HP Officejet Pro 8500 Premier user reviews (Wireless)

Pros 2 sided
Wireless
Extra tray
Extra Ink
Mac and Windows Compatible
Price is good

Cons Installation is a pain
Networking is poorly explained
Can spit pages out on the floor
Slow start up

Summary You'll probably find more reviews of this printer under the heading for its sibling, the Officejet Pro 8500 Wireless. The 8500 Premier is the same printer with a second paper tray and extra ink. In fact some places sell the premier cheaper than the 8500 wireless, so shop carefully.

I use it at home. My wife and I are professionals, and although we do most of our work from the office, sometimes stuff has to be done at home, and the 8500 has met all our needs. We use it for kid's school papers, the kind that eat ink cartridges. The 8500's cartridges last a long time.

Here's a tip - when the printer shot out the printed document past the catching slot, I just put a manilla folder in the output tray sticking out a little bit to slow down and catch the output. Problem solved.

Another tip. The drivers were out of date when I got the printer in Jan 2010. It's probably a waste of time to even use the disk that comes with the printer. Go right to the web and download new drivers for windows (7) and mac.

Pros Two sided printing, feed tray, 250 sheet paper tray.

Cons No envelope feeder. In order to print to envelopes you must open the paper tray, remove the paper, and adjust the alignment slides to print an envelope. No single sheet feeding for specialty paper.

Summary Not worth the $400. Too many engineering flaws.

Touch screen accuracy is not all that great. Very easy to accidentally touch a wrong button. When I keyed in the 26 digit WPA code to get the printer on my network, I must have touched the OK button sending the printer to gain network access when I hadn't completed keying the access code. The result was that the printer wasn't allowed on the network and I had to re-key the entire 26 digit code all over. A little inconvenient considering that I have to flip back and forth between the alpha and the numeric keypads. Print quality is decent although the ink smears very easy. Scan quality is decent but slow. OK if you only have to scan a few pages. Scanning a 25 page doc can take some time.

Bottom line: Look for another printer. You can get the same aggravation for less than 1/2 the price.

Pros Handles long print jobs when it is working, holds lots of paper

Cons I got this printer as a warranty replacement, and have been through 4 printheads in 3 months

Summary When this printer is working, I like it alot. I can't keep it working, and HP tech support is so bad, I dread another call to them to get the problem resolved.

If you get one that works, you will like it. If you get one that does not work, expect long delays and foriegn support drones that will not help you until you have done 40 insane tests that have nothing to do with what you called about.

I have been fighting tech-support issues for 5 months now, and I still don't have a reliable working printer...

Pros Good speed, excellent quality, user panel functions easy to use

Cons Control application software has serious issues on installation. Required 3 attempts to get this running including downloading a 3325MB file to use instead of the included CD. An obvious negative impact on PC performance with the software running.

Summary HP needs to have better design standards for Multi-functional products. software is very inefficient and exceptionally resource intensive.