HP Color LaserJet 2840

• Average user rating: 1.5 stars out of 126 reviews
• My rating: 0 stars

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• 5 stars

  Not as good as you'd think

  by apjohnson1 on August 5, 2005

  Pros: see comments below

  Cons: See comments below

  Summary: This is my first 'real' review on a product. I have been trying to create a very comfortable ergonomic home office with top notch equipment for the past year. I ...

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  Summary: This is my first 'real' review on a product. I have been trying to create a very comfortable ergonomic home office with top notch equipment for the past year. I wanted an AIO for space saving capabilities, and because I figured my usage of various functionalities would not tax the duty cycle too hard. My most important function is the scanner (I am trying very hard to go 'paperless'). I've owned the Colorjet 2840 for over a month now, but haven't had time before this week to get it set up because it definitely isn't plug and play. I spent the last 3 days (Vacation time) really studying it and getting it to work. Here are my thoughts.
  
  The pros include great print quality for text, and not bad for pics (near the top for a laser product). Lots of features available in terms of reduction, contrast, etc. that you would expect from a stand-alone copier. Happily, it has a relatively small footprint given the size/wt of this product (75lbs). The slots for SD/CF/etc. cards are a real plus, and seem to work well. Haven't played with the fax, but it will allow you to have the fax answer the phone on any number of rings you want (I recommend a separate phone number if you have voice mail through your phone company).
  
  Now for the downsides. I hate to badmouth anyone, and I hope this is taken as constructive criticism by HP if they read it... but there is a little false advertising going on here. Some grievances:
  
  -Just BARELY Mac compatible (Luckily I own both a PC and a Mac that I keep networked), but I thought I would be able to use both comfortably. I can do only about half of the scan functions with a Mac that I can on the PC, and many of the buttons on the AIO won't work at all if the AIO is cabled only to a Mac (HP freely admits this). The only reason I can see for this is pure laziness on the part of HP. Some advice to HP Marketing: Don't go after the Apple customers unless you are willing to give them comparable functionality with PCs (or be up front about it in the product literature).
  -Very noisy and long warmup, primes itself very loudly every few hours if you leave it on (woke me up from a deep sleep in another room in the middle of the night). They should have put a 'sleep' or 'powersave' function on it. Not a great choice for a home office because of the noise factor, unless you plan to turn it on and off as needed. Those long warmup times will drive you crazy if you choose to do that, though.
  -The setup was time consuming and not straightforward, although there is a video on the setup CD that helps a great deal.
  -Self diagnostics is poor. There is no diagnostics window on the main system if there are problems. The little 0.75" x 2.5" window is all you get, and trust me- the error messages are less than helpful on that tiny screen.
  -ADF is extremely slow, and jams easily.
  -On/off switch should be up front with the other buttons. This thing is WAY too heavy to move around if you need to check cables or need to fit into a tight space.
  -Wireless networking won't work with this product and keep full functionality (I tried using an Apple Airport as a print server, and was willing to use any wireless server as a hub, but HP support said it won't work). Why won't HP commit to being truly wireless in 2005?
  -Finally, the '24/7 support' is really 9-5 Pacific time. The 24hr support is for its other products, but this product's experts are apparently few in number, and definitely not available at all hours (haven't tried weekends yet, but not holding my breath either).
  
  In summary, I had a lot of expectations of this product and purchased it because of the CNET editor's stellar review as well as the HP brand name. I proceeded without my usual caution- Big Mistake! I'm on the verge of returning it and waiting for the next generation AIO product. Even if I get all the bugs out (the copier portion STILL isn't working properly), it isn't the product that it could be or claims to be, so giving it 5/10. Not sure how the CNET editor who reviewed it could have such a widely different opinion.
  
  HP had the chance to really blow me away if the product simply worked as well as you would expect from comparable HP component stand-alones, but it didn't.

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  98 out of 101 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 8 stars

  Don't believe the negative reviews you are reading, it is a great printer!

  by mschiff1000 on January 10, 2006

  Pros: Great quality, easy to use, lots of functionality for one machine!

