Customer Reviews

HP Officejet J6480 All-in-One Printer

5 star:		(76)
4 star:		(51)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(29)
1 star:		(61)

 

 

Pros:
1. Support Wireless connection.
2. Good price $150 in staples if you have a printer to recycle.
3. Auto double sided printing. Save trees.
4. Auto doc feeder. Now I can scan/print when I go out for lunch.

Cons:
1. Setting up wireless connection by following the quick start guide is a huge mistake.

I tried this on a Vista machine. The machine can print for about 30 minutes, and it goes offline. The HP imaging device monitor cannot detect the device, and it refused to launch. After about 1 hour I realized the IP address of the machine was changed because I restarted everything.

To avoid the problem, the best way to setup the machine is:
1. Setup network connection from the machine menu, do not use the setup CD.
2. Once the machine is connected, go to the wireless router config menu, and reserve the IP address for the machine. Now the machine will always use the same IP address.
3. Install the printer driver. You can copy the setup CD to the harddrive to speed up the installation process.
4. Run setup.exe, select add a device->through the network. Your machine should be detected by the setup program, and you should be able glide from here.

Good luck!

One more thing, when you scan make sure the firewall does not block the communication between the machine and the scanning software.

So far I've had this printer almost two weeks, and I think I've finally figured out how to get it to stop crippling my system.

At first, the drivers on the CD caused my internet connection to drop every minute or so. I downloaded the latest drivers from the HP website and at first it appeared that things improved, but I discovered that the drivers caused my computer to hang after a short time and hose my system so bad it wouldn't even shut down! On one occasion of turning my computer off without shutting down, it actually messed up my operating system and I had to rebuild my machine!

I can definitively trace the problem to the HP drivers because the problems occur only after installing the drivers, the problems disappear when the drivers are uninstalled, and even on a freshly built system I experience the same issues right after installing the HP drivers!

For those stuck in a similar rut, here's the steps I've gone through after many hours of tinkering and talking with HP support to get things working (hopefully):

1. Download the latest drivers from the HP site. Version 4.42.0.0 seems to work okay.
2. Don't install the "Smart Web Printing" components (they may hang IE).
3. Give your printer a static IP address through the controls on the physical printer (you can't do it through the management software).
4. Disable the three HP-related services in services.msc.
5. DO NOT allow an automatic update installing the ~April 2008 Imaging Device Functions "critical patch" which will corrupt your system.

Other than the driver problems, the printer itself is fantastic. I've had printers hooked up to print servers before, but never an all-in-one that allowed printing, scanning AND fax-related activities over the network. The supporting software is also fantastic. Not only can you launch a scan from your network-connected computer, but you can designate that you want it in a searchable format (.pdf, .rtf, etc.) and the optical character recognition (OCR) software does a good job of recognizing text and sizing it appropriately (thus the scan is not just an image, but a document whose text you can cut/paste/etc.).

Also, apparently you have the ability to have received faxes save straight to your computer over the network instead of being printed out, the two-sided printing is better for the environment, as is the Energy Star rating which is a big plus in my book!

In short, the driver situation makes this purchase a sketchy one, at least for Vista owners, but the great features and capabilities of this printer have me hanging on instead of returning the printer hoping that HP will eventually resolve the problems.

UPDATE:
Actually, even with the above tweaks, I still exprienced problems with the drivers crashing my system (e.g. freezing after waking up from sleep mode). I even went so far as to downgrade from 64-bit to 32-bit, but my system is still dragged down by this piece of garbage and there's no ETA on an updated driver which has sat unchanged for at least three months.

Sad. It's a good product marred by awful drivers/software.

I'd take both stars away if I could.

SECOND UPDATE:
If you're looking for a good WiFi printer, but own Vista, consider the Epson WorkForce 600 (which I'm now using successfully with Vista) or HP's Officejet Wireless 6500, which is basically the "certified for Vista" version of the J6480.

My old HP PSC950 "broke" after 7 years of light use so I researched most everything out there. I wanted an all-in-one that was wireless. Looked at HP's, Canon's and Epson's offerings and read reviews. Found the HP J6480. Couldn't find any reviews at the time but it was everything I was looking for. All-in-one features and wireless, obviously, AND it also uses only 2 ink cartridges. The document feeder and duplexer are nice. No color LCD which is fine by me. The footprint is a little deeper and a little wider than the 950 but it fit where I needed it to fit. Wireless setup is easy, if you don't follow the directions in the manual. Please see Chong Yip's review. I basically did the same thing. If someone else other than you configured your router's security settings, you may want to find that someone to help.

