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I am used to using a laserjet printer. My printer finally died and I needed a new one. After comparing prices, ink usage and cost, print quality, and scanning, I chose the HP 6500A. Another reason for choosing this printer was I trust HP products.
The printer was covered in packaging, plastic, and tape and took a significant amount of time to unwrap it before being able to set-it up. Once it was ready to go, set-up was very simple and it works great.
The print quality in color and black and white is excellent. Very professional looking documents and photos are really good. My wife has a high definition photo printer and unless you have a super huge pixel count on the photo it is hard to tell which printer it was done on. When you first start to print, there is a series of operations the printer goes through. It is load and takes awhile to get started. Then it prints fine.
There is a touch screen to access different functions, but I find it easier to use the software that comes with the printer when scanning . The software makes scanning very easy. Simply pick the quality, scan adjust the scan area and save. This is probably the easiest scanning I have ever done.
The only time I use the touch screen is to fax. The fax function is also simple.
Many less expensive printers come with one ink cartridge and every time one color runs out, you have to replace the entire cartridge.
The printer is light weight and made of plastic. It feels fragile when using it.
There is a device that allows you to print on two sides of the paper, but I have yet to figure out how to use it.
Overall this is a good printer and I am please. I can scan, print and fax.
As a very busy mom I don’t have time for bad printers. My needs were very specific and and I found the printer that matches them perfectly.

What features of this printer are important to me:

* Easy and fast set up – I am not big time computer wiz but I can definitely follow easy and quick set up instructions. It took me about 20 minutes from the moment I have brought the box upstairs to the home office to the time I had first printed page in my hands. The instructions are very easy to folow and they are very straighth forward. No confusing commands, no usless and unnecessary steps.
I would say, my third grader indeed could read and follow them.

* Wireless function. I am done with cables. I want my printer to be portable in a sens that I can just unplug it and plug it wherever I please and not to worry if it is close enough to my computer so the cable is long enough. It is not only about my precious desk space but also about the option of having it connected it in totally different room altogether if I choose so all of us can send our printing job to it from all rooms in the house with one easy accessible for all place to pick it up. In our case this is the upstairs hallway. Of course whenever I feel more possesive I can just take the printer and plug it in the wall next to me and have it within my hand reach. No extra steps required.. no set ups just plug and print.. and move it somwhre ese.. plug and print some more. That easy! Of course if you need to use it via USB cable then it most certainly does oblige. I did try for a kick and it did work with USB just fine.

* Three separate color ink cartriges and one black cartrige. – why is it imprtant to me? Because
I like to replace just one clor, the one that is actually out as opposed to printers equipped with just two cartrages: one – all in one color cartrage and one black. It is painful to have to throw out all color cartrige just because let’s say.. you had to pring 200 pink ink flyers and you ren out of your magenta ink.. but now yor printer won’t print because your color cartrige has to be replaced.
This won’t happen whith this 6500 model. If you ren out of pink you buy new pink, if yellow is what you need.. you just buy yellow.. the same with black… Simply printer will tell you which cartrige you need to buy and that is that. That is a money saving feature not to mention convenience and environment concerns.

* Size of ink cartriges – size of the cartriges is wonderful. It is not your tinny itsy bitsy one week worth of ink load. You can print seemingly without end with this printer.

* Cost of ink – I think it is silly to rely on other people’s numbers regarding per page cost because what if I will be priinting all page pictures and you will be printing few lines per page?
How do we compare the average cost per page? Even one the same person does change printing needs from job to job so it is hard to specify. However from my experience the ink cartriges do last for a VERY long time so for me this translates into low cost of per page printing. For manufacturer’s reference however if you want to get EXACT INK Cost as provided by HP please enjoy the page that I hafe found for you.. just divide price of cartrige per estimated pages and you got your average..

INK CARTRIGES Cost and efficiency FOR 6500 A Plus Wireless:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/supplies_model.do?model_name=HP%20Officejet%206500A%20Plus%20e%2DAll%2Din%2DOne%20Printer

* Speed of printing – this was imortant however secondary to the cost of ink and ease of use.
This printer is like a typhoon! By my standards it is perfect. I don’t like to wait unitll my page prints out forever so now I don’t. It is perfect.

