HP OfficeJet Pro 8500 (A909n) Premier Review
Posted on August 3, 2009 at 5:29 am
The HP OfficeJet Pro 8500 is the latest incarnation of HP’s all-in-one printer, scanner, copier, and fax machine. With an original price of $499, it’s close to the cost of a lower-end color laser printer.
However, they have recently reduced the price to $369 using an instant savings of $130. You can check the latest price here. You can also get it on Amazon.com for a lower $269.
Here are some of the major specs on the HP OfficeJet Pro 8500 all-in-one printer:
- Up to 19 ppm for printing black and 19 ppm printing color (normal quality)
- 15,000 page monthly duty cycle
- 250 sheet input tray, 250 sheet second paper tray, 50 sheet automatic document feeder
- Up to 1200×1200 dpi output for black and 4800×1200 dpi for color
- 384 Mhz with 128 MB RAM (not expandable)
- Up to 4800 (48-bit) dpi scan resolution
- Memory card slot supports CompactFlash Type I and II, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, Memory Stick Pro Duo, Secure Digital (SD), SDHC, MMC, miniSD, microSD
- 1 USB 2.0 port, 1 Ethernet port, PictBridge, 1 RJ-11 fax port, and 1 wireless 802.11 b/g port
- Total weight of printer is 33.8 pounds and power consumption of 55 watts
Overview & Summary
For those of you who do not want to read the entire review, I have written up a short summary of the positives and negatives of the printer.
Positives:
- Printing quality is of high quality, both color and black
- Scanning is fast and reproduces the original document very well
- Ability to scan legal size documents
- The double-sided printing works well and is decently fast
- Connecting to wireless network is quick and easy
- Software runs on both Mac and PC
- Memory card slots allows for easy picture printing and easy storage of scans
- Ability to scan and automatically store digital copies of documents and pictures to a network location
Negatives:
- Print speed is slower than advertised (around 9 ppm for black and white during my tests)
- Starting up printer for the first time takes a very long time
- Software takes up more than 600 MB on the hard drive and slows down computer
- Software includes many programs that can confuse the novice user
- Turning off and turning on printer takes several minutes due to self tests
- Power save mode has issues such as the printer not waking up when you send a print job to it, requiring a full reboot of the printer
- When copying documents, the printer routinely skips pages altogether. This happens when faxing too.
- Unable to choose color or black and white when scanning from front panel
Overall, I would give the printer a 3 star rating and a buy recommendation only if you get it for $269. It’s a good printer, but some of the flaws that it has are big enough to consider another printer unless fixed.
What’s in the box?
- HP Officejet Pro 8500 All-in-One printer
- Automatic two-sided printing accessory
- Second 250-sheet paper tray
- Black/Yellow printhead, Cyan/Magenta printhead
- 2 Black ink cartridges, 2 Cyan ink cartridges, 2 yellow ink cartridges, and 2 magenta ink cartridges
- 1 power supply with power cord
- 1 phone cord
- 1 large setup poster
- 2 CD-ROMs (Officejet printer software and Readiris Pro 11)
Setting Up Printer
Getting the Officejet 8500 Pro out of the box and working wasn’t as fast as I would have expected. Unpacking the printer was easy enough and installing all the components, such as the double-sided printer accessory and the second paper tray, were simple and straight-forward.
Installing the ink cartridges was also fairly simple and didn’t take much time. Just unpack and pop them into the slots. Though it did take a few tries to get the printheads into the slots exactly (top picture).
Once you get those installed, you load up the paper and plug in the printer. This is where the process got very time-consuming. When you power on the device the first time, it takes a whopping 20 to 25 minutes to calibrate and align itself.
Personally, I don’t think you should really have to wait that long for a printer to become functional! Either way, while you wait it says to go ahead and install the printer software.
Included Software
I was really not happy with the installation of the HP software. Firstly, it took almost half an hour to install the software and secondly, it was full of lots of programs that I did not really think I was going to use.
Overall, if you install the software using the default options, it takes up a whopping 600 to 800 MB on your computer! For me, that is completely unnecessary for an all-in-one printer.
If you install just the driver, it’ll still hit you back 270 MB. The software has become very bloated and will slow down your machine.
Wireless Setup
What I was happy about was getting the printer onto the wireless network. You can do it from the front panel on the printer and it was able to connect to my secure wireless network without any issues.
Also, once it’s connected, the software will try to find the printer on the network automatically and initialize it. That also didn’t have any issues, i.e. firewall problems, etc.
Other Features
Once the setup is finished, you’ll be presented with a menu where you can setup other additional features of the printer, such as Digital Filing, Digital Fax, and more. Once they are setup, you can email scans or scan directly to a network location.
Printing
Unfortunately, the speed of the printer is not as fast as I was expecting. Overall, though, it’s still pretty fast for an inkjet printer.
I printed out a 5 page document with just text and it took about 35 seconds to print. This translates into about 9 ppm, which is lower than the 19 ppm it is supposed to be able to print on normal mode.
If you printer a longer document, the printing speed does go up a little to around 11 ppm. For color documents, it’s also lower than stated on the spec sheet, but this could be due to the type of color print tested.
Finally, double-sided printing is slow at around 3 ppm. If you’re looking to do a lot of double-sided printing, you will not be happy with this speed.
Scanning
Overall, I was happy with the scan quality and speed of the Officejet 8500 Pro. You can choose to scan to email, scan to computer, scan to a USB stick or memory card, or scan to reprint.
The Officejet did a very good job or reproducing pictures and even text documents when scanned. Colors were accurate and the quality was overall very nice. Scanning was probably the one feature of the all-in-one printer that worked very well and as advertised.