If I had to make any complaints about the printer itself, there are 3. One is that it's kinda loud when it starts up and when it prints, compared to my HP 6980. Two is that when faxing using the document feeder, if you're faxing 2-sided sheets and have to put each side through to scan into memory, if you're not fast enough the J6480 will start sending it off. Maybe it's a setting but it would've been nice if it could ask if I was ready. I guess in an office environment, you would just leave it and have it take care of itself. Three is that the paper tray leaves much to be desired. While my old 950 and new 6980 have slide out paper "catchers" and a slot for 4x6 photo paper, the J6480 does not. The tray is angled up and fixed position so paper shouldn't fall.

But in the end, these 3 complaints aren't enough to knock my rating down. It was much simpler to setup wirelessly than the 6980 (I had to make a physical connection from my laptop to set that up and I'm a software engineer). The document feeder works well and is something I won't be able to live without from now on (the 950 didn't have one). It uses only 2 ink cartridges so their replacement should be cheaper than some other HP printers that use 6!! Automatic duplexing is a plus and non-expectant as this price. And last but not least, it's easy on the eyes though I'm afraid the white will turn to light brown over time as do most plastics this color.

UPDATE
I was trying to fax using the flatbed rather than the sheet feeder and couldn't for the life of me figure it out. I believe you can't and that's a real bummer. Sometimes I need to fax receipts and it's not convenient to have to copy them in order to feed them into the sheet feeder to fax them. I am removing 1 star for this limitation.

I have an Intel Mac running OS-X 10.4 with WinXP running on Parallels. I love the fact this is a Network printer since Macs have heartburn if a USB device is powered off or unplugged while sleeping.

My philosophy is to never use the CD in the box - always download the latest software from the website. The software takes up over 400 meg and there are no checkboxes to disable some of the features. It was a clean install and I did not have to reboot the mac. I also didn't mess with the wireless and just turned the radio off. I hard-wired the printer to the wireless router. The first gotcha is it won't let you set the IP address unless it's plugged into a live network. DHCP worked, but I overwrote it because I like to know where my peripherals are.

Some of the software I couldn't figure out, like fax printing from the PC. Faxing into the PC requires Windows, which is not my primary OS. Some great features include a scan over Ethernet is simply amazing and doesn't require any software. The document feeder appears sturdy and double sided printing works. Scans are crisp, but the software is too "helpful" so as to be confusing. It's easier to simply load the pro scan software and select a target rather than going through the device manager and device chooser. Installation using TCP requires the printer to be on before you run it, not after - although, this may be contrary to USB. Try it first with the printer off and see if it works.

No less than 28 times (I counted), the manual says to use the included telephone cord which came in the box... which is too short for my setup. The secret to making it work may be to nudge the fax speed down from 33k to 14k, which worked like a champ. The printout was a bit fuzzy. The secret may be to nudge the quality up from Normal to Best. I am also using HP Bright White paper, for which there is a special paper setting for. I saved these as my defaults. The moral is, quality is better than speed.

For printing under Windows, I used the default generic postscript driver and it works fine. You may need to install Bonjour for Windows first if you're on a Mac running Parallels. I just didn't want to install another few hundred megabytes of drivers which I didn't need. I just want it to print.

Only one complaint so far. Text on printed envelopes is a bit crooked and was upside down compared to diagram on the print tray. The paper path is not flat e.g. it comes out the same side it goes in. Any printer of this design will have problems with envelopes and thick stock. Considering the design, the price, and comparable models, I found this to be the best solution available.

I finally broke down and bought an all in one printer last night. This thing seems to have it all, it prints on both sides of the paper, it scans, it copies (slightly different to scanning), it faxes, and it's wireless. So far so good. Unpacking it and powering it up is the easy part, actually even setting it up using the new installation software (downloaded from HP), was easy. While the installation is doing it's thing I took the time to play around with the copy and fax features (you don't need a computer for these)and they work great.

After about 30 minutes I was printing my first page and all was good. Then I decided to use the installed HP software to manipulate my scanned images, this is where the issues started. First the software told me the printer was available, then all of a sudden it tells me the printer is unavailable. I uninstalled/reinstalled but still could not get the software to work. Finally, I remembered a comment Chong Yip (previous review) made about firewalls and ports! After configuring my router to forward the appropriate port everything worked. I cannot remember reading anywhere about unblocking a port, nor do I remember the installation telling me to unblock a port. In fact, neither of them even tell you how to find the right port to unblock!

So here is the deal, if you know about basic wireless networking and know how to find the port the printer is using, so you can unblock it, then you can get this thing running pretty quickly. If you don't then I suggest you find someone to help you, or work with HP support to get it running. It's a real shame, because once this thing is running it is very good (although I have only had it a day).

