HP Officejet Pro 8500 All-in-One

Pros: Excellent photo printing. I own five other color printers, four HP and one epson. I bought this printer for improved photo printing from my HP AIO 7210, which btw I also liked very much.

Cons: Daunting price of Ink refills.
Longer set-up than my other HP printers.

Summary: Excellent photo rendition of colors and very good skin tones. Ink refill cart prices seem daunting, but if you buy the larger XL carts your price per page is within range of my B&W laser printer. r am very happy with this printer. I bought this $300 printer on sale at Staples on Black Friday, where their two day special price was $149.99. Then I used the offer to trade in any other printer for a $50. instant rebate, trading in a ten yo piece of junk, some old ink carts, and I paid less than $100 for this excellent AIO printer. I am very happy so far, and in the month I've owned it I did put it to work hard printing text and photos. It prints text so quickly I have stopped using my laser for text!
Took me half hour to set up, cause I was not used to having to install print heads. I used up the sample inks included in less than a week of printing, but I printed about sixty or eighty photos! Ink will cost me $115.00 for five more carts, if I buy the bigger XL ones, but for value these can't be beat. I planned to continue to use my epson B&W laser for text printing bc of the low per page cost, but this HP prints so fast, and the HP price is so low if you buy the XL carts, I am using this HP exclusively. IF you buy the XL carts, the black gives you 2500 pages for $39.95, cheaper than a laser!

Updated on Dec 24, 2009

Correctioin: This printer takes FOUR refill carts; One Black and three color; one each of cyan, yellow, and magenta./aeo