Customer Reviews

HP Photosmart Premium Fax All-in-One Inkjet Printer (CC335A#ABA)

5 star:		(74)
4 star:		(48)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(46)
1 star:		(98)

 

 

This is overall a very good printer. I like the built in duplex scanner and printer; it scans 2 sided documents without the need to flip it as well as prints 2 sided. The only drawback is that there is a brief 10 second or so pause after printing one side to allow the ink to dry.

I would give this product a 5 star rating but lowered it by 2 for two reasons.

Reason 1:

I question the quality of this printer. My first one was defective. It had two problems.

First, the key pad would not function properly. It ignored about every other key press and that was when pressing them normally. Pressing the buttons quickly such as to scroll down a menu would result in only a few buttons being recognized if any. Going through the menu with this defect was a chore. I checked the display model at a store which did not have that problem. This defect appeared to affect all the buttons.

Second, the printer registered the ink as installed on December 2008 even though it was installed in May 2009. This did not affect the ink warranty however.

My replacement printer operated normally. The keypad recognized all the buttons. I was able to quickly work my way through the menus. The ink showed it was installed in May 2009. However, the connection piece in the back that connects everything (power cable, phone, Ethernet, USB, etc.) does not appear to be tightly connected to the printer housing (not a big deal).

Reason 2:

In choosing my new printer, I was looking for a low cost printer to do black and white printouts to replace my old HP laser 4si. The replacement black ink cost appears to be much more expensive when compared to the HP Officejet Pro 8500 wireless all in one model. This printer uses the 564XL black ink which is good for only about 800 pages. The 8500 all in one uses the 940XL black ink which is good for about 2200 pages, nearly 3 times more, yet they cost about the same when purchased from Amazon. It would appear the price per page for black ink is more than double the cost of the 8500 model.

The color inks appear to have the same per page cost between this model and the 8500 when purchased through Amazon. The inks for this printer have about 1/2 the page capacity, but are also about 1/2 the price.

While I prefer the 8500 models black ink cost, I decided against that higher end model because of an annoying high pitch noise it emits from where the power cable connects (at least from the one I took home as well as from several store displays).

Good Quality Photos:

The photos look great on HP glossy paper. Looking at them, they would appear to come from a photo lab, there was no graininess. I never believed Ink Jets could print such beautiful images. However, when I printed them through Windows Vista photo gallery, they came out too red. I adjusted the magenta down and increased the cyan and yellow. I still wasn't happy with the results. When I printed them through the HP Digital Imaging Monitor and selected Auto Photo Fix under advanced options, the colors appeared to print correctly under the default settings. So I am guessing in the future, I will need to print all my pictures via the HP Digital Imaging Monitor.

Follow up on 6/17/09 (Revised from 6/7/09 to correct saturation and color tone)

I recommend turning off Auto Photo Fix because it doesn't seem to work correctly on all photos. Instead, I have created a new setting. I use Bright -6, Saturation 0 (neutral), Color Tone -30 (cool), Cyan 12, Magenta -8, Yellow 5, and Black 0. I print on HP photo paper with the automatic settings and run this through the Photosmart software. The default color settings (zero on all) were way off, extremely red and too warm.

The above settings produce amazing lab quality results.

You can move the picture up and down in the HP Photosmart Essential software to crop it as well.

Follow up on 9/2/09

I have had several issues with this printer which I was able to correct:

1) The auto paper feeder would not feed the paper through after a couple of sheets. HP support gave me some documentation how to clean the rollers and that resolved the problem

2) Using Vista 64 bit software, the printer frequently sent my computer a connection error when scanning documents. A July 2009 update on HP's website corrected that problem. It is a firmware update that I highly recommend.

3) The fax would not work with my Comcast ISP phone service. Per HP's website, a solution is to lower the connection speed; I set mine at the lowest, 9600, and the fax now works perfectly using Comcast's ISP service.

I noticed a big difference between this HP printer and my former Epson printers. When my Epson printers thought the ink was empty, that was it, the printers stopped working. This HP printer on the other hand gives frequent notices when it thinks the ink is empty but doesn't shut down the printer. I have gone through all my cartridges at least once, some twice using XL cartridges (I have used the printer a lot), and have ignored the warnings. I wait until I can visually see that the color is gone on my print outs. Replacing the totally empty cartridge with a level one cleaning does the job. The ink indicator is fairly inaccurate from my experience and I can use the cartridges much longer than what the printer thinks I have.

I don't recommend a level two cleaning unless needed as that uses up lots of ink.

I am still very happy with this printer.