For documents the manufacturer’s specs list: up to 32 ppm* in black, up to 31 ppm* in color.
That is pretty much what I suppose it is. I never actually timed it but for simpple black and white text page it is definitely that it takes half a second for one page for black and white.. just as they pretty much list.. 32 ppm.. means 32 pages per minute.. so minute has 60 second.. lets divide the two.. 60 by 32.. here where I got my half second per page from.. rounded up.

as to printing photo here is what the manufacturer suggests:
4″ x 6″ photo-quality print in as little as 17 seconds.*
I would say this is pretty acurate again. I did not time it per se but I would say that is within acceptable norm.

* All in one function – I can envision nowdays to have separate fax, separate printer and separate scanner and copier. It would just be impractical space-wise, since this machine does all for about 150.00 USD. I find it highly convenient and since all functions works just perfect, then why not.
- printer works great as described.
- scanner works great, software is easy to follow and documents looks great once scanned. It is high quality scanner.
- Copier is just as easy to use, and gives you both color and black and white copies in a blink.
- fax – easy, fast and simple
- oh did I say that it prints directly from the web? yes it does. Not that I need to at this time in my life but my kids do and they use this feature and however I did not use it first hand I hear now and then “aaaaaawsome” as they pick the printed page from the printer after using web feature.

* Desk space saver – as discussed above – very important for me. On one hand it is big printer but then again.. first size up that gives you those separate ink cartrages that you might want if you need to save ( lower HP printer models aka HP 4500.. won’t have separate color cartriges). of cours you can go with lower model that will be just as good.. aside from being smaller in size it will not give you separate color inks! but will be just as good.. oh that and it will be printing bit slower per page.. some 22ppm for black if I recall seeing in the store.
So the wireless function allowing you to have it set up AnY:WHERE in the house is what I love. NO more being slave of the cable lenght.

* Top loader for copying. – yes this is important for me. Did you ever have to copy some 20 pages at one time and did you get fed up with having to stand and load one page at the time on the flat bed scanner to have the document to be copied? I did. now I don’t have to. I simply put the pile of paper work to be copied on the top loader and go downstairs to relax and get a snack. I came back, the copying is all done.
Just like in a big copy shop… you put it in the loader and press copy button and that is all to it.

Physical size of the printer: important to those of you who either do not care about wireless feature, nor do not want to use it for other reasons and need to use their USBcable connector -
it is important that you consider desk space for this printer. It is relatively big I would say…
it is raughly 16 by 10 by 18 inches size-wise.

What else the printer has or can do:

* comes with one year warranty. okay, that is good. I bought it with my credit card and it that double that! so I have two years. PS. most credit cards do double warranties so do check with yours.

*black printer resolution is 800dpi.. which means dots per inch.. which is good. really good.
while color printing is set at 4800 X 1200 dpi (dots per inch) and this is what you need for photo printing to look good. lots of dots per inch

* what it will print on: Plain paper, photo paper, envelopes, transparencies

* what will fit in this printer: Letter, legal, statement, executive, 3″ x 5″, 4″ x 6″, 5″ x 7″, 5″ x 8″, 4″ x 10″, 4″ x 11″, 4″ x 12″, 8″ x 10″, envelopes (#10, monarch, DL)

* how many of those will fit in the printer loader: Up to 250 sheets letter/legal, up to 50 sheets transparencies, up to 80 sheets photo paper, up to 80 sheets 4″ x 6″ photos, up to 30 envelopes, up to 80 cards

* and how often will you have to take the printed material out? once the output drawer will fill up and when is it? as follows: Up to 50 sheets legal/letter, up to 25 sheets transparencies, up to 25 cards, up to 15 envelopes

* it has 64 MB memory.. important for processing and storing documents for printing etc..

* for those who need to connect it via USB: it has 2.0 USB type of connection

* it comes with all ink cartriges along with the printer in the box.

* it comes with PC free printing – translation: you don’t need computer to print things, you can print from other sources

* it will support your double sided printing and it does it automatically. You don’t have to do it manually feeding one page at the time and wait for both sides to print like it used to be.

* networking capabilities: Ethernet, – for those who need to know

* scanner resolution 4800 dpi.

*scanner type -flat bed

* how many pages can you put into the loader of the printer? – they specify 100 at the time can be loaded in the loader for copying and they will be taken one by one.. copied and output in the front.. and next one and next and so on..

