>>> BlackFriday HP Officejet Pro 8500A Plus Wireless e-All-in-One (CM756A#B1H)
Technical Details
- Print professional color documents for up to 50% lower cost per page than lasers.
- Improve your workflow.
- Create professional-quality color prints
- Lower cost per page; item comes with print heads
- Individual Color Cartridge
- Lower cost per page
I have a small home office and use this printer primarily for business type tasks. I replaced a Samsung All-in-One Laser printer with this HP All-in-One. I will also be writing reviews for other devices that I use for business travel and backcountry backpacking including: HP Officejet Pro 8500A Plus AirPrint enabled printer Solio Rocsta H1000 Solar Charger and Verizon MiFi 2200 five device 3G mobile broadband HotSpot. Click on the "See all my Reviews" link above.
=== Background Information ===
The primary features that were critical to my decision were AirPrint duplex printing and double sided copying. None of these features were available on the Samsung. HP is the only company that offers AirPrint. This allows printing directly from iOS4.2 enabled iPad iPod Touch 4th Gen and iPhone 4. ePrinting is not the same and I will discuss the advantages of both. HP also offers a free app for the iPod devices called iPrint. I will explore some of those cool features.
This review will also compare a few feature differences between the 8500A and the 8500A plus. I was very close to buying the 8500A but opted for the improved features of the 8500A Plus. I hope this comparison will allow you to make a better choice too.
=== AirPrint compared to ePrint ===
Another feature unique to the Apple iPod Touch 4th Gen device iPad and iPhone 4 is AirPrint. It should be noted that the iPod Touch 3rd gen with iOS4.2 cannot AirPrint. One more reason that swayed my decision to buy the 4th Gen device. AirPrint is different from ePrinting. AirPrint allows you to print almost anything like documents PDFs photos Internet pages and Internet PDFs to an HP AirPrint enabled printer. You cannot ePrint Internet pages or Internet PDF files. AirPrinting occurs instantly. ePrinting has a slight delay before the job prints.
You can get around this feature by opening Internet PDF files like an owner's manual to an HP printer in HP iPrint. This is a free app available for iPad iPod Touch and iPhone. Then inside iPrint you can email the PDF to your printer from anywhere in the world using WiFi. I enjoy recipe hunting on the Internet and this is a true advantage of AirPrint over ePrint. When you find the recipe just print it straight from the Internet. You cannot do this with ePrint or HP iPrint. Another unique feature of AirPrint is double sided printing to save on paper. ePrint does not allow double sided printing.
Photos look amazing when printing directly from the iPod Touch. Even photos taken from the iPod Touch look good. AirPrint does have a limitation. This is a feature that allows you to print while on the same WiFi network. So if I travel to another part of the state I cannot AirPrint to the home office. However if the hotel has an AirPrint enabled printer then you can print to it. ePrinting is different.
Many HP printers and other brands offer ePrinting. This is a very cool feature that allows you to print from your iPod Touch 4th Gen to an ePrinter through email. Your ePrinter must be connected to a WiFi network and it is assign a specific email address. Then while travelling on the road away from the home network I can email a document or photo to the ePrinter's email address and viola done. The limitation with ePrint is that not all applications will allow you to send an email from within the application. You cannot ePrint Internet pages or Internet PDFs. Only HP printers (and only a handful of models) are equipped for AirPrint. Check out this page for AirPrint enabled printers: [...]
Only the Photosmart series comes with AirPrint in the firmware. The Officejet A series printers require a firmware upgrade. I did this in the initial installation process and it was very easy to perform. You cannot download the firmware from the HP website. I wasted 30 minutes trying to find it. You upgrade the firmware by accessing the user panel on the printer. Go to Setup Menu / Web Services / Product Update.
=== HP iPrint app for iPod Touch iPad iPhone ===
Another cool application is iPrint by HP. It is a free app for iPod devices and probably other android devices too but not sure with those. iPrint will allow you to print photos saved files like PDFs and direct printing from your iPod Touch or iPhone camera. I can really get all this with the AirPrint feature so no big deal here.
iPrint differs in that you can directly scan documents and work files directly to a saved folder in your iPod device. You can then open view share and print those scanned pages. They will automatically be saved as PDFs. Another feature is that you can wirelessly transfer files from your home network computer to your iPod device. Then you can open share and print those. For example I can upload some recipes from home and share them with co-workers at the office. Do note that you won't be able to open word documents with file extension .doc or .docx. So be sure to convert those files to PDFs before importing.
iPrint also seems like it would be very useful for android devices too since it allows for options to be selected unlike ePrinting. In HP iPrint you can print grayscale or color select your paper size and choose double sided printing.
=== HP 8500A vs. 8500A Plus ===
The most obvious difference between the two models is a larger LCD screen and a slightly larger ADF tray. The 8500A Plus holds 50 sheets compared to 35 on the 8500A. When looking at the specs it is hard to see the differences. When I played with two machines at a local store there are several key features beyond the screen size.
The 8500A Plus has a full scale copy feature similar to what you would have with a $5000 copier at an office. It will perform the following key tasks:
1 sided to 2 sided
2 sided to 1 sided
2 sided to 2 sided
Printing can be done to short edge or long edge.
The 8500A would not copy 2 sided to 2 sided which is the most common type of scanning and printing tasks that I perform. For this reason alone I opted for the 8500A Plus. I did see a few other tasks that the 8500A Plus would perform over the 8500A but I do not recall the details.
=== Summary ===
HP 8500A Plus is a step up from the 8500A offering key features with printing and copying that will save you time and money like 2 sided to 2 sided copies. Both of these printers will allow for ePrint HP iPrint and the highly beloved Apple AirPrint. Only the AirPrint feature will allow you to print directly from the Internet to an HP AirPrint enabled printer. All these features come with a reliable high quality printer with high capacity ink cartridges for cost savings.
