HP Color LaserJet Pro Multifunction M479fdn Laser Printer

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Not too long ago, I ordered a new color drump for my old printer and replaced it. Not very long after that the print simply decided to not print at all anymore. Literally, it would pass the page through just fine but it had nothing on the page. I know it was working since it was printing just fine the day before and there was still plenty of black ink (it would have had the light on if the black was not enough.)

I'm thinking that may have been a ploy by the manufacturer to push me to buy a new printer...

In any event, I bought a new printer because I was anyway getting tired of the old one and I ended up getting an HP Color Laser Jet Pro Multifunction M479fdn (a mouthful!) I got a second hand one which saved me some $300 which is good because the expense of the new drum and one black ink cartridge I end up not being able to use... I needed that saving.

This new printer is really cool, though. I'm really happy, except for the double printing feature which is not available with my light paper... Paper which is under 75 grammes can't be double printed, I'm not too sure why?! Maybe the paper is too cheap for double printing (as in, the paper manufacturers would not make enough money if we all were to print double sided on light paper... another consipiracy! ha! ha! Maybe... but think of it, if I have to have at least 150g paper for double printing, it cost me the same amount in terms of paper costs, than printing 2× 75g—so you don't save either way.)

The other feature I like much is the scanner. It's really fast and I don't have to use the glass, I can put the sheets to be scanned in the top feed and not only that it gets me a finished double sided scan in a PDF, just like that! In my old scanner is an EPSON which works just fine (had one since 1999), only it's just a flat bed and I had to manually place the sheets each time, I could only get an image (no PDF) and often the colors would go wrong (at least under Linux I would often get greens—or scan several times until it got me the correct colors—that being said, it did not use to do that on Ubuntu 16.04, and that part is a bit sad). The PDF and images come right up on the computer. You can also plug a USB drive and save the PDF on that drive, directly. Nothing out of the extraordinary, but well... I find that really cool. Compared to my dinosaurs, it's just a super toy.

As a side note, the Scanner + Printer combo can be used as a Copy Machine. Just like that. And a powerful one at that.

Finally, it can send and receive faxes. That feature I didn't test yet. But I would imagine it's similar to the scanning ability and sending the document via the fax protocol. I need a double jack to connect that. Once in a while a medical establishement asks me to send them a fax (or send me a fax). That's nearly the only ones who do it so I'm not too busy getting that up and running. The old fax machine I have? The printing is so crappy, it's unbelievible that they were even selling those (no wonder I got it on sale even more than 10 years ago).

Voilà! I'm a happy customer with a new toy.

Oh! And my old printer did not have a tray that could hold paper inside the printer. This new one has an internal tray (Tray 2 at the bottom) which can hold about 200 pages at once. Very practical. I don't have that much room on my desk, so that saves me a lot of time. I can just print. no need to open the tray, put a few pages, print, put away the pages I didn't use... Really cool.

A couple of warnings:

• The cartridges tend to be more expensive, however, make sure to calculate how much it costs per page because some manufacturer's cartridges don't give you many so they may look cheaper when in fact it's more expensive or just about the same (except you'll have to change the cartridges more often...)
• There are several models. I got the one without the WiFi because I have a LAN and could just connect the printer to the LAN. It's faster and more reliable and I avoid an extra set of EMF waves... You can still use WiFi devices to print (like your smart phones) as long as they also have access to your LAN. Anyway, before you commit your purchase, double check that you are getting the very version you want.