  Cons: A little noisy (but not as bad as people are saying); It is not smart enought to know which paper tray to use when you receive a legal size fax

  Summary: I was very hesitant to buy this printer after reading all of the negative reviews, but then I looked at the reviews on other printers I own and love (like ...

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  Summary: I was very hesitant to buy this printer after reading all of the negative reviews, but then I looked at the reviews on other printers I own and love (like the HP Laserjet 3330 All-in-one and the HP Color Laserjet 4900dn) and people bashed those printers as well. It then occurred to me that most people only take the time to write a review when they want to moan and complain but few take the time to write about a product they are happy with. The old saying, “you cannot please everyone” certainly proves to be true once again. Is the printer perfect? - No. If I could change a few things on it, would I? – Yes. That does not change the fact that I highly recommend this printer since it is by far the best in its class of All-in-One color laser printers. Read the reviews on the competing products and you will find just as many complaints about how loud they are, etc.
  
  Since the topic that is getting the most attention on this printer is how noisy it is, I will start with that one: All Color laser printers are noisier than B&W laser printers. If you are going to buy this printer for a small apartment and will be putting this printer in your bedroom, this is not the printer for you (I read one guy’s review that said the printer woke him up in the middle of the night when it did its calibrating). Also, if having a color laser is not that important to you, the HP all-in-one 3380 might be a better choice for you since it is less expensive (to purchase and to operate) and it is quieter. If you are buying this printer for a home office or a small office like me, the noise will not bother you – especially since it is nowhere near as loud as people are making it out to be. Also, many of the reviews said that they were frustrated with the fact that there is no way to change how often the printer does this so called “noisy calibration”. They are wrong. In the Toolbox under Device Settings, you can tell it to only perform the calibration every 24 hours (which is its default setting), 48, 72, etc. or you can set it to only calibrate when you turn on the printer so it does not do it in the middle of the night. This way when the print does not look perfect and crisp, you can reboot it or perform a manual calibration.
  
  One of the reasons that I bought this printer over the 3380 (besides the fact that I wanted color) is because it said it had two media trays – one tray for Legal size paper and the other for Letter size paper. I was a little disappointed with two things here: First of all, tray #2 is not a drawer like tray #1 is, it’s more like a flip open multi-purpose tray. HP calls it a “tray” because this second tray can hold up to 125 sheets of paper, and you can tell it what type of paper is in tray #2 so that when you are printing from a program like Word, the printer is smart enough to pull from the appropriate tray when you are printing on legal size paper or Letter size paper if you have each type of media loaded in each of the two trays. The problem is (which brings me to my second complaint about the media trays) is that the printer is not smart enough to know which tray to use when you receive a legal size fax. Therefore, you need to choose between having it always shrink legal size faxes onto letter size paper, or print all your faxes on legal size paper regardless of what size page someone is faxing you. This is a big problem for me since almost 70% of the faxes I receive are legal size, but this may be less of an issue for you. Also (since I am on the subject of legal size), the glass on the flatbed scanner/copier is letter size, so the only way you can copy or scan a legal size page is to feed it through the ADF on top. For most people this is not a big issue.
  
  When you install the software and drivers, it automatically installs two PCL 6 drivers – one for color and one for black and white. This is a really good thing and I strongly recommend setting the B&W one as your default printer and only selecting the Color print driver when you really want color. Here’s why: Besides the fact that each one of the four colored toner cartridges are $100 a piece, you will use up the Image Drum in the printer four times faster when printing in color. The Image Drum in the printer automatically stops working after 20,000 passes regardless of how much life it really has left on it (you will understand why I am calling them “passes” rather than pages in just a second). Even if all you are printing is one little yellow dot on the page, the printer will count that one page as four pages because the image drum needs to take four passes over the page regardless of whether you are printing one color or four colors on the page. The image drums are $175 and need to be replaced after you have printed either 5,000 color pages or 20,000 B&W pages (hence the math of 5,000 color pages each using four passes of the drum which equals the same as printing 20,000 B&W pages which only takes one pass of the image drum).
  
