Review conducted with a 2x2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon Mac running OS 10.6.2 - I installed the accompanying HP software, version 10.2, that came with the product, then upgraded that to 10.3 which took 4 minutes to download from HP's website. The upgrade enabled several features, such as scanning, that didn't work fully with the combination of 10.6.2 and HP 10.2.
Years ago, I bought an HP wireless laser printer and have wondered why manufacturers don't make all printers wireless. The ease with which the printer can be placed anywhere in the house, then accessed easily by any desktop or laptop, is far more straight-forward than hooking a printer to a single computer, then sharing it through software on that one computer. The latter hookup requires that a specific computer always be turned on. Ptui. So needless to say, I was interested in this new offering from HP, the tongue-twisting Photosmart Premium TouchSmart Web All-In-One Printer C309n.
Opening the box, one discovers the printer itself, a phone cord for the fax, Ethernet cable, AC power brick and cord, and a USB cord. Since the printer is wireless, I'm not using either the Ethernet cable or the USB cord. The printer is packed in a large cloth shopping bag that can be used for convenient grocery shopping. The handles make it easy to unpack the printer since you can simply lift the bag and printer out of the box. No struggling.
Remove tape and protective covering. Plug in the printer. The screen on the printer instructs you as to how to proceed, showing videos in case you have difficulty with any of the instructions. Essentially, you install five ink cartridges (photo black, blue, magenta, yellow, and standard black) and then the printer takes about 10 minutes to align itself. You then hook the printer up to your Wireless. Don't worry about your protected network. You can enter your password on the virtual keypad appearing on the HP's screen. The screen itself works like an iPhone's: point to click, drag to scroll. All very intuitive. Once you're on the network, you can install your computer software. I quickly downloaded an app for my iPhone: HP iPrint 2.0 - this allows you to print 4x6 photos of pictures taken with your iPhone - while I was waiting for the software to finish installing.
The printer has two paper trays - one for standard paper and the other for photo paper. Neither is particularly large with the main bay holding 100 sheets and the photo bay holding 20. The photo tray can support up to 5x7 paper and the main tray can support up to 8.5x11 as well as #10 envelopes. There's support on the front panel for an incredible variety of memory cards, each of which can simply be plugged in:
Compact Flash Type 1; Memory Stick; Memory Stick Duo; Memory Stick Pro; Memory Stick Pro Duo; Memory Stick Pro HG; Secure Digital; Secure Digital High Capacity; MultimediaCard; xD Picture Card
Using those, you can easily grab photos through the interactive touch-screen for printing.
The printer itself works smoothly and is reasonably quiet. Standard black output for text is nearly laser printer quality. Laser quality could probably be achieved with better paper (I have cheap standard photocopy paper in there now and specific inkjet paper would be desirable). In any case, this could easily be used for business letters. Since the printer also works as a copy machine, it's nice to have what's essentially a color photocopy machine without needing to first scan a sheet into my computer, then send it to a color printer. Moreover, the HP displays the output on the screen, allowing you to confirm, fix the placement of the original, reduce/enlarge, etc. prior to the printer job taking place.
The fax works quickly and easily as well without requiring any input from you at your computer. The touchscreen makes the entire process simple. The unit will answer a fax line automatically after 5 rings. You can turn that feature off if you'd like from your computer.
The scanner is easily accessed through the Mac's Print & Fax preference panel, though you can also access this while standing at the printer. Scans can then be sent back to your computer or to a memory card or flash drive plugged into one of the front ports.
For some reason, I found the internet access capabilities of the HP to be fascinating. I'm not sure why, but having what amounts to an iPhone as part of a printer just seems interesting. I stood there watching a trailer for Disney's Christmas Carol (and yes, the HP has speakers so that it can play multimedia content) that I could have watched on my computer screen or iPhone. HP has apps that allow the printer to take advantage of certain specific types of content (maps, illustrations, coupons, for example). I expect this to be useful in unexpected ways as time passes.
Photo printing is more than acceptable. It's not up to the quality of HP's high end printers (B9180 series, for example), but you're not buying this for perfect color output. The quality is up to the level that you'd get from your corner store and you'll be very happy sharing photos with family members and friends.
The printer has a sleep mode and an off mode. If you use it for incoming faxes, you'll leave it in on/sleep mode; the sleep mode is useful as well for those who will be printing from multiple potential sites within the home or office.
Negatives:
1) The top panel has no damping on it. If you lift it up to place a page on the glass, but you fail to lift it far enough, the panel will fall rapidly to the glass. Most copy machines, scanners, and similar devices have a top cover that stays put, at whatever angle you happen to let go at. Not here.
2) There's no feeder for the fax or scanner, so if you have multiple pages to copy/scan, you'll be standing at the printer for a time.
3) There's one more negative, though this one is HP's own specification for the unit. The printer duty cycle is noted on HP's website as being up to 2500 pages for the printer and up to 1250 pages for the copier. This is actually pretty good in comparison to other similar printers, but is not good in comparison to laser printers, which will often easily allow for 10,000 prints per month over the course of years. But realize that a ream of paper is 500 sheets - this printer has a duty cycle of 5 reams of paper. If that will take you years to accomplish, this is not a problem, but if you go through a ream a month, you might be unhappy if the printer keels over in five months. That said, the 1 year warranty would still apply so it might not be an issue after all.
In summary, this is a novel printer with an interesting collection of features, HP's generally excellent attention to detail, and a well thought out software package that installed without difficulty on the latest Mac operating system.