- Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 95 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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5 out of 6 people found this review helpful
2.5 stars
"Loud and troublesome"
Pros: ADF, two sided printing, memory card reader
Cons: Loud operation, very troublesome to get wireless to funtion
Summary: I purchased this printer after doing a lot of research both here at CNET and elsewhere. I liked the clean, modern look of the printer and the fact that it had wireless network capabilities. I also wanted an ADF and flatbed scanner for making copies of recipe books, articles from magazines, etc.
Overall, the printer prints fine. The problem comes when you try to install it. I have a home wireless network which has worked fine up to now. All three of our computers (wife's desktop, my laptop, and wife's work laptop) all run XP.
When I first installed the printer, I had many problems with the printer connecting to the network and with the printer's automatic duplexer. It turns out that you need to install all of the software (over 300mb) to make the duplexer work automatically. The problem with netowrking seemed to be coming from my Norton firewall.
So after many attempts (including an hour on chat with HP tech support and another hour with Norton tech) I uninstalled both the HP software suite and the Norton. Then, after re-installing the HP first, then the Norton, I seemed to have conquered the problems.
Until I came to my laptop the next morning and tried to scan something. Still no connectivity. I can't spend more time wondering if this thing will work today or if I will spend a day trying to get it to connect.
My last resort is to go get an ethernet wire and hard-wire it. I had hoped to avoid that so I could reduce the number of wires and the need to have the printer and the router relatively close to each other. Looks like the extra bucks for the wireless option is money wasted on this machine.
Besides all of that, the machine is very loud and shakes the stand it's on fairly aggressively. If you are printing using the duplexer, it makes a very loud, startling, grinding noise that the tech people swear is a normal noise. Doesn't sound very normal to me. Plus, when you are done using any of the funtions, the printer seems to take a long time 'settling'- that is, resetting and getting quiet. It continues to whine, whir, rattle, and grind for seemingly minutes after you scan, print, fax, anything.
I have not printed any photos yet, so cannot comment on them. I have spent too much time wondering why the thing keeps telling me that it is not connected to the network.
I am considering returning this machine and finding another. If the ethernet wire doesn't fix all the connectivity woes on this thing immediately, I will go back to the store and find another.
- 1 reply to this review
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Hi, looks like you up against a difficult software installation problem. You have likely to have a good reason to worry about if the installation software failed at 96% and you get the following faults and error messages: "....\temp\hpzsetup.exe" "-wStub" "4..". When click details in error report collection dialog box, you may get following messages: error situation code 30888975 or other numbers, exit code=1602, error getting DriverVer from the DAT file, error opening key KLM\Software\Hewlett-Packard\Install\{D64BC2CF-0F12....} , error=2, Error getting DriverVer from the DAT file, etc. If you do get above messages, you have a big task ahead to convince HP to attend to it and to resolve the problem. Hopefully you do not need 3 months or more of your and HP's time to resolve it.
Where to buy
HP Photosmart C7280 All-in-One:
$169.00 - $199.98
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
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$178.19 | Yes |
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Amazon.com Marketplace
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$199.98 | Yes |
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$169.00 | Yes |
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