP continues to gouge its customers on ink with the four cartridges costing $[...]+ tax. The first Officejet (d155xi) worked almost flawlessly for three years. I finally decided to sell it when moving. The second Officejet (7310xi) worked extremely well until one day it would not power on. Apparently, something had gone wrong with its main processor. The printer was on a surge protector the entire time, so I have no idea why this happened. I do turn the surge protector off every day before going to work to save electricity as this severs vampire loads from the electrical system. Perhaps the on/off cycles were not good for the printer. After determining the 7310xi was beyond repair, I purchased an Officejet 8500 from HP direct. The printer appears to be well made, but it has problems with communicating with my notebook in addition to having issues with photo printing that have been not fully resolved.

The timeline of my Officejet purchases:
2002 - March Officejet d155xi (HP Direct) 800 + tax/shipping
2006 - March Officejet 7310xi (Sam's Club) 368 + tax
2009 - April Officejet 8500 (HP Direct) 269 + tax/shipping -fifty buck trade-in rebate for 7310xi

The 8500 does not come with a USB cable, which was not an issue [at first] since I have so many surplus cables. Apparently, the 16ft cable I used with the 7310xi was not compatible, possibly because it may have been a USB 1.0 version, which I can't determine. So I tried one of the dozen or so shorter USB cables I have, some of which were in fact USB 2.0. While I got the printer to work, I repeatedly get errors such as "The printer has not yet responded, but the Microsoft Office program may be able to proceed without printer information". So, I purchased a new 16ft. Belkin USB 2.0. Unfortunately, I still get the same errors and freezing of the computer. I have not resolved the problem and don't look forward to calling HP's tech support. Their Indian support reps have the worst English I have ever had to deal with in a tech support setting. I do appreciate their new chat tech-support option, which allows the customer to select his skill level such as "novice" or "expert". Yet, the chat sessions abruptly severed communication with me multiple times with a red warning message, "we are having technical problems, please call tech support". What a ridiculous headache!

PRINTER DESIGN AND BUILD QUALITY
Despite HP's less than acceptable tech support, HP's engineers deserve credit for improving the design and build quality of their multifunction printers. Even though the previous printers never had a problem with broken paper trays or document feeders, these plastic pieces seemed extremely flimsy. The 8500 seems to be better constructed in that thicker, rigid plastic was used. Additionally, the parts that require interaction by the user, such as the receptacles for the ink cartridges, are much more accessible.

SPEED
While I have not conducted a side-by-side test, both printing and scanning appear to be faster than my most recent Officejet prior to this one, the 7310xi. Despite the increased speed, the 8500 doesn't shake my printer stand as violently as the 7310xi did, suggesting the engineers used a lower-inertia print head. The scanning appears slightly faster, but really not fast enough for large jobs. Truthfully, I would pay a lot more for much faster scanning. I have a grown accustomed to using a Ricoh 6500 copier/printer/scanner at my day job. The ~50 page/minute scan to pdf capability really changes the utility of the printer.

STILL NO DOUBLE SIDED SCANNING
One of the features that really attracted me to the original Officejet was its double-sided printing capability. Unfortunately it doesn't provide true double sided scanning. Some of scan options suggest the 8500 can perform double sided scanning but this appears to be more of function to interleave the second (back) set of pages. For larger double-sided documents, I find myself using the industrial strength Ricoh 6500.

PRINT QUALITY
The black text quality appears to be slightly better than that of the 7310xi. In fact, it appears indistinguishable from laser print quality. However, there have been some problems printing in color. First, when printing on plain white paper on regular ink volume settings, the colors appear a bit less vivid than the prints I made with my 7310xi. In fact, I have a few samples of color documents printed on the 7310xi that I was able to compare side-by-side with the output of the 8500, which clearly showed the difference between the two prints. Yet, this may be a result of HP's strategy to market this printer as being more ink efficient.

When printing on photo paper, there appears to be some issues when selecting the photo quality settings and "HP Advanced Photo Paper" as the paper type. Using both HP photo paper and Kodak "everyday" photo paper, there were striations across the center of the page. It isn't clear if the HP photo paper I was using was truly their "advanced" paper as this was a sample pack from HP. When using the "other photo paper" option, there were no striations. With certain other papers, however, I found that the ink would run with the slightest exposure to water - even after drying for more than one hour. Barely visible drops of water would cause easily visible spots on the page. While it isn't clear precisely what was done with the ink and requisite paper compatibility, the 8500 does appear to be more fickle than the predecessors.

In summary, the 8500 appears to be better designed and constructed than previous Officejet models but is less user friendly. My guess is that many of the problems I am experiencing will be resolved when new drivers are made available. However, as a fairly technical user, I would not expect so many difficulties getting the printer to work. Moreover, HP's consumer tech support is so unforgivably bad the company does not deserve your business.

Cons:
*Tech support is totally unacceptable, off-shore reps have both a poor command of the English language and weak technical skills
*Online chat tech support is disjointed with reps chatting with multiple customers simultaneously
*Printer communication problems unresolved as of 5/5/2009
*Photo printing requires more adjustments of settings
*Still doesn't have a true double-siding SCANNING mechanism
*Drivers for XP seem to have compatibility issues


Pros
*Fast printing and scanning for a piece of home office equipment
*Sturdier construction than predecessors
*Reasonable price for the performance/functionality
*Smoother/quieter than previous Officejet printers

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AweSome Printer, April 24, 2009

By 

M. Terrill (San Jose, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HP Officejet Pro 8500 All-in-one Printer (Office Product)

In our small office we print over 5000 sheets a month and share the printer over a USB switch with 4 of us. We use it also for scanning and sending out customer documents. Speed for faxing and scanning was important as we often scan and fax 20 to 40 pgs.

The price per page was excellent due to the oversized ink cartridges printing 2 or 3 times the number of pages as we had previously obtained with other HP ink jets. For every day printing we have further cut printing costs by 75% by using refilled cartiridges from ebay. Overall the best color printer we have purchased in the last 4 years.

Only drawback that we have found is that for pdf scanning, a direct usb connection to a PC is required. Bottom line: Its got speed and the initial price is higher, but with much lower ink costs, payback is in a couple of months.