HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP 4301fdn.
Great, with some caveats
04/22/2024 20:13
Printer was a little larger than anticipated however, it fit nicely in our little alcove desk. It is heavy. Set up was pretty intuitive and straightforward. We ran into some issues with setup when the recommended setup videos told us to set up Wi-Fi connectivity, since this printer does not possess that feature. All of the related info I could find directed me to incorrect info for this printer. The URL given in the literature that came with the printer didn’t want to load. I ended up having to contact support to confirm that Wi-Fi was not an option, just to make sure I losing my mind.
However, when directly connected to our Wi-Fi extender, it had no problem, updating firmware and restarting. At that point we were able to start printing and the quality looks great.
Using the scanner function on the HP printer was straight forward. I put the documents in. It gave me an option to copy initially, but I selected scan. I was able to select whatever options I wanted fairly easily. It defaulted to a JPG file format, but I was able to change that to PDF. Sending it to the USB was easy. However, it jammed on the first scan pass page 5 of 6. It did error out and tell me that it had done that and it had cleared its own jam and still sent to the USB. Reloading it and sending a scan a second time worked fine. It appended a new number to the end of what I had already named it. The ability to scan duplex on this machine was very nice. I did not need to reload. Also, it scanned both sides of the page simultaneously, rather than scanning one side, feeding it back through mechanically a second time and scanning the opposite side. This is an amazing feature and made the entire process faster AND quieter.
Scan quality was great.
There are other options for sending to an email address or onto the network. The printer does have a walk-through to set up and connect in that manner. I chose the ease of the USB because I of the initial setup nightmare.
I'm not a fan of the lack of WiFi or Bluetooth connectivity. Even though this is a working printer designed primarily for office use, as it is a laser printer, it seems that this particular feature would be standard. I understand that HP has their own suite of software and the ability to connect via the world wide web, however it would be nice to NOT have to utilize this approach as it requires additional steps and/or software to interact with the printer. This seems like a massive oversight, even taking into consideration what this printer is designed for.
The printer is definitely designed for office use. I would imagine with mass printing of standard office letterhead or potentially web based portals that use typical colorations. Attempting to place multiple pictures onto a thumb drive (USB) and direct connecting to the printer was easy enough, and printing from the USB was simple. I would have liked the ability to multi-select, instead of print one piece at a time. Additionally, the pictures came out either washed out, if they were already pretty bright, or totally muted, if they were rather dark. (Again, leading me to believe the purpose wasn't high definition printing or picture production, but rather office'esque materials.)
Due to the print style, there is a bit of a chemical smell as the toner material is heated, but it's not overwhelming unless you're either standing right at the machine or sensitive to odors. Repeated exposure would probably have given me a headache but I wasn't around it long enough to test. From print to completions, the printing was relatively fast but with multiple documents, of high resolution (again pictures), you could tell the memory was being taxed. It's likely that documents requiring lots of images OR of a substantial size, would benefit from a print spooler because it's unlikely a standard connection with (or without) computer would suffice. Otherwise, slowing would occur and there would be no way to achieve the estimated ppm (pages per minute).
Overall, this is a really nice printer. Our business, specifically, does quite a bit of printing that involves graphics and other related media, so we are still working out all the related details.
LilyWest
Mead , Spojené státy americké
Age: 37
Gender: Female