HP OfficeJet Pro L7590 All In One Printer Review

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(More customer reviews)This is my third HP All-In-One Officejet printer. The first was the r80xi, the second the 6110. I had not been particularly enthused about the HP 6110, which after 5 years broke down with constant jamming. Every other brand that I looked at, however, also seemed to have their own flaws and potential reliability problems, and so I decided to stick with the HP series, mainly because the cartridges are so readily available at Costco. I have not had good luck with remanufactured ink cartridges. I strongly considered the Canon Pixma printers since a lot of people seemed to like them, but the constant complaint that the Canon printers are designed to not print when a single ink color runs low stopped me. This printer, like all other previous HP printers I have owned, continues to print when one color runs low, so you don't have to replace the cartridge right away if you don't need it. (The low ink indicators tend to come on well before the cartridges actually run out of ink, which would be another knock against Canon's systems).
The printer that I actually have is the HP L7555, which I purchased from Costco. From the specifications, the L7555 is the same printer as the L7590. HP has historically given large volume discounts to sell printers at Costco and then re-named the discounted printers sold at Costco (e.g. the r80 became the r80xi) so as to appease its other retailers. The L7555/L7590 come with the optional two-sided printing attachment, which is not included with the L7580. All three of these printers have wired network capability only (wireless is an optional accessory).
I would note that there are multiple separate listings on Amazon.com right now for the L7680 and L7780, and the photos and specs are quite confusing as to what the differences are, but it appears that these other models come with wireless networking, two sided printing, additional paper trays, and other features like Direct Digital Filing, etc. The L7600 and L7700 series come with legal size scanner glass instead of the letter/A4 size scanner glass for the L7500 series and so have a slightly larger upper body frame (legal size scanning/faxing on the L7500 series is done by feeding through the ADF). The L7780 has a color display instead of a black and white LCD display.
I use this printer as a common family/home office printer/scanner for four home computers. So some of the complaints of other people in the many printer reviews on Amazon.com don't apply to me. The computers all run Windows XP, and so Vista or Mac compatibility are not issues (drivers for Vista and Mac OS are included).
Initially, I set this printer up with my old USB 4-port switch (I have four computers at home on a home network). The L7590/7555 did not recognize the USB 1.0 switch that I had been using, so I got a new 4-port USB 2.0 switch (software switchable), which did work to switch printing and scanning between the computers. The only problem was that the computer that was "on" with the printer would freeze up during the boot process unless the USB port was unplugged or shut off.
So, I decided to put this Ethernet-capable printer on my home network. To do this, I had to expand beyond the four-port MN-100 router that I had. I got a D-Link DGL-4100 4-port gigabit router and DGS-2205 5-port switch. These hooked up easily with the Ethernet port on the L7590/7555. You have to put the HP setup CD back into every single computer on the network and re-install this printer for the network again even though the drivers have been loaded for the USB connection.
I am not using this printer to print high quality photos, although the three color cartridge system does look capable of doing decent photo color printing similar to previous Officejets.
Unlike the previous Officejets, this one comes with two replaceable inkjet heads. Previously, HP had built the inkjet heads into the disposable ink cartridges, which undoubtedly increased the cost of the cartridges. However, it is not entirely clear how long these replaceable printheads are designed to last. A search of the Internet suggested that the HP printheads are not designed to last for the life of the printer as the Canon printheads are, and possibly last only for every tenth ink cartridge or so. Stay tuned for an update on this issue.
The printer uses the 88 series of color cartridges (4 total - yellow, magenta, cyan, and black cartridges), and the 88 printheads (black-yellow, and magenta-cyan).
Pros:
1. Much more economical ink usage than the 6110. HOWEVER, you have to manually reset the default Windows printer parameters on every computer attached to this printer to take full advantage of this feature. The "Normal" default print setting gulps color ink at a prodigious rate - the color prints come out with the same depth of color as the "Best" setting for the 6110. So I am not at all sure that if you intend to use this printer to print a lot of photo quality prints how economical it will turn out to be. The "Draft" mode uses less ink but the color prints are not photo quality.
2. The printer does have a full range of manually adjustable settings in the "Advanced" tab for Printer Preferences in Windows that allow you to really dial down the ink usage and also presumably allows you to tweak the color ink usage for photos to acceptable levels. Black and white documents come out looking very usable with the ink settings at the very lowest levels.
3. Much faster than the 6110 for printing, scanning, etc. ADF works pretty good for scanning multiple documents.
4. Wired network setup fairly easy on Windows XP.
Cons:
1. The very first time the L7555/L7590 powers up, it takes 20 minutes to fully initialize. Later, if you turn off or unplug this printer, it takes about two minutes to initialize. Don't ever turn this baby off!
2. Installation of the driver software is also really slow, with a lot of popups requiring user interaction to continue the installation. If you have to load this software into several computers, it takes a while.
3. It only recognizes USB 2.0. It will not recognize USB 1.0 plugs. A USB 2.0 4-port switch that I used initially created hangups during the boot process for the compute that was "on".
4. The ADF feeder tray is still attached by way of two flimsy tabs. This is similar to the HP 6110 - one of the tabs on the 6110 ADF tray broke off after somebody set a heavy pile of stuff on top of it.
5. Loud. Probably the loudest of the three Officejets that I have owned. But this is probably because it is also the fastest of the three.
6. Footprint is 65% larger than the 6110 in square inches. It still fits on the same desktop space, just a tighter squeeze.
7. The wired (and wireless) networking only work for up to five computers, according to the manual. I have not tested this.
All in all, the Cons are minor complaints. This is a good quality printer, priced cheaper than the 6110 had been five years ago, but MUCH BETTER. Printer prices have dropped dramatically, as manufacturers have discovered that the money is in the selling of printer cartridges, and so the best part of this printer is its much more economical use of ink. But you have to make sure to adjust the default settings for ink usage. And I am still waiting to see how long these replaceable printheads last, to see if they contribute to the cost of printing. Addendum: I liked this All-In-One printer so much that I recently bought another one. Unfortunately, after a week or so of use, this one started having frequent paper feed jams, especially with two sided printing. And the auto-feed tray fed the papers in crooked. Fortunately, following my own advice, I'd gotten this printer at Costco like the first one (Costco rebrands this as the model L7555), and I returned it well within Costco's generous 90 day return period, and got another one, which so far is working fine. Remember, the price points are so important nowadays that quality control has really gone downhill and EVERY electronics manufacturer ships out some lemons. So strongly consider the return policy of any place that you buy your electronics from.
I've discovered another annoying aspect of the printer software when used on a network instead of a straight USB hookup - if you change routers or exchange printers, because each printer has its own unique network ID burned into its chips, you have to re-install the entire HP software package on every computer on your network. Simply re-installing the software on top of an existing installation doesn't work - you have to manually uninstall it first (the quickest way is to use the "Uninstall" option on the HP CD startup menu - this will uninstall all of the software in one sweep). This of course deletes all the special Windows Printer settings to reduce ink use, etc., that you have set up in your Printer Preferences, so you have to re-do all of that again also for each computer on your network. I have gone through this rigamarole three times now, changing from a D-link to a 2-Wire router/modem, exchanging printers, and then changing to an Actiontec router-modem.
With the Actiontec router/modem, the HP installation disc for some reason did not automatically detect the printer during installation for two of our computers, even though the Actiontec network browser page showed it was active. I had to manually identify the printer and input the printer IP address/MAC address. I tried using HP's latest update software, v.8, hoping it would work better, and it wouldn't identify or allow me to manually install this printer at all. So back to the v.7.0.0 CD - at least it works with manual installation. - HP doesn't list this version on their website, so don't lose your installation CD!
HP sure could make this re-installation process a WHOLE LOT better and easier!