  The output is great, especially when you use good paper when printing color photos (you need to remember to set the paper type as glossy when using glossy paper for best results).
  
  Faxing, scanning and making copies is a breeze. I like the fact that it has two buttons for copy – “Copy in B&W” and “Copy in Color”.
  
  I really don’t understand why some people said that installing the software took forever and was difficult. I found it to be very easy and fast and I was hooking it up through a network which is normally a little harder of a configuration. I use Windows XP and cannot comment on all the Mac users that are complaining.
  
  All of the software is very user friendly. It would be nice if one day HP made their software have the ability to print the received faxes when they come in AND store them on your computer so you have an electronic copy of the received fax. Their current software makes you choose between “print faxes when received” OR “Store received faxes on Computer”. The software does allow you to print the last fax you received even if you don’t have it storing received faxes to your computer, but it sure would be nice to be able to print any fax in the log. I complained to HP about this years ago when I bought my All-in-one 3330. I would have thought by now they would have changed this, but unfortunately they haven’t.
  
  Bottom line – I love the printer and highly recommend it despite the minor negatives that I wrote about above.

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  51 out of 55 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 3 stars

  MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT - THINK TWICE BEFORE BUYING!

  by hetterich on September 29, 2005

  Pros: WOULD BE THE PERFECT MACHINE IF IT MET EXPECTATIONS

  Cons: EXPENSIVE TO OPERATE, NOISY, SLOW, HUGE, POOR FUNCTION

  Summary: Cost: My B&W 3330 cost me about $65 per month to operate. The color 2840 is running $250 for the same production. If you buy, be sure to ...

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  Summary: Cost: My B&W 3330 cost me about $65 per month to operate. The color 2840 is running $250 for the same production. If you buy, be sure to print B&W unless you NEED color. The print drum counts each color on each page when calculating it's life (20,000 copies). My drum ($175 retail) was used up at 8,000 copies.
  FUNCTION: The machine jams constantly - at a couple times a day. Other times it crumples paper. It usually has to be shut down to clear the paper jam error message (time consuming).
  SLOW & NOISY: The way the color cartridges spin in the machine make it noisy and slow to begin a print job.
  SIZE: We affectionatly call it the "refrigerator."
  COMMENTS: I've had at least five HP printers in the past 10-12 years, all of which I've loved. This is a huge disappointment. After paying $950 (plus $500 in supplies) - with only 8,000 copies made - HP is offering me a whopping $296 as a trade-in.

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  39 out of 42 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 2 stars

  Too many idiosyncrasies deserves a low rating. Over-rated in review in our viewpoint.

  by techhead001 on February 3, 2006

  Pros: You can get it to print, copy, fax, and scan. In color too.

  Cons: Not reliable and high maintenance cost. Erodes confidence in HP product.

  Summary: We have a professional services practice with currrently 10 HP printers, and have purchased 75-100 over the last 15 years. That should speak for itself. When purchasing this printer we ...

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  Summary: We have a professional services practice with currrently 10 HP printers, and have purchased 75-100 over the last 15 years. That should speak for itself. When purchasing this printer we were concerned about some of the reviews, but after reading the CNET review, we decided to purchase. We made a bad decision and are trying to return the printer.
  
  We've had many issues, some if not most of them minor. All these minor issues now make the printer a major issue for our business where we need productivity and reliablity. We have neither with this printer.
  
  When having a problem, and calling technical support, there is little. Hours as are described by others, about 7-7 M-F, CST, which for the most part is okay with us, but was not clearly stated in the literature. We found this out the hard way when we tried to install it over the weekend or evening as we didn't want to use productive time to install.
  
  Install did not go easy for us, as with the windows firewall would not allow the install of all the features. We had to have tech support walk us step by step through the install. Firmware and software needed upgrades and they had to send out a new install CD. Tech support staff not well trained. Most didn't know anything about the printer. We would call and then hang-up until we finally found someone who knew something about it.
  
