Hewlett Packard 8500 Premier (CB025A) All-In-One InkJet Printer

I used to have the Officejet 9110 about 5 years ago which died prematurely after 100,000 prints because I put an incompatible lubricant in it to try and extend it's life which did just the opposite and caused rapid failure of the part I lubricated. I then got the Officejet Pro L7780 to replace the 9110 and used the proper lubricant this time, I have 175,000 prints done on the L7780 and it still works like the day I bought it but I decided to upgrade since there was a $130 rebate for a limited time on the Officejet Pro 8500 Premier. I also wanted to sell the L7780 before it stopped working even though it's not showing any signs of failure.

I was a bit dissapointed that HP didn't add many new features on the 8500 Premier compared to my old L7780 (especially that the print speed isn't faster), the main new features are:
-New pigment based water resistant inks
-Color touchscreen means less physical buttons on the machine and easier to navigate menus (the L7780 had a color screen but that was not touch sensitive and considerably smaller).
-LED instant on scanner light, the L7780 scanner took about 20-30 seconds to warm up (this new feature strangely isn't even mentionned in the specifications anywhere)
-Support for SDHC memory cards
-Higher duty cycle  (15,000 prints/month, the L7780 was rated for 7,500 prints/month)

What I would have liked to see:
-Faster print speeds (HP inkjets seem to be stuck at 35 pages/minute for the past 4 years or so unless you look at $25,000 model inkjets which are 70 pages/minutes)
-Larger paper input capacity (they actually reduced it from 600 sheets on the L7780 to 500 on the 8500 Permier)
-Larger printer output tray (it is still at 150 sheets, I normally print 500+ pages at once, it would be nice for the output tray to hold at least 250 or even 500 sheets)

The printer works very well and seems to be quieter than my L7780 was, as mentioned above it is a bit dissapointing that it is not faster than the older L7780 but it is still a very fast inkjet faster than most laser printers. The printer also does automatic double sided printing but this slows down print speed due to the time required to flip each page. The cost per page is also significantly lower than laser printers due to low cost high capacity ink cartridges for each seperate color and seperate printheads so you only replace what needs to be replaced and don't pay for a new printhead with each cartridge like on home model inkjets.

You can see how fast it prints in this video I made, this is on draft mode but still very good print quality:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0uLO9UPzkw

Some reviews complained of poor photo quality from this printer, but this is not at all a printer for printing photos, this is a business printer for printing business documents in high volume, if you want to print photos this is far from the printer to purchase unless you don't mind sacrificing photo quality in exchange for lower ink costs, but if you want photo quality look for another printer made for photo quality printing.

As mentioned in my L7780 review I always put a continuous ink system on these so I never need to buy ink cartridges, I made 175,000 prints on my L7780 and never once bought a single ink cartridge, plus I only had to replace the printheads 2-3 times (my last set of printheads had 8 liters of ink go through them and they are still working). These HP business printers are perfect for a continuous ink system since they have a built in ink pump and stationary cartridges, only the printheads move over the paper and the ink pump pumps the ink from the cartridges to the prinheads through a set of 4 tubes inside the printer. I simply drill a hole in the cartridges and run more tubing from the cartridges to half liter bottles for each color I put next to the printer. Each half liter bottle holds enough ink for about 25,000 prints and costs about $25, although the cost of refill ink for this printer is slightly higher at about $30 since it is pigment ink.

The scanner/copier is also good and the fact it has new instant on LED lights is a good bonus and means copies and scans start almost instantly. Strangely, like on the L7780, the scanner cannot scan as fast as the printer can print on draft mode, meaning the printer pauses shortly after each pass of the printheads to wait for the scanner. I don't understand why they can't put a scanner that can scan as fast as the printer can print. The scanner size is 8.5x14 (legal) so it is very large. There is also an automatic document feeder which lets you put a pile of up to 50 sheets and it can automatically scan or copy both sides of all pages, so both the scanner and printer do both sides automatically (like on previous models).

There is also a fax but I use the fax feature on my machines about once every 2-3 years so I haven't tried it on this machine yet.

If you're looking for a printer/copier to print high volumes of business documents you can't beat this one, its high speed printing and very low cost per page make it a far better deal than color laser printers. Plus you can get the cost per page even significantly lower by putting a continuous ink system on it.