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The HP Officejet Pro L7590 Multifunction color inkjet Printer is designed to help your office reach new heights of efficiency and productivity by offering built-in networking, color scanning, faxing, and outstanding copy and print quality speeds of up to 35 ppm. The Officejet Pro L7590 also helps to keep costs down by using efficient HP Officejet inks that keep the cost per page up to 50% lower than many laser printers.
High-quality color documents print quickly. View larger. No More Waiting for High-Quality, Colorful Prints The Officejet Pro L7590 is fast! Depending on the level of output, the printer can attain printing and copying speeds as fast as 35 pages per minute, or ppm, and can achieve a true 4800 x 1200 dpi in full-color for those critical jobs when only the highest print quality will do.
The printer will produce full-color documents at speeds of up to 34 ppm, and its Photo Fix feature can automatically optimize photos before printing with the push of a button. And with its affordable price tag and efficient HP Officejet inks, this printer can help you save up to 50% over comparable laser printers.
Large Paper Supply and Automatic Document Feeder The L7590 comes with a 250-sheet paper tray and 50-sheet automatic document feeder, reducing the amount of time you spend adding paper. An optional 350-sheet paper tray (sold separately) can be installed for a total capacity of up to 600 sheets. The automatic document feeder is an easy and convenient solution for printing on special media such as envelopes, photo paper, cards, transparencies, and more.
Networking and Connectivity Options With HP's 10/100Base-T wired Ethernet, you'll experience reliable and easy networking. The L7590 also offers a host of other connectivity options, including USB 2.0, PictBridge, CompactFlash, SD card slot, MMC card slot, xD Memory Stick, MagicGate Memory Stick, and Memory Stick Duo and Pro.Scan, Copy, and Fax with Ease The Officejet Pro L7590 can scan either on the flatbed, or via the ADF at a full-color optical resolution of up to 2400 x 4800 dpi. The copier outputs at a colorful 1200 x 600 dpi at speeds of up to 34 cpm and up to 35 cpm for black & white. You can make up to 99 copies at once, and reduce or enlarge originals from 25% to 400%.
You can also send faxes of up to up to 300 x 300 dpi. The built-in fax has all the standard features of a stand-alone fax machine, including fax forwarding, polling, and junk fax barrier. It has the ability to broadcast up to a 20 recipients at once, and it has built-in memory for up to 99 speed-dial numbers.
Give Your Business a Professional Touch The Officejet Pro L7590 produces colorful, high-resolution documents that can help take your business to the next level. Using the HP Officejet Brochure Value Pack, you can further enhance the quality of your business's marketing materials by utilizing this easy-to-use software.Compatible with Windows (including Vista) and Macintosh, the Officejet L7590 measures 20.67 x 18.35 x 14.02 inches (WxDxH) and weighs 34.26 pounds. It is backed by a 1-year limited warranty.
What's in the Box HP Officejet Pro L7590 All-in-one, power supply, power cord, phone cord, two print heads, four ink cartridges, Set-up poster, Getting Started Guide, installation CDs (Windows and Mac).

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