The HP Officejet Pro 8600 Plus e-All-in-One Printer: one week in

A week has gone by, and we have given the printer a good run, testing out some of its headline features. The following is a quick overview of some of these.

ePrint

ePrint is an internet facility by HP, where your printer has its own email address! Pretty cool! If you send documents to the email address, it will print out! From what we experienced, it is printed as a part of the schedule, which you can change.

Print Apps

Print Apps is a most unusual feature. You can subscribe to certain print applications, and schedule downloads to print — you can print certain news sections every day. Some print apps are about printables, which are cool; printing craft, puzzles and coloring-in pages for kids is great! However, printing out the news, which can be easily accessed through a phone or tablet, seems like a waste of ink and paper.

Copy ID

I am sure that for many businesses and companies, this is a very useful feature! It took me several attempts to "get" how to use it. The actual beginning of the process is not exactly clear, and it did take me a couple of tries, as I like to preview my prints. You need to go to copy, settings, turn on "copy ID" in the settings, come back out of the "copy ID settings" and then start the copy (via the Black or Colour buttons). Once launched, you are taken through a wizard, which makes it easy!

The eco features of the printer

The printer includes some eco features that can help you save the planet! They include double-sided printing, which works well, except the on-printer controls need to be read carefully. Initially, I found all the choices a tiny bit confusing, but I got used to it quickly.

Other eco features are Sleep mode that is settable for five, 10 or 15 minutes, and also there is a screen brightness that is adjustable. However, for me, leaving the screen brightness at maximum seems to work fine.

Office features

I have given up the fax, because I deal with emails going out and am tired of receiving faxed junk mail using all our toner. With faxes being emailable, this is one of the most impressive features, office-wise. There is also a blacklist for junk fax numbers!

Scan to email/network folder is also very handy to have, as you don't need to worry about scanning to a computer. One important and particular issue is the control over the dpi of the scanned image. We were able to scan an important photo at 300dpi. Just be aware that you will need to set up an SMTP server account for the printer (via a networked computer with the HP software loaded).

Program integration

The integration of programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator is OK. Not better or worse than any other printers. A test we came up with was to print a double-sided print of a centered block, and see how well it aligned.

While it aligned quite well, it is a little too crooked for graphic design purposes — not that it is a specific graphics printer, such as a Designjet (how I would love to get my hands on one of those!).

While I did not truly expect it to handle paper as precisely as a graphic designer would like, and there are some quirky user interface issues, I am becoming more impressed with the versatility of this printer!