HP OfficeJet Pro L7590 All In One Printer

• Full-color All-in-One inkjet prints, scans, faxes, and copies
• Print and copy at speeds up to 35 ppm black and 34 ppm color
• Scan documents at 48-bit depth up to 19,200 dpi resolution
• Memory card and PictBridge-enabled camera support
• Network-ready Ethernet interface

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!

Buy HP OfficeJet Pro L7590 All In One Printer Now

This is our 5th and 6th (we bought 2) HP printers. The printer was packaged very well, all items were included as advertised. Setup was very straight forward. We set the first one up as a network printer and had no problems at all. The software installed easily (we installed it on 2 XP and 2 Vista machines, and HP includes separate CD''s for each, as well as a Mac OS CD), although it took about 20-30 minutes to get through the process. This is the only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5. I think HP needs to re-think the install of their software. It should only take a few minutes, not a half-an-hour! Other than this minor complaint, the software did install without problems.

The printer took nearly 20 minutes to initialize the first time, which seems a very long time. The good news is that since it isn''t hooked to the network or to a computer, you can install the software at the same time. The printer automatically printed an instruction sheet about the initialization.

The printer output is very sharp and clean, and rivals a laser printer. It is also very fast for an inkjet printer.

Scanning works flawlessly, although we haven''t set up the direct scan to file yet.

Copying is very simple, one-touch.

Faxing is easy, and is much faster than the HP d-series we had before.

Overall, a great value, and HP seems to have fixed a lot of the problems that they had with previous, similar models.

Based upon the short time we''ve had this printer, I would recommend it without reservation. Just be prepared to spend a half-hour or more going through the setup.

Read Best Reviews of HP OfficeJet Pro L7590 All In One Printer Here

I have been buying printers since 96 and they have all been HP. This is the 6th HP, number 5 was not that good, but I thought I would give HP another chance. I am glad that I gave them another chance, this printer is better than any inkjet I have ever seen. It prints photos super quick and I can print a large document double sided very fast. The ADF is also great, it can scan double sided. The ADF is not that quick, but I do not scan or copy that much. I scanned a double sided 25 page document and it took about 5 min. The paper tray holds half of a ream of paper, so I do have to keep putting paper in the tray. The print heads are easy to change and they should last about 4k pages. The ink is suppost to have a large page count, but I will have to wait and see.

For $150 from Staples ($199-$50 for old printer) this is an excellent buy. If you are thinking about buying a new printer this is the best deal right now.

Want HP OfficeJet Pro L7590 All In One Printer Discount?

I was very excited to get such a good deal on the HP Officeject Pro L7590, $199 at OfficeMax. I had looked at more than enough reviews to realize that this printer may not be the easiest thing to install. But, I figured I was up for the challenge. After all, in my life as an office manager, I''ve installed at least 10 printers on different computers!

Ugh! Was I wrong.

Day one: First, I did exactly what all the reviews said to do.... Ignore the installation CD and go straight to the updated drivers on the HP website. Well, after installing and reinstalling at least 5 times because it wouldn''t recognize my printer (even though it said it was installed!), I thought I would give those wonderful HP technicians a try. Several times, I told the first tech I spoke with that the printer didn''t connect unless I unplugged the USB from the computer and then reconnected. THEN, and only then, would the installation recognize the device. Of course, at one point, the technician gave me a long list of things to do and said, "You will have to restart your computer and you will lose connection with me. If you have any other additional problems, here is your trouble ticket number and you can call back." Famous last words.

So, I did the 4 different things the instructions told me to do and they didn''t work. Surprise. So, I tried using the installation CD. This time it worked (though it still did not recognize the device until I unplugged the USB cable from computer). However, I could not get anything to print. Now, when I first purchased the printer, the salesperson asked if I had a printer that used a USB cable. I said `yes'' and he said, "Okay, then you won''t need a new one." But, because of the way it was acting with connection during installation, I decided to try a new USB anyway. Voile! Now I could print... but, I couldn''t scan!

Day two: After speaking with 3 more technicians (who, at the end of the conversation said, "You will have to restart your computer and you will lose connection with me. If you have any other additional problems, here is your trouble ticket number and you can call back.") who gave me no solution at all, the 4th technician said, "Let''s try installing the updated driver from the HP website, again. But, first let''s make sure you aren''t already currently updated." So, he asks me to click on a link he provided and then click on the "Check if you are up to date" link on the page. I tell him I don''t see the link. He says, "It is there." Well, after 30 minutes of trying to get me to see the link, *I* realize that I am not using Internet Explorer but Mozilla and I cannot view these links with Mozilla. Hmmmmm, shouldn''t the tech have asked, at some time, what browser I was using? I''m not the tech, he is. Also, I told the tech I had HP folders/files on both my C and D drive. He kept trying to delete them in a multitude of ways with no success. After I disconnected from HP for the last time ("You will have to restart your computer and you will lose connection with me. If you have any other additional problems, here is your trouble ticket number and you can call back.") I decided to right click on all the folders/files and delete.

To make a long story even longer, I installed the driver from the HP site and now the printer works perfectly. All in all, it took 16 hours to install this `puppy'' (more than 6 of those hours were wasted talking to HP techs)... which translates to an additional $280 this printer cost me!

The printer is loud and `jerky'' but fast. The print and copy jobs, even in the draft mode, come out looking great. It seems the ink *is* lasting longer, too. Blank paper capacity is three times the amount of the 6110xi I previously owned. Note: Print heads and ink are separate. Don''t know how long the print heads will last.

Summary: Like the printer, hate the install (which, btw, the actual installation, without problems, takes a loooong time). Get a new USB and download driver from website. HP techs good for only helping you eliminate the obvious.

This is the worst printer I have ever bought. The print heads contantly need to be cleaned in order for it to print right. It prints with blank spaces every inch, all the way up and down the page. cleaning the printheads fixes the problem most of the time, but if you aren''t CONSTANTLY printing something, the problem will return after a while. Best Buy replaced the whole unit once for me, but the second unit did the same thing, and since more time had gone buy now they are pointing their finger at HP, and refusing to exchange it again. Printheads have been replaced twice by HP, temporarily fixing the problem, but the problem is still rears its ugly head. HP won''t exchange it for another model. And Best Buy will keep dodging you around with quick fixes until their 90 days is up and then tell you they can''t do anything. Buy something else, this thing sucks.