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104 of 106 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fab overall, but some users might have specific problems, December 29, 2000
For what this machine does, and the market it serves, there's no better equipment out there. There are many office situations where having a separate scanner, printer, and FAX is simply impossible. For reasons of sheer space allocation alone, you need to compress all three into a single unit. If you're in such a need, it's doubtful you'll find a better overall solution than the G85. There's a lot that's great about this machine. I love the front panel button array, and the vast extent to which the device can be used without referencing the computer. The computer doesn't even have to be on for you to get faxes. The printer is, as you'd expect from HP, entirely top-notch. It's very cool, too, that you can choose to fax and copy in either black and white or color. Still, it falls short in a number of mostly minor, but hugely frustrating, ways. First, I personally think it's ridiculous that it only scans letter-sized paper. No other combination product I've seen does any better, of course, but clearly an office needs to be able to scan legal sized paper. Second, this printer doesn't support DOS applications. In fact, no modern "combination" product does. And that makes sense, I guess. DOS is a non Y2K compliant operating system, so why bother maintaining it? Well, you bother, it seems to me, if there are still businesses out there who could possibly be running critical DOS-based software where the Y2K problem has been overcome, or where it was never relevant in the first place. And there are a lot of programs like that, really--especially for smaller businesses. More frustrating than the fact that it didn't support DOS was DISCOVERING that it didn't support DOS. I would have preferred some disclaimer in the manual in large type saying, "Hey, don't try to hook this thing up to a DOS program. But if you really, really, really have to, here are some ideas." As it was, I had to find, buried on page three of the "read me" file, that it didn't print from DOS, and HP wasn't gonna try. That cheerful note sent me to the web, where I discovered one of the great things about owning an HP: their extensive self-help support site. And, fortunately, even though they again say that they don't officially support it, HP does give an idea of how it might be possible to juryrig the G85 to accept printing from DOS. But you really have to search their website for it. And even then it might not work. Third, it requires more than just a few drivers to work. Like many advanced HP products, the G85 takes a big chunk of system resources because it needs both drivers behind-the-scenes, and software in front. The G85 pops into your System Tray from the first instant you use it, and it doesn't leave just because you go on to other things. You can turn it off, if you remember to. But if you don't, it will be sitting there, draining some amount of system resources the whole time. If you like to have lots of windows and programs open simultaneously, expect that this device will make you need to reboot slightly more often. Just because it needs to load in that software, it will also add some time to boot-up. Again, though, it's not like other combination products by other manufacturers have a better solution. Finally, other reviewers are correct when they report basic problems with scanned images. It has indeed taken several revisions of software for HP to get it more or less right. Even so, it's still very clearly the weakest part of the product. To be sure, with enough fiddling with graphics software, you can compensate for the problems, but why should you have to? Given the exceptional performance of HP's other scanners (and, indeed, of the G85 while faxing and copying), it's odd that they've had such a devil of a time bringing this one up to speed. With the possible exception of the scanning issue, none of these problems is so great that a star should be taken away from the rating. After all, it's not like there are other products out there which do a better overall job than this one. Still, be forewarned: despite the general quality of this product, there are some niggling problems which may be significant for your specific use of the product.
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