Electronics : HP C7280 Photosmart All-in-One Printer (CC567A#ABA)

Rating: - HP Photosmart C7280 - good product
I got the HP Photosmart C7280 AIO after giving away a HP 7410 AIO, to get rid of a lot of headaches. I am very pleased with the C7280. I have no complaints with this product at this time.

---

Rating: - Good printer, bad software
For the most part I really like the printer. It does everything as advertised and does it well. Photo prints are really nice. It is not the fastest but for a home user it is more than adequate. Setup on our wireless network was easy. However, in the 2 months that I have had it I have spent about 6 hours in on-line chats with the HP tech folks. Shortly after installing it I experienced run away services.exe processing which took about 100% of the CPU. Turns out it is a known issue but I had to dig hard and work with the HP folks to identify and fix it. I suspect one of the fixes they helped me with has led to my other problems but the software is not very stable. For example, if printing photos and there is a misfeed or jam - it locks everything up. Also, even with HP tech help they could not figure out why I was getting a white border on my photos even when borderless was selected. On the positive side their HP tech chat is fast, easy and very friendly - which is a good thing since you may spend a lot of time with them.

---

Rating: - Great printer for wireless use with multiple computers
I bought this All-in-one printer to use with 2 laptops, a PC and an iMac.
I selected it for the wireless connection option, and because I have had good experience with HP in the past.
This printer only missed 5 stars from me because of some annoying driver issues.

Positive:
+ Setup was easy + print quality with the 6 cartridges is excellent, especially borderless photo prints are superb + copy and fax function (also very easy to install and use) + direct printing from memory cards with monitor on device + separate paper tray for 4 x 6 inch photo paper + single cartridges that can be replaced separately

Negative:
- I am not too happy with the drivers. On the iMac it is difficult to select the paper tray. It is annoyoing if you want to print borderless on photo paper, and end up with your photo on plain letter paper (it's slightly easier on Windows OS). And when the printer is shut off, or when I'm away from home with the laptop, I always have annoying error messages when shutting down the computer.

Would be great if HP could improve the drivers. However, I can still recommend this All-in-one. Great print quality, copy and fax at fair cost.
And wireless use with multiple computers at home.

---

Rating: - Nice All-In-One, Firmware Isnt!
This is a nice all-in-one hardware wise -- the problem I have with this is the Firmware installed on the machine is just not good.

My condo is pre-wired for ethernet so all I had to do is plug it in to the ethernet connection in the wall and it was ready to go (I use a Mac) - No Installation Problems.

UNFORTUNATELY it relies heavily on the firmware installed on the actial printer / all-in-one machine.

The main problems I have is with the firmware that runs on the actual device. The firmware is extremely slow and isn't efficient. If you have a print queue it prints extremely slow. The menu on the screen is not very functional and it totally screws it up if the power happens to go out. My power went out from a thunderstorm and the firmware made the printer go through this huge process just to get back in action (tons of noise) -- never seen this from over 6+ printers. It also says it can possibly be damaged if not shut down properly (wtf?) this was displayed when the power went out and it was turned off involuntarily.

If only they would update the firmware.

---

Rating: - Not really happy
I want to start out saying I LOVE HP products. I have two laptops a desktop and this is my 3rd or 4th printer from them. I have always been happy with their products. Until now.. I purchased this printer because I wanted a wireless networking printer. My laptops roam around my house and leaving a desktop on to serve as a print server is a waste of resources. And my wireless router is in one room while I wanted the printer to reside in another. I did read the reviews about the software and decided that I like many others would just download the drivers for the all in one. Initially this worked great. I have the printer connected via the USB cable to my desktop ( as recommended for large file prints ie pictures.) and wirelessly to everything else on my network. The first week and a half was great. I thought I had beat the HP software bug.. But then I woke up one morning to every light on the printer flashing. The printer would not respond to anything but a soft power cycle (I hit the power button). This brought the printer back and I didn't think anything more about it. Then another week went by and it happened again. This time I started researching what was going on. I found on the printer an error log area and found that the printer is having a firmware error 69666. I looked online, nope no firmware updates. I then turned to HP for support. This was/is the worst experience I have ever had with customer support. And I'm a comcast customer! The for lack of a better word "tech" first had me reset the printer and then said all should be well and disconnected our chat window. Another week or so and it happened again. I called over, the again "tech" had me checking every freaking function of this printer. No matter how many times I said this printer works its just locking up and that the functionality is not the problem. At the end of that call I was told that it was a power problem and that I should move the printer to another socket. (whatever! that is a brand new socket replaced by a professional!) The tech then refused to help me out and hung up. I ended up calling back speaking with someone and finally just told him look. The error log says firmware error. If you are unaware of this then here is your notice. They ended up sending me out a replacement. A refurbished replacement. I purchased a brand new printer and they want to send me out a refurb?? I got lucky and was able to work out something with the place that I purchased the printer with and they exchanged the refurb with another new printer.. And guess what this one is having the same problems as the first! The software sucks HP CUE is slow to load and will cause Vista to come to a halt during boot. You can disable that in services and not loose anything.. (Oh yeah I forgot to mention they had me load the software onto my PC because according to HP that was my problem).
I believe the problem with the printer is a firmware problem. But no one is willing to man up and admit to it. If I could I would return this printer and get my money back 270 bucks for a printer with this many problems upsets me. But I am stuck with it and hoping that HP will do the right thing and figure out why this printer has so many problems. Right now I power down the printer at night. No one uses it then anyway. This also keeps it from having the reoccurring issues it seems to have. Although there have been a couple of times that I had to do a hard shutdown (unplug the power cable) because the printer found itself in a software loop and wouldn't shut it self down after 30 minutes. Once the printer actually confused itself.. I would send a file to print and it would take over 5 minutes to print one page. ( Yes I waited) A power cycle corrected that problem also. Which is another reason for the power down at night.
I wouldn't recommend this printer at this point in time and I am half way tempted to say no to all HP products.. But I have had such good luck that I will probably still buy them.. Just invest in the stores insurance that way I can return it and the store can give me my money back to find a product that works.. Especially since HP's customer service is so bad. After reading a couple of reviews I am wondering if the problem isn't the wireless connectivity.. Or maybe a wireless/printer cable problem.. Who knows.. I shouldn't have to wonder why my brand new printer isn't working properly..