Copying/Faxing
Both of these functions would have perfect scores if it were not for the fact that they simply did not work sometimes. After testing several times, I found that the copier routinely missed pages while copying.
If I placed a 5 page document to be copied, just about every single time, only 4 pages would get copied. That is simply unacceptable for such a high-end printer, especially one that is geared towards small offices.
This same issue happens when faxing, which is just terrible since your clients may not get all the pages required. The other major issue is that the printer thinks it copied/faxed everything, when it really didn’t! Big problem there.
Conclusion
My general feeling is that the HP Officejet 8500 Pro is a very good all-in-one printer, but because of a few big flaws, it fails to make the mark. Overall, you will be happy with the printer as long as you have a really fast computer with lots of free hard drive space and you manage to get a printer that does not skip pages when copying and faxing.
If you have an Officejet 8500 and have something to add about your experience, feel free to add it in the comments!
» Filed Under Gadgets
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Hello Aseem,
That’s a very helpful review….thanks !
If I run out of magenta color, but need to go back to the printer to make a b & w copy the system does not allow me to keep only on b & w mode, and ignore the color mode until I go out to get the cartridges colors. The system stops moving on until I replace the color cartridge emptied. Why? This is not fair.
Anyone have suggestions on how to get access from devices on the network to a thumb drive or data card inserted in the ports on the front of this network-attached printer?
VERY helpful review. I am doing a new install and the delay on intialization is slow and a real pain but at least I know that this is the norm! Thank you.
Does this package include OCR software? Can you select the target application (i.e., MS Word, RTF (Wordpad), text (Notepad)?
I just installed this all-in-one and have noticed a great slowing down of my pc. What can I remove that is not necessary to help speed up my computer?
I wanted to replace my all in one 7780 model with this one – but the reason I want to replace it is the skipping pages you talk about with the ADF. Mine worked for about a year without problems but hten they never stopped. I think the only way to fix it would be to replace the ADF which would cost almost as much as a new unit. The HP 8500 may not be right for me if this skipping pages thing stays with the updated models.
I purchased 3 officejet 8500 A909n all in ones for my office. I fax and scan insurance applications for processing in volume. Not all the info I faxed or scan is being received. I need my scan/fax/ and print to work for all docs…not just some of them. I am about ready to complain and get a refund and buy other brands. Do you know if HP is working to fix this problem? Too bad… live with it is not an option. I tried the unplug and push# and 6. It did not help. How could this product even pass inspection for production?
Scott E: I found out, subsequent to my 9/20/09 post, that it did have OCR, so I took the plunge and purchased an A909g version from Amazon.com. I’m very impressed with the print quality. I set the default for “draft” quality and blank ink only, and that quality more than meets my needs. I’m still learning how best to operate the OCR. My only problem is that when I print a 4×6 photo from PhotoShop CS4 it comes out very small (1 1/4″ x 2″) … I’ve yet to solve that issue. I suggest you contact HP with your problem. I intend to do so if I can’t find help in the forums. Good luck!
I just got mine, still waiting for it to do what it needs to do…I probably burned myself by unplugging it after 30min…and still nothing…hopefully this will be the only problem…the reason I got this because the scanner to e-mail, wireless option…thanks alot for the review very helpful.
I’m still pleased with mine. Best printer I’ve ever owned at home (this is probably #6). Still am unable to print a photo directly from PhotoShop CS4. Work-around is to print to an Adobe Acrobat file, and then print that to the printer; alas, that doesn’t support 4×6 photos…
Does anyone know what HP is doing about the problem that the machine does not fax/scan/copy all pages?!? (It randomly skips pages as described above in this review.) This is a very frustrating problem.
It was reasonably easy to set up using the USB connection. So far, my only issue is that I cannot get 8 1/ x 14″ paper to print no matter what I do or set or anything. Called HP. They asked if I was using HP paper. I said No. They said call back when you are. Great folks indeed. If anyone has a clue about how to make it print 8 1/2 x 14 from the tray I would appreciate it very much.
I am very pleased with this printer. It scans documents double sided and with the OCR, it saves the docs as searchable text. It feels much more robust than the e7300 all-in-one. In comparison with the 7300, it uses less ink.
Hate to beat the same hold horse, but has anyone had success in printing 4×6 prints from Photoshop CS? Other than that, I’m a happy camper!
I’ve seen comments on this blog for about two weeks now-all questions-no answers. My 8500 seems to have a mind of it’s own right now. Time for the third call to support.
Bill, good luck with support. Remember that for most of those folks, English is a second (or third) language. Tell them you are using “HP Multipurpose Legal Size Paper, sold in one ream (500-sheet) packs from the HP on-line store for $8.99/ream. 8.5 x 14-inch. Stock # HTM1420. If I had some legal paper I’d test it … alas, I don’t have any and never use it, so I can’t be of any more help. Good luck!
http://www.shopping.hp.com/web.....uct_detail
Saul Pumarego … you lamented in a recent post (distributed via Email) about the 8500’s practice of shutting down when one of the color cartridges was empty, when all you wanted to do was print in black ink. Alas, this is all part of the Gillette marketing strategy that is part of the ink-jet culture: the manufacturers sell the printer hardware for a fraction of their cost, and they make it up (and then some) with ink sales. You may want to review this web page for an explanation of this century-old marketing model:
http://itotd.com/articles/295/.....he-blades/
What would be fair is to charge $600 for the printer instead of $270, and then charge $5 for the ink cartridges. Alas, I don’t expect that will happen. And what baffels me is that even though I have my default printing mode set for economy (or draft) printing using black ink only, when I look at the estimated ink level display in the HP Officejet Pro 8500 toolbox, all four cartridges seem to be equally depleted. Sigh ….