Follow up on 10/5/09

I noticed this printer sometimes cuts the bottom line on some of my printouts. After searching the HP forums for awhile, I found a fix. If this also happens to you, go to your control panel, select printer, right click on HP Photosmart C309a series and chose properties, go to tab ports, and uncheck the box that states Enable bidirectional support which is towards the bottom.

Follow up on 10/30/09

I installed Windows 7 on my system initially as an upgrade. The HP Solution Center no longer worked. I also had issues with other software (non HP software), so I did a clean install of Windows 7. The HP website has Windows 7 software for this printer which I have installed and so far appears to work fine. I suggest that if you install Windows 7, you might want to uninstall all the HP software prior to the upgrade and then install the updated Windows 7 HP printer software.

The other thing is that bidirectional support was re-enabled causing some of my print outs to cut-off at the bottom. The printer was not listed in devices and printers. To remove bi-directional support, you can open up Internet Explorer and select print from the menu. Under select printer, highlight HP Photosmart 309a Series and right click it and select properties. Go to the tab ports and uncheck the box that states Enable bidirectional support which is towards the bottom and click OK. The system will save the setting even if re-booted.

Follow up on 11/12/2009

I am not happy. I noticed some discoloration on my table right next to the printer. I lifted the printer and saw a tremendous amount of ink on my table underneath the printer. I have never seen an inkjet do this before. Needless to say, my small table is permanently damaged. I have returned this to the store I bought it at and replaced it with a Canon Pixma MX860. I decided against getting a third HP Photosmart. I haven't read any other complaints with the printer leaking ink so I will leave my rating at 3 stars.

I bought this last week after taking back two others in one week (HP C4599 and HP6310 because salesmen assured me they had both fax and wi-fi but they didn't.) This Photosmart Premium (C309) has EVERYTHING I wanted: color fax, print, copy, scan, 50 pg document feeder, very easy two-sided printing, built-in wi-fi and bluetooth, reads from Flash drives and memory cards, has LCD screen, and can work independently of the computer.
Hook-up and software loading took me almost an hour but was fairly simple, I did WiFi setup so it isn't physically connected to my computer at all and can be placed elsewhere in my home office. I DID follow another reviewer's advise to custom install and skip the HP updates and shopping junk that use up space and slow you down. Great advice. My added advice: Be sure to uninstall EVERY piece of HP software you previously had on your computer before starting.
OK, so besides the listed features here are my likes and dislikes:
LIKES: appearance very pretty; instructions very intuitive; can separately pre-load photo paper; unexpected neat little add-on features like Quick Forms to print calendar pages, graph paper, even a few games like Sudokus!; can reproduce photos with one button; color resolution is intense; can even print on CD's (if you buy the right ones); prints fast once it gets started. One other very cool feature: it prints straight from my iPhone using free HP iPrint application.
DISLIKES: takes too long getting started after you press "print" and is noisy doing it (though quiet when actually printing); the black on documents is not quite black enough (though I suspect this may save ink and perhaps can be adjusted in settings); photo paper loading didn't work with Kodak paper (but worked fine with HP paper); ink is expensive...I don't yet know how long it'll last.
Overall there are just too many good features to enjoy on this printer that I can't focus on the few flaws. I'm in love.

I used this printer about a month ago and all works perfect since installation. Dont use the CD that come with the printer is a waste of time, go to HP Web page and Download the Last and Full Version of the Driver for this printer.

The Printer is a true Full featured pack. No other printers have all the toys that this baby have. When you find fax-scan-copy-printer dont have CD/DVD print, when you find scan-copy-cd/dvd-printer dont have a fax, this baby have all Fax, Scan, Copy, Printer, Print CD/DVD, bluetooth, WiFi Conection, Network, Pict Bridge, USB, 64MB ram, 50 Pages Document feeder, 2 Trays (one for normal paper and one for photo), automatic double sided print (Duplex Printing on both sides of paper), 2.5" Screen, 32 ppm average draft and over 12 ppm Laser Quality, 5 Ink cartridges (1 each black, photo black, cyan, magenta, yellow), 2500 pages monthly duty cicle and over 1250 pages photocopy cicle. This Real All-In-One have all the components that you would have in all the other models of the same brand. Is very robust, dont junk paper and you can buy cartidges of high capacity (XL) than reach until 750 pages average.

What other toy we can have in a printer? ... maybe the same but laser?
Is one of the best and more complete printer in the market, I can print from anywhere in my home and virtually over anywhere printable media.

If you want the Full Featured and most complete printer "take this baby" with Blind Eyes. Worth each penny and have all the stuff in a advanced and high level of Quality and velocity.

