On 2013-08-04 at 20:04 -0400, Tom Limoncelli wrote: > About 3 months ago I bought an HP Officejet