* Fax memory – 100 pages..

* if you need to reduce or enlarge document it will allow you to reduce your original page to size it to 25% of the original or up to 400% enlarge in one step. Of course if you need to reduce or resize parts even more.. just repeat the step and you will double enlarge reduce or whatever the final size..

* comes with two media slots for your camera memory cards. Awsome! you can just stick it in and either print from them directly skiping computer or you can use the slots to transfer photos from your camera into the computer so it acts as a reader for your medias. So it is trully All in one printer!

What’s comes in the box:
*The Printer
*Cartriges: HP 920 black ink cartridge, HP 920 cyan, magenta and yellow ink cartridges
*Cords: Power adapter, power cord
*Software: Software CD-ROM,
Connection for fax: phone cord
*Owner’s manual

For fax to work you need to connect the printer to the phone jack.

Bottom line:

This is great home office printer. Keep in mind that there are basically two lines of HP printers..
those that are PHOTO Quality always having PHOTO in their names.. and those who are geared towards
those who do not print that much photos at home and take their photo printing needs elswere for highest quality photo printing yet they need to print mostly paper documents with occassinal photo jobs for their needs.

From my experience and in my opinion you can’t have both.. and you should take a good look at your printing and cost needs and decide what is good for you.

It is easy, if you mainly print documents and a lot of them go with OfficeJet printers as they are much more cost effective and much much faster then photo ptinters for this kind of jobs. Now if you use them for photos they won’t give you as great picture quality but they do come close.

However if you do need to print pictures all the time and occassionally do print a document then go with Photo printer.. this will give you better and more consistent photo quality printing but those printers are way slower overall for printing and the ink usage tends to be much less economical.

Before you buy any printer do check HP how much cost the ink replacement cartriges and how much copies you can print out of one on avearage and this will give you idea if thsi is what you want and need.

In our case we mainly print tons of paper in our home and we can get really nice pictures for our home album from it, but for wall frames we send our pictures to some site like Kodagallery or alikes
and they ship t hem back home. There are tons of sites that will do it for you jus as good, this was just an example.

Lastly if you opted for the Office Jet and trying to decide between HP 4500 HP 6500 and HP 8500
here is what I can say after my own research and comarisons:

4500 is the smallest of the three.. takes minimal desk space and does superb job in terms of printing
speed and print quality, some people complained that it shoots pages on the floor after printing but they don’t know how to simply find and extend the paper catcher within the catching drawer.. yes it is there.. just need to look for it. it is folded and in.. so you need to pull it out and open…

what is not so great about it: it does not come with separate color ink cartriges just one for color and one for black.
what is great about it: price, size and quality, cost per page, regardless of just two inks the cost is minimal, also you can use XL black cartrige and you can’t change it for HUNDREDTS of pages!.. I think it was something like 700 or so.. what a convenience! it is also wireless printer.

btw.. some people complaint for jams of paper in it.. I did try it and it prints fine.. and beware.. any printer will jam paper if it is not fresh from the batch and wrinkle free. Never used tired and
even bitsy wrinkled paper to lad to your printer. That comes after my many years of work at print shop.. the easiest and sure shot way to avoid any jams of paper – use perfect flat and unhandled paper.

HP 6500 -
what is so great about it: it is wireless but you can also plug it via usb, it has separate color ink cartriges for each color and one for black (and yeah.. black is not a color
cartriges last seemingly endless, cost per page, durability, speed, very very fast printer,
great for document printing. comes with fax, copier, scanner and web printing..
comes with media reader slots for your camera memory cards.

what is not so great – nothing really, very good printer overall however it is big so if size is what you care about then it is about half size bigger then H P

HP 8500 – This is a beast! think of it as bigger and faster HP 6500.. It is much bigger physically as a unit and it prints faster and does other jobs faster. However it might be great for someone who has a small home business it seem to be an overkill for a regular family needs.

Whichever printer you will go with do always checck the return policy that you don’t need untill things do go wrong and s ometimes they can.. and do try it and see how you like it and test it well before commiting. Once the return window closes you will have to love it for a very long time so do check return policies. Amazon is amazing as far as customer service and policies so I strongly recommend buying it here however I am sure there are other options for purchase. Just make sure they have return policy to suit your needs.

Good luck and happy printing.

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