... Sorry by my Alien English :o)

Although a long-time Amazon customer, I should disclose that I purchased this printer from the HP on-line store. Why, then, is this review here? Because their similar customer-feedback mechanism would not permit the printing of my submission. ("The truth? You can't handle the truth!"--Jack Nickolson)

This new-model printer turned out to have both software and hardware issues right out of the box. Since I have access to my university's computer support department, which offers telephone assistance/troubleshooting for non-university-owned computer equipment, I first contacted them. Over the course of several telephone sessions, three different technicians identified a software problem, plus design issues that prevent the printer from operating correctly.

A possible solution to faulty software has already been suggested by another Amazon reviewer--do not use the CD supplied with the printer itself. Instead, download the driver software from the HP download site. This potential solution was never suggested by HP Technical Support, as HP would not concede the possibility that there was anything wrong with the driver in the first place. On my operating system, the driver would continually revert to FAX mode, no matter what I did. With another OS, the bug may manifest itself in a different way. Also, I have not tried the other reviewer suggestion by downloading the web-site version of the driver. That's because, by the time I saw his/her review, the printer had been sitting in its carton out in the garage for 3 weeks, awaiting some sort of corrective action by HP.

The hardware issue is twofold. First, the smaller of the printer's two paper trays cannot detect the presence of paper in the tray, gives an "out of paper" message on the little printer screen, and halts the printing process. I experimented with full paper trays, half-full, and just a couple of pages. No dice.

Secondly, I was initially able to override the error stoppage by pressing the OK button, and thereby printed a number of 4X6 prints. After making a couple of prints in a row, however, I found that the feeding process caused the plastic fence (meant to keep paper in the tray aligned) to become looser and looser, allowing paper to be fed into the printer slightly crooked, with the result that the borderless prints I made came out with white (unprinted) slivers along opposing edges of the print.

At the time I was having multiple problems with this printer, others were (apparently) giving the unit rave, 5-star reviews on the HP store's web site. I thought "Why just me?" and submitted a negative review that was rejected by the powers that be at HP. Now, however, the two printer design issues noted above have finally appeared, in reviews on the last and next-to-last page at the HP site. These appear to be genuine reviews by actual purchasers of the product.

This review already exceeds the desired length requested by Amazon, but I feel that an explanation as to why this dreadful printer still sits in my garage is in order. The technicians from my university felt that the problems I was experiencing were inherent in the printer's design (and its driver software), and therefore cautioned me not to accept a replacement printer, but instead insist on returning it for a refund.

This type of problem is handled by HP Customer Care via a lengthy (2+ hour) process that includes a mandatory independent review of the product by one of their own experts from HP Technical Support. Without knowing what I'd previously been told by university technical staff, this person came to essentially the same conclusion.

However, when I was eventually able to speak directly to the decision-maker (who had access to notes recorded by the 6-7 other people I had to go through in order to speak to her) she elected not to allow the return, offering only a replacement unit, as I'd been warned. The reason? Some sort of ongoing beef with HP Technical Support, whom she regarded as a bunch of incompetents.

So that was my choice, a replacement or nothing. When I continued to press my case for a return, as I had for more than two hours, this person (called a "case manager") hung up on me.

Having said all this, I feel obliged to point out that a (single) test of the printer's 8 1/2 X 11 printing capability yielded a perfectly acceptable print. The scanner's operation was less than ideal, as it required several attempts to produce a complete scan without having it stop 1/4 or 1/3 of the way, but when it finally produced a complete scan the quality was top-notch. I never attempted to use the FAX function.

With regard to the product reviews printed on their site, those on the first two pages are clearly suspect, with uniformly rave reviews accompanied by 5-star ratings. (Being subtle is apparently not the author's strong suit.) A couple of later submissions do provide a glimpse into the printer's shortcomings. I believe that HP's unwillingness to print the review I submitted derives from its conclusion/recommendation, which was phrased something like this: "potential purchasers of this printer would be well advised to delay buying it until a number of outstanding software and hardware issues affecting its performance have been rectified."

I believe that it was probably this recommendation, more so than the operational issues per se, that doomed the submission to the "round file." It was (and is) based on several well-substantiated operational issues, and it comes from someone who has been and will continue to be a big fan of HP printers. As the owner of 5 HP printers (including 4 currently, including the one in the garage) I believe that HP produces the finest monochrome printers in the world (their LaserJet series) regardless of price.