  Tech support is in Canada, which is one big step better than the nimrods in India. Why all these big companies go to India is beyond me. Has anyone ever tried to call them to really get support? The staff in Canada are friendly, but very few have knowledge of this printer. Not unusual to have 1-2 hour phone calls. We have logged probably about 30 hours of tech support calls since October 2005.
  
  Initial install on USB was unstable, and printer would act erratic. After a few months of this and several phone calls to tech support, they determined that our main pc (new Intel P4 3.2 Ghz, 1 GB Ram, etc...) had an incompatable USB Intel chip driver (or something) and HP recommended we use the network port instead. After installing on network port, machine has stabilized behavior. Apparently is sensitive when using USB, but not all the tech guys know this.
  
  Faxing: We have had no problem with inbound or outbound faxes. Gets light use. Faxes have been around for 20+ years, so this should be standard anyway.
  
  Calibration Mode: Yes, quite cumbersome and tempermental. For a while when operating on USB we would have to reboot the printer 5-10 times per day, and then the calibration would kick in automatically after 15 minutes. The calibration will interrupt your print job, and the print job will not resume from where it left off. Go figure. Knotheads. Best to turn off really.
  
  Scanning: Weak. Clarity not real good. We had almost no compatibility with image and text scans or pdf scans, mostly since the USB issue. After connecting to the network port (printer is not networked, we just use the network port) the scanning improved (not quality wise, just not as tempermental). Scanning now seems fine with the scan software, and scanning to jpg, text, or pdf. Quality is poor. We have other HP scanners that do a much better job. Scan to pdf from automatic document feed works well. Nice feature, although this didn't work through our USB.
  
  Printing: Slow, but that is widely known. It is noisy compared to what you might expect or from experience with other printers. Not like a 747 taking off, but it is noticeable. You do get used to it nevertheless. Quality, I would rate not bad. Any worse, and it would be scrapped. Not as good as our other HP BW laserjets.
  
  Copying: Fine. Auto document feed works fine. Jams about 5% of the time, but we are getting used to this with this machine. I guess we learned a higher level of tolerance.
  
  Toner Use: This is quite interesting. There is HP Director software that is loaded on the hard drive upon install. The HP Director doesn't always work when you mouse click on it. When you do get it to work, it does allow you to make many settings on the printer, and allows you to check the status of the toner cartridges. One negative is when the machine states the toner is low/out (black toner), the machine will quit printing. There is an electronic lock/freeze put on the machine until you replace the toner cartridge. Even if there is toner left, it won't let you print. Once the electronic calculator says you're out, you're done. Color toner, somewhat the same. When it says it's done, it is. Will automatically convert to printing only in BW, even though you might have some color toner left.
  
  The Drum is another negative issue. Posted that it should last 20,000 pages. Not true. As other's have posted, may only electronically last 5,000 if you use color as color makes more electronic revolutions so even if printing a colored dot, it counts as multiple page revolutions. As I write this, we are being notified by the printer we need a new drum. We have about 7,000 pages on the drum since new. We have been told by HP that when the electronic counter on the machine hits zero, the machine will stop printing. Even though the machine has been printing fine, if the counter calculates its time to change, then you must. Fork out about $175.
  
  When I called to complain to HP about this, I was put on hold for about an hour while they researched this. They said it is a benefit to the customer to shut down the machine so you don't make bad prints. I said we can look and figure that out. HP said it's just like a car when it runs out of gas, it quits. I said that analogy is like paper to a printer, not the drum. More accurate would be, and I asked the HP Tech Rep this, how would they like it if at the exact time you were supposed to change oil on your car, what if your car shut down in the middle of your driving and refused to do anything until it's oil was changed? That's what HP is now doing to their customers--shutting down the machine when the counter says to. We're business guys, and we know why HP is doing this. Because they think they can, and we as ignorant customers will take it. They are trying to gouge the customer again to increase their profits.
  
  We printed about 7000 pages at a maintenance cost of about $600--4 toner cartridges and 1 drum. No heavy color either. Not what we budgeted for.
  
