5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
Printer not compatible with old USB2 and Macs
Date of Review: Dec 17, 2005
The Bottom Line: Buy at your own risk if you have a PC more than a couple years old, as it is not compatible witt old USB2 ports. *Not Mac compatible.*
I just bought this printer and followed all the instructions for setting up the printer and installing the driver. However, after first thinking that the printer would not print at all and spending several hours troubleshooting this, I discovered that the printer is working, but that it takes nearly ten minutes to print anything. As I am an IT professional, I did extensive troubleshooting on this, determining if there was a conflict with any other services, or any kind of local network problems, including running my machine in diagnostic mode, un-installing and re-installing the driver software, etc. None of this resolved the problem. I then attempted to contact HP customer support. On their web site, it says that customer support is available 24 hours a day. THIS IS A LIE. Instead, when calling, after having to bypass their labyrinth of voice prompts, I get connected to a clueless customer support person who says they will connect me with customer support. I then get transferred and get an automated message that says that the office is closed and then a busy signal. Even after calling back and informing the customer support person that I was getting disconnected, they assured me that I would not disconnected again and promptly connected me to the same line where I heard a message and then a busy signal. This is customer support at its worst!
Also, while the above refers to a PC, BE AWARE THAT THIS PRINTER WILL NOT WORK ON A MAC. This is not stated explicitly anywhere; you have to infer it from the requirements information on the box.
*Also, no USB cable is provided.*
[Addendum after finally speaking to a technical support rep]
I was finally able to speak to a support rep. While he was quite helpful, we spent over an hour, only for me to be informed that the USB 2.0 drivers are too outdated for this machine and that I will need to contact the manufacturer to fix the problem. In the meantime, I should expect to have to wait up to 10 or more minutes to print a page. In my view, the need for a modern USB port should be prominently stated in the technical requirements.