Last year I purchased two LaserJets (from Amazon!) to replace a LaserJet III that seemed like it had lasted practically forever--requiring replacement toner cartridges at intervals nearing two years. I was wary of the smaller, plastic printers ordered from Amazon, but the one that at the time was HP's cheapest printer (Model 1020) produced 1st-class results, and continues to do so 1 1/2 years later. Further, HP's dismal customer support isn't an issue, as nothing ever seems to go wrong with the LaserJets.

Color printers, on the other hand, appear to present difficulties for all manufacturers. Certain models targeted toward the professional market appear to be well-regarded. But for those of us who don't have the thousands of dollars these printers cost, shopping for a quality, reliable color printer or all-in-one seems all but hopeless. Pick any (affordable) make and model of color printer, run a search on it, and the search is likely to reveal scores of unhappy owners.

So my review is not meant to demean HP, just to sound a cautionary note as a counterpoint to the many positive reviews I see--particularly in view of my newly-developed cynicism regarding authorship of product reviews. However, if some product failure were to occur, I think customers deserve far better treatment than they now receive at the hands of HP personnel. And if they or any seller opts to solicit and present product reviews on their web-site, I feel that they have an ethical obligation to inform the reader when the reviews reflect anything other than (1) all submissions, or (2) an honest random sample of those submissions. Reviews by people affiliated with the company, or which have been chosen in such a way as to exclude some or all negative comments should be accompanied by a clear disclosure of these circumstances.

I am generally a very positive person and this is the first negative review I have ever written, but I feel compelled to express my total disappointment with the HP c309 series Photosmart Premium Fax & All-in-One Inkjet printer.

I am actually on my second, Amazon.com purchased c309. The control panel on my first one failed in the first week of use. It took me 3 hours of tech support from the Philippines to tell me something I had already knew. It was a hardware error, not a user error that kept this thing from working. I went online to Amazon.com and they promptly shipped a second unit within a week - no questions asked. Amazon's customer service is amazing. I printed the online shipping label and shipped the old unit as soon I could get the other unit packed.

Other than my immediate first impression of receiving a defective printer, I have never seen an inkjet printer burn through yellow, magenta and blue ink cartridges so quickly. My wife was printing 25 invitations for a party and called me to complain that she was already out of ink. And these invitations were not image and ink heavy.

Finally, I keep getting one printer error after another. What should take me seconds to print will now require an hour or so of troubleshooting. The whole time, I will curse those who gave this printer a positive review.

My recommendation would be to buy this printer from an Office Depot or Staples so you can return it in person for a full refund immediately after opening it.

I have never liked the all in one concept. After all, each function would at best be less than a stand alone product for that same function, right? Not so with this HP Premium Photosmart C309a. Here's what I found:

1) set up - easiest in my life! No trouble with the wireless setup as the machine is in the same room as my router and computers. I set it up in minutes and then immediately tried all the functions. You can run reports that test the faxing and wireless set up. Easy as pie.
2) mac friendly - no problem with anything mac related.
3) use of machine - the placement of the machine is on top of a metal filing cabinet. With the pull out screen I can see in the dark the bright screen in full glorious color. All of the setup and use screen functions are intuitive and easy to use. Incredibly so!
4) faxing - although I fax and receive faxes less and less -- this machine is so simple to set up and program to do cover confirmation sheets, logs, reports and date and time. I set this up with an answering machine and my previous Brother Intellifax 4100e was unable to work with an answering machine, as the manufacturer explained to me. The HP - no problems at all. And, I can make the ring silent for sleeping in -- perfect!
5) scanning - better than my old scanner. Easy software and this is a flat bed scanner so you can do small items like your auto registration -- no feeding required although you can use the feeder for scanning as well.
6) photo printing - printed great 4 x 6 photos. I will experiment with larger sizes soon but would expect same fast photo printing.
7) copying - put something in the top feeder and you've got a great copy. Have not used double-sided yet.
8) printer - prints both color and black and white documents fast and very sharp. I have not used the CD/DVD printing function yet.

This is a fantastic printer/fax/scanner for photos and business documents. The setup is incredibly easy and the use of all functions is intuitive and easy. I have never been moved to write a review for an electronics item purchased on Amazon before -- but this one is what I've been looking for. After I sell all the items this replaces I'll be ahead and saving a great deal of space.

HP Photosmart Premium Fax All-in-One Printer

Have had this unit for a week. Found it easy to set up, even using the setup CD that came with the unit (though I wish I had known about going to the HP site to download the most recent driver as suggested by previous reviewer). I agree with the first review: good value, though not cheap.

