HP OfficeJet J4680 All-in-One Wireless Printer Review

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(More customer reviews)First, let me preface by saying that I am not "tied" to any particular brand or model. I've had, and/or still have: Epsons, Canons, HPs and Lexmarks (I tend to shy away from Lexmarks low end units, but the higher end units work fine) and they ALL have their good apples and their bad apples. I, for the life of me, simply cannot label this as a bad apple. And believe me, after reading all the negative reviews, I tried! It works without flaw on Vista 32 bit, Vista 64 bit and Windows 7 64 bit RC1(Using the Vista 64 bit drivers). Both via USB and via WiFI with an old Linksys WRT54GL.
/PREFACE OFF
I work out of my SUV and needed a small printer/copier to use while I was on the road. This so happened to be on sale a few weeks ago and was the cheapest AIO, with the exception of the Lexmark which I was not willing to purchase, so I bought it. I got it home, preformed the normal new printer setup ritual, contemplated some sort of ceremonial dance due to all the negative reviews, and dug in.
---FIRST RULE OF THUMB WHEN INSTALLING ANY NEW HARDWARE: Create a restore point! If anything goes haywire, you can just "roll back" to this restore point.
---SECOND RULE OF THUMB: Do NOT use the drivers provided in the box. Ever... Instead download the drivers and/or firmware/system updates and/or patches from HP.
---AND THE FINAL RULE OF THUMB: Unless you love bloatware(God knows, HP wants you to...), find the most BASIC and SMALLEST driver set available that still allows full feature operation. When I searched (What a novel idea, right?), there were two "junior sized" drivers for this particular unit and both gave summaries as to what they do. The first one was the "HP Officejet Basic print&scan driver" and the second was the "HP Officejet Basic Driver - IT Professional Use Only". Now, don't let the "professional use only" scare you. It installs just like the beefier versions with a setup.exe, it's just WAY faster to install and WAY smaller. Once installed, you have the normal scan and print functions, without the hassle.
I have successfully scanned via Windows Scanning & Printing (WIA) and also via Adobe Photoshop CS4 (WIA). I then printed numerous photos and documents on both photo and standard printer paper with not so much as a peep or a jam. Yes, I'm serious. And no, I'm not even close to being "easy" on it. It sits in my truck all day and night with inside temps reaching a scorching 115 degrees Fahrenheit and has worked every single time I called on it. Trust me I'm as shocked as you.
This brings me to my last point, that I'm certain someone is just dying to call me on: "Why should people have to use workarounds? Why can't it just work?". That is a very good question. But it is also a question you will find yourself asking more and more in life, as time goes on. This is, unfortunately, a fact of life. As things get cheaper and cheaper, manufacturers have to cut corners to keep up with their competitors and quite simply, things get overlooked. It sucks big time, and we as customers shouldn't HAVE to use workarounds, but if you want a machine that does everything this one does, for less than the price of just a basic inkjet a few years ago, you're gonna have to make exceptions. It's a necessary evil, folks.
In closing, might I suggest one thing: Before jumping on the Haterade bandwagon (and this includes mindlessly rating me down for no particular reason other than you couldn't get it to work for you, so therefore I must be lying), try to put forth a little effort on your part to rectify the problem. Is a simple Google search, or a simple visit to HP.com really THAT difficult? Lord knows, you'll spend MUCH more time than that on the phone with the foreign "help desk". Not to mention the time it takes to create such negative reviews.
Now this isn't to say there's been no bad hardware shipped, as I'm more than certain there are some who got lemons straight from the factory and even all the research in the world won't rectify that problem. But after reading all the reviews, I found that the majority of the issues are either due to user error, or fixed in a software driver update that the user never bothered to check for.
If you want jack of all trade items at bargain prices, sometimes you have to do a little work.


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Enjoy the convenience of wireless connectivity with HP Officejet J4680 All-in-One. You'll be able to print, copy, scan and fax all from one device, plus print at speeds as fast as 28 pages per minute in black and 22 in color. And with the HP Officejet inks, you'll get high-quality printing at a lower cost per page than with a laser printer.

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