Pros:
Supports Fax, Scan, Copy, Duplex Printing, bunches of memory cards
Document feeder for scanning/copying multiple pages
Wireless

Cons:
Installation software
Documentation
Need to know more than you should about wireless networking to get it working properly (SSID, WEP, Port Forwarding, Static IP, etc)


Tips (Wireless Setup) for Win XP (32): (Thanks to Chong Yip) -- Only attempt if you are comfortable with wireless networking.
1) Before you do anything manually add this printer to your network using the panel on the printer (You will need to know SSID, and WEP key)
2) Assign it a static ip (this will help you in the long run when you need to unblock the port), using the control panel on the printer
3) Go to your web browser and type in the ip address of your printer, if it shows up, you are in reasonable shape
4) Download the latest installation software from HP web site
5) Select the advanced setup and only install the printer driver
6) After install of driver check that you can print a page
7) Find your printer in (Start->Printers and Faxes) and then right click on it and select "Properties"
8) Click on the "Ports" tab (the HP printer should be selected, if not click on it)
9) Click on "Configure Port"
10) Make a note of the port number and then configure your router to unblock it (port forward it). This will then allow you to use the HP Digital Imaging software for scanning, faxing, etc.

Good luck!

Well, it took a bit of time to figure out the last piece of the puzzle, but now I have all the functions working via wireless (print, fax, scan). I don't know if it will work for you, but here's what worked for me:

1) I never attached the printer -- just kept it wireless during setup.
2) Input my network's SSID name and password via the printer panel.
3) Never used the CD -- just went to the HP website and downloaded the basic software.
4) Used the software to configure the printer. After that, printing worked fine. But I discovered that I couldn't get the fax to work correctly (transmission error).
5) Did some homework and decided to reduce the fax transmission rate from 33k rate to 14.4k. Now the fax works! But, I couldn't figure out how to scan via wireless.
6) Did some homework, and figured out the scanning: Went into my printer control panel; discovered the assigned IP address for the printer via "properties"; input that IP address into a browser; that brings up a panel that allows you to do "webscan" among other things. That solved it.

Well, I don't know if that will work for anyone else, but it worked for me and now I'm very satisfied with the printer. Good luck!

We have just set up this printer (HP Officejet J6480) and wanted to share our experience with installation.

The Starter CD that came with the printer did not let us install the software properly. With the HP tech support representative, we had to first uninstall the software. Then we downloaded the software from the 'HP Support and Drivers' webpage(http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/support.html).

Before the steps listed above, we manually input the wireless network name and WEP key on the printer by clicking on the Setup button and choosing the Network Setup option on the menu (option 8). At no point during this installation, we connected our computer to the printer with a USB cable provided that your wireless system is up and running. In the end, the printer started working.

We highly recommend using the HP website to install the latest version of the software program and you can do it without the guidance of the HP tech support team.

Please note that we received some error message when we restared the computer to finalize installation but the tech support rep said to pay no attention to that error message.

Please also note that we have only tested the printing and scanning functions of this all-in-one printer. The other functions are yet to be tested...

Having read the other reviews on this site, I still bought the printer. I run Vista 64-bit on my main computer (the one the printer is physically hooked up to via the included USB cable) and had no trouble hooking it up. I followed the advice of the posters who said not to use the included CD. Instead, I downloaded the driver from the HP site and loaded it up that way. Bought it 2-weeks ago to replace a busted Canon MP450, but just hooked it up two days ago and it hasn't burped once. No printer issues, no internet issues, no issues...period. Now, I have the Vista computer sharing the printer with my other two computers (older desktop and my laptop--both running XP) on our home network and they are both able to print to it just fine. The duplexer works great, fax, color looks nice, the whole 9-yards. Highly recommended!

Not trying to jack-up Amazon, but I acquired the printer locally at Staples. They had the better price at the time...now the Amazon price is better (compared to my local Staples price).

I normally don't rate any products. I feel obligated to do so because of my bad experience with it.

This is the 4th HP All-in-one printer we owned in the last 5 years. This one is the worst by far. Here are the negatives.
* Paper jams easily
* Software is not robust, especially the scanning function (don't buy this printer if you use scanning function frequently)
* Uses ink at at least 2 to 3 times the rate as my other printers (more money for HP, I guess)
* Time to start print is longer
* HP Support is useless (expect to spend hours with incompetent people who really doesn't care about solving your problem vs how they can close the trouble ticket)

I don't recommend this printer.

Excellent copies, easy to set up, great features, very pleased with with all functions. The scan to editable document functionality was a pleasant surprise.

The printer worked perfectly for my home office for two months, then abruptly started smearing everything printed in black. The on-line tech support was detailed, consciencious, and in the end without results. This was on a Sunday. They e-mailed me one more thing to try on Monday, which I did; it didn't work so I got back on-line with tech support and they promised me a replacement printer which arrived before 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning. I couldn't find my CD to do the set-up, and they sent me one of those immediately. Awesome service, truly.