  Bottom line if this was the only printer in the world, we would rate it higher. We are seeking to return this printer, and will use our previous HP BW printers, and plan to purchase a different brand of color lasers. We won't look at a multi-function any more as this machine has tainted us. We already have a fax, a scanner, etc... We do need a color laser, but will not buy HP at this point as we lost confidence in their product, and we have been told they use a lot of the same print engines in their machines.
  
  Probably the tipping point came in the last few days when we again found out the hard way that this machine will stop printing when it in its sole discretion decides the drum has had enough revolutions and/or the toner is out. Previously the user could determine this by observation which would allow the user to get maximum useful life from the disposables. Now, life is determined by the machine, and in some cases simply by revolutions regardless of the volume of print.
  
  If there are any entrepreneurs out there who know color laser technology and believe they can build a better machine, they should give it a good run, and keep your tech support in the USA where we can communicate with one another.
  
  This is just our experiences and may not relate to the experiences of others. Good luck.

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  19 out of 19 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 4 stars

  Fax is a joke

  by Charles1234 on June 6, 2005

  Pros: Looks Nice

  Cons: Fax is a joke

  Summary: This machine will only make a copy of the Fax to your computer if it is hooked up to your computer via USB. AND IT WILL NOT PRINT FAX AND ...

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  Summary: This machine will only make a copy of the Fax to your computer if it is hooked up to your computer via USB. AND IT WILL NOT PRINT FAX AND MAKE A FAX COPY TO YOUR COMPUTER at the same time. You can only have one OR the other; Copy or Print. It is too stupid to do both at once. Shame on HP.

  Updated
  About the only thing that I thought was OK on this machine was the ADF (automatic document feeder) well the secretary who uses the 2840 HP told me that the document feeder is giving her problems. When she told me that it gave me the incentive to update my first bad review.
  My first bad review of this printer was mostly about the poor FAX. I in fact gave up using the 2840 for sending FAXS.
  The price of per copy on the machine is very high I don’t have hard figures we don’t use the machine much yet I’ve had to buy a lot of ink for it. In the year that I’ve owned it I’ve had to reinstall the software three times. Its 500 Megs of bloat ware. One would think that with 500 Megs they could at least get scanning right. In short very loud, very slow, very expensive to operate both in terms of Ink and maintenance of software. Doesn’t FAX or Scan very well. After a year, I’ve come to really dislike this printer.

  Updated
  About the only thing that I thought was OK on this machine was the ADF (automatic document feeder) well the secretary who uses the 2840 HP told me that the document feeder is giving her problems. When she told me that it gave me the incentive to update my first bad review.
  My first bad review of this printer was mostly about the poor FAX. I in fact gave up using the 2840 for sending FAXS.
  The price of per copy on the machine is very high I don’t have hard figures, we don’t use the machine much, yet I’ve had to buy a lot of ink for it. In the year that I’ve owned it I’ve had to reinstall the software three times. Its 500 Megs of bloat ware. One would think that with 500 Megs they could at least get scanning right. In short very loud, very slow, very expensive to operate both in terms of Ink and maintenance of software. Doesn’t FAX or Scan very well. After a year, I’ve come to really dislike this printer.

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  22 out of 31 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 8 stars

  Desktop Interoperability: A Mac User's Perspective

  by David Whittington on October 5, 2005

  Pros: Works great with the Mac.

  Cons: Colors could be richer

  Summary: I was initially discouraged to purchase this printer based on some of the user reviews I had read on this forum. With very few other true native postscript networked all-in-one ...

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  Summary: I was initially discouraged to purchase this printer based on some of the user reviews I had read on this forum. With very few other true native postscript networked all-in-one color laser options on the market, I bit the bullet and aqcuired locally with the intent to return the device if I did not like it. Yes, I still have the printer and I love it.
  
  I found the included software to work just fine with my Mac OSX (Tiger) machine. As I use Adobe products for my graphics work, the lack of included Mac based photo editing software was no big deal for me.
  
  I have my 2840 networked and do not use the USB cable. Everything works great as far as scanning to the Mac over the network, color printing, and faxing. Color fax support is not included with this device as it is with many cheaper HP OfficeJet products.
  
