This is a great printer for a small, and not so small, office or home/office. Now, to be clear I'm a fan of HP printers. I've owned several over the years, using them in a real estate business for everything from flyers to legal documents. In each case the printers outlasted the other electronics (computers, cameras, etc.) purchased and used at the same time. I had very high hopes for this all-in-one based on stellar reviews. I've had mine now for only a short time but I'm already seeing the limitations of this generally very functional office printer.
I usually write long reviews, but here I'll try to be brief and hit the pros and cons of HP's 8620.
OVERALL; it's a more than capable printer and I'm happy enough with my purchase to keep it. Part of my decision to keep it, rather than opt for a competing product like the Epson WorkForce 3640, is that I've decided to go with long-term reliability over a more sensational print quality or lower price - the latter two (higher quality printing and lower purchase price) I associate with the Epson. I almost pulled the trigger on the Epson 3640 as it seems to address the weaknesses of the HP 8620, but I opted for the HP due to Epson's know issues with wasting expensive ink cartridges and frequent printer head clogs. The HP was nearly twice the price of the Epson ($225 vs $125) - yet I was worried that long-term cost of Epson ink would quickly offset Epson's lower purchase price.
PROS:
Functionality is high on this HP printer! The wireless printing has been flawless. Both remote e-printing and wireless printing from my Sony laptop, Asus tablet and Samsung Note 3 smartphone have been excellent. The same applies to scanning and copying. I haven't used it as a fax, but it appears from the 3.5 LCD and printing prompts that printing can be done as an efax... So again, funtionality as an all-in-one could not be better.
Cost and reliability of ink and print mechanisms is also very good - maybe even excellent. When comparing ink cartridge pricing with Epson, the cost per page were anecdotally about half the cost! Then given HP's high reviews on ink replacement and general printer reliability, I had to go with HP over Epson. So, low print cost and reliability = win for HP. Clogging and frequent refilling of ink = fail for Epson (even though Epson's overall print quality is superior).
Print, scan and copy speeds are also very good. Excluding wireless printing from tablets and smartphones (which both print quite slowly), the standard print, copy, scan functions are fast!
Print quality is where the tide starts to turn somewhat. I've had other HP printers in the past that used older technology (I assume) but printed more eye-popping color. The overall quality is good, especially with text. But the quality of photos and graphics is okay, and honestly, I was hoping for better. So, print quality of the HP is a mixed bag of mostly good, but not great.
CONS:
Print quality is only good. That may seem unfair to list this as a "con." But in fairness, print quality is such a key feature of printer ratings that "good" is just okay. Again, I've decided to trade great (Epson) for good (HP) due to other considerations already mentioned. And while totally acceptable, I was a little disappointed that the quality of the HP 8620 printing wasn't "great" based on many of the reviews I read.
Another negative, and frankly a disappointment, is that HP has opted for a type of dedicated paper tray that doesn't allow for manual feeding (at least not easily) of different print stocks. So, if you want to switch to photo paper, cardstock or envelopes, you have to clunkily remove the entire paper tray and paper, then replace them with whatever stock you plan on trying to print on. This is just impractical for an all-in-one that's supposed to cater to small to moderate sized business. The Epson WorkForce by comparison allows you to feed different media/stock through a bypass tray. I almost returned the HP 8620 for this reason alone.
A very minor and final negative of the HP 8620 is that it is BIG. It just seems like HP could have either trimmed down the footprint/size, or at least easily added a bypass tray, because of the size of this thing! When you open the front panel there is room to spare - so it just makes this printer seem unnecessarily large. That said, it does fit on the same desk as my laptop with external keyboard, additional monitors and stereo speakers. So while not a deal-breaker by any means, the larger size ends up being just a minor negative.
MY CONCLUSION; is that the biggest weakness of this HP is the graphic and photo print quality. The quality is not bad, and you could even say it's good. It's just not great - which I wish it was. But I'm unwilling to deal with Epson's known print head clogging issues and need to constantly be replacing ink cartridges.
HP is a very solid choice for overall performance and functionality. I'll be back with an update after a few months of use to see if any of my initial thoughts have changed.
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