We upgraded from another HP PhotoSmart printer that had the same four functions but only a flat-bed scanner. We are trying to go paperless, so we wanted a higher-volume scanner. This is the printer/fax/copier/scanner I'd been dreaming of.

- Installation is a breeze and it pops right onto your wireless network.
- The quality of the software and its output is outstanding.
- It's underpriced (you can get it for $299 at the Apple store).
- It's even adorable. :)

My only complaint is that it's a TINY bit slow. But if you want fast, you have to go up to a much larger size, which I think is inappropriate for a home office.

Buy this printer. You won't regret it.

Review of HP Photosmart Premium All-In-One

I purchased this printer as a replacement for an HP OfficeJet 62XX all-in-one device. The primary reasons were because it has duplex scanning and there is a $[...] rebate from Apple with the purchase of a new Mac.

I maintain a home office environment with 5 computers and various virtual machines. I spent the weekend putting it through its paces.

Pros

· Lots of features--wireless, Bluetooth, iPhone printing
· Photo print quality is actually quite good. Has a dedicated photo paper tray. Produces prints that are better than dedicated photo printers I have owned in the past
· Only consumer grade all-in-one device w/ duplexer (see caveats below)

Cons
· Flimsy build; feels fragile; makes funky creaking, cracking noises
· Duplexer is extremely finicky. Plan on taking it apart and putting it back together again many times to get it to work right. May randomly not pick up the last page from time to time. I recommend putting a few blank pieces of paper at the bottom of anything you want to scan in duplex mode
· Customer support is awful. CS reps will read from a standard script, even at "expert" or "supervisor" level.
· Included software is well intentioned (has features I want) but they don't work very well
o Windows software produces standard PDF scans in a format that is OLDER (PDF 1.2) than the previous version of HP software. As a result, solutions like Acrobat and OmniPage don't work right. You have to scan as searchable PDF, which results in larger file sizes
o Software crashes frequently for no reason (possibly memory issues#

o umerous problems during installation #both in network and direct USB mode)--only 1 out of 5 machines installed correctly on the first pass.
o OS X software has only basic features and appears unchanged from previous versions of HP all-in-one software



Summary:
An OK all-in-one device for casual home use--a jack of all trades, master of none. If you plan on using this on daily regular basis or plan on connecting multiple computers via wireless, either prepare to invest time in getting it to work right and maintaining it or consider spending more money on a professional grade product. I am keeping it because of the $100 rebate and the fact that I finally have it working. If I knew it was going to take me all weekend to make it work, I would have considered spending more money on a more "solid" product.

I'm frankly a bit baffled by some of the reviews here. I bought mine elsewhere (before consulting reviews here), and my experience has been outstanding.

Truly, for the price, it's an incredible combination of functionality. Faxing (both conventional, and from the computer desktop as a printer); copying; excellent photo printing from the PC or from memory cards; printing to printable CD and DVD media; very capable scanning; WiFi support; wired Ethernet support... It's really a jack of all trades, and it masters them all reasonably well.

There are only a few things I don't care for, and I don't consider any of them particular show-stoppers.

1. You can't have it configured for WiFi (wireless) printing AND wired Ethernet at the same time. I was hoping to print from the wired network, and when using my laptops around the house on WiFi, but alas, it won't. Slightly annoying, but not enough to knock off a star for it.

2. The documentation / help file is so dumbed down as to be nearly useless. HP is probably recognizing the fact that nobody actually *reads* manuals these days, but resorting to pictorials and videos and animations is a bit too dumbed down for me. Still, I could easily figure out what I needed to on my own.

3. It's an inkjet printer. Inkjet printers are expensive to operate, fussy, sometimes messy, and generally a pain in the rear compared to laser in my experience. But I don't hold that against the product; it is what it is. To do certain tasks, you need a certain approach. Inkjet, for better or worse, still wins for numerous tasks over laser (notably photo printing, and CD/DVD printing). And to get those things, I'll buy over-priced ink for life; it comes with the territory.

I primarily selected this unit because of its support for CD/DVD printing on printable media. It works amazingly well. I put together a design in Adobe Illustrator, hit print, chose 120mm CD for my "paper" type, loaded it up, and I got absolutely perfect, professional-grade results the very first time.

Photo printing was equally impressive, and having a separate feed tray for 4x6 photo paper means I'm apt to use it periodically (though local photo labs are still more convenient and affordable for any sort of volume).

My only advice for the new buyer? Do a custom install of its software to avoid excess junk and adver-ware getting installed; stick to the required parts and skip the rest unless you like all the bells and whistles that aren't really necessary for getting the job done.