Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Great multifunction machine! Let me break up this review in the positives and negatives: Positives: 1) Excellent compatibility with OS X. I'm currently using 10.6.5 and right out of the box the OS recognizes the printer. But I installed the driver from the CD anyway because it comes with the scanning software. 2) The scanning software is awesome! No-frills... it just works! You can scan into tiff, jpg, pdf, etc., and customize the settings in a very brainless way. I imagine that the scanning software will be great for anyone who isn't entirely computer-savvy. You can queue up pages to scan via software, as opposed to pressing buttons on the machine itself, in hopes that your computer understands what you're trying to do. This may seem like a silly "positive"; I put it here because other machines (like some Canon's) require you to do exactly that, consequently suffering from network communication inconsistencies/incompatibilities. 3) The print speed is very fast. The box quotes something like 27 ppm... I don't know if it gets up that fast, but from startup to the first page out I think it only took about 45 seconds. Subsequent pages came out probably every 2 or 3 seconds. 4) The design is rather compact for a multifunction machine. The buttons do not feel cheap (like some of the cheapo inkjet printers). Not too bulky; not too heavy. Negatives: 1) When doing 2-sided printing, the duplexer is LOUD. Lots of mechanical things happening that sound like this machine may be subject to wear and tear rather quickly. 2) I first hooked this machine up to my Airport Extreme via USB and tried scanning. The scanning software wouldn't recognize the machine. So I reconnected it to the Airport Extreme via ethernet-- that worked. It's too bad because the Airport Extreme has a USB port that's dedicated to a printer, and now I have to use up one of my 4 ethernet sockets. 3) While the design is pretty slick, I wish they built it so that the paper doesn't stick out. I'm not a huge fan of the plastic "dust cover" over the paper tray... it looks like it can break easily if you accidentally open it up wrong. Also, there's another tray, or fin, that you install to the front that props up the printed pages that come out-- this piece REALLY looks like it will break if you put some weight on it (e.g. your cat decides to stand on it). Nonetheless, this machine is SOOO much cheaper than other ones in its class. That said- all of the negatives seem acceptable. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ UPDATE: (3.20.11) I've used this machine for a few months now, and it's starting to jam up more and more often. It seems that the jamming only happens when I'm printing double-sided. Some comments regarding the duplexer: If you plan on printing a long-ish document, like a 20 page essay, then the double-sided duplex is fine for the job. But if you're planning on printing, say, 100 copies of a single-page double-sided flier, it would be a LOT LOT LOT faster to just handle the double sided printing by hand. Allowing the duplexer to handle this same print job took a MUCH LONGER time than when I just manually flipped to the back side for the second pass. We're talking about 1-2 minutes if done by hand, versus about 8 - 10 minutes via duplexer (assuming it doesn't jam). So far, I've accumulated about 1500 pages of printing. Using "econo-mode" set to 3 (out of 5), I've managed to only use 20% of the stock cartridge. Not too bad. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ UPDATE: (10.10.12) If you have upgraded to Mountain Lion, DO NOT BUY THIS MACHINE!!! HP had to update their scanning software, which is a complete POS!! It takes up to 3 minutes to scan one single page black and white at 100dpi. Total garbage. What worse is that HP has not fixed this problem since their last update 4 months ago, despite countless Mac Users' complaints. Update to 2 stars. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ UPDATE: (3/3/14) I'm now running Mavericks on all of my computers (iMac, Macbook Air, and Macbook Pro, via 2009 Airport Extreme) and this machine is still up and running. 4 years running... this machine is a workhorse. Ever since I bought this machine I have averaged about 100 pages a week on it, many of them using the duplexer. I've had to replace the toner cartridge twice. No part of this machine has needed repair, contrary to what I originally expected. The scanning software is MUCH better now- I'm not sure if it's because of Mavericks or whatever. But it's much better, like when I first got the machine back in 2011.