  Device management is easily achieved by establishing an HTTP browser connection to the printer's IP address. Power save and color calibration timing interverals (the process others on here say is noisy) can all be tweaked here.
  
  My marketing slicks look great when printed with this printer. However, I am looking to improve the color quality for printing photos. I highly recommend HP Color Laser Photo Paper (Q6608A) for this application.

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  15 out of 15 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 9 stars

  Excellent solution

  by Cptspiffy on September 22, 2005

  Pros: Easy network setup, scan/fax/print/copy all work great!

  Cons: Fairly loud and a little slow printing color

  Summary: After reading some of the more negative reviews I was a little worried about this printer, but I'm happy to say that I've had no trouble at all. ...

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  Summary: After reading some of the more negative reviews I was a little worried about this printer, but I'm happy to say that I've had no trouble at all. It connected to my network with no problems, and I've had no trouble printing, faxing, copying or scanning over the network. As other folks have mentioned, it is pretty loud when you're printing, and it noisily primes the toners every few hours.. but it's livable. I usually just turn the thing off when I'm not using it, the warmup time when you turn it on is about 30 seconds. Setup was a snap.

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  12 out of 12 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 8 stars

  Great printer for the money!

  by jmilb on July 19, 2005

  Pros: Network was easy to set up, The print quality is very good. The top paper tray is easy to load for specialty paper

  Cons: Noisy, The first unit we received the bottom paper tray would not load paper.

  Summary: We have used the 2840 for about a month now and so far it has been fantastic. It is very easy to use and the network set up is a ...

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  Summary: We have used the 2840 for about a month now and so far it has been fantastic. It is very easy to use and the network set up is a breeze takes me about 8 minutes to set a computer up on the network 5 of those minutes are software coping to the computer. We purchase this unit to replace an OfficeJet G85 and with our OfficeJet we were going through an Ink cartrige about every 40 days. So far in the first 30 days of use we have not even used 10% of our resources. It should save us quite a bit of money in cartriges. The only 2 down sides we have had with this unit is 1. The first unit was defective, thankfully we purchased it a officemax and they took it back and gave us a new one right away. If not for Officemax I would of had to send the printer back to HP for warranty. I did call the HP tech support and they were very helpful in determining that the first unit I received was defective. 2. The unit is noisy it makes quite a bite of noise when it warms up. The funny thing is it takes longer to warm up then it does to print.
  All in All I am extremly please with this product and would purchase it again if I had it to do all over again.

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  12 out of 12 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 3 stars

  Don't buy it!

  by tblaw on January 18, 2006

  Pros: Print Quality

  Cons: Everything else

  Summary: Here it is, no fluff:
  
  -Scanner works intermittently
  -Printer works intermittently
  -In order to address the above you have to uninstall and reinstall the software, which is very time consuming.
  
  
  
  ...

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  Summary: Here it is, no fluff:
  
  -Scanner works intermittently
  -Printer works intermittently
  -In order to address the above you have to uninstall and reinstall the software, which is very time consuming.
  
  I thought the only downside was the quantity of paper it held. I was wrong.
  
  If you plan on using it for home use, it might be better suited to your needs. We have it in an office enviorment printing 200 - 300 pages per day, scanning fewer than 50, and it could not handle it.

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  13 out of 15 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 4 stars

  Scanner is absolutely a joke

  by mckdad on December 2, 2005

  Pros: Does a little bit of everything easonably well, at a reasonable price

  Cons: The scanner software is some of the worst I've ever seen. Completely closes down between every scan job, and you must re-open it (which takes probably 40+- seconds) every time to scan your next job

  Summary: I'm probably going to return the machine. Although it gives you a littel bit of everything and the configuration utilites are nice, I can get a color copier/printer ...

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  Summary: I'm probably going to return the machine. Although it gives you a littel bit of everything and the configuration utilites are nice, I can get a color copier/printer for a lot less money. The scanner software is the worst, you might be able to take a samll business or even your home paperless in about a year, if your lucky. I can't believe a company like HP would provide such terrible scanning software. Too bad!

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  11 out of 11 users found this user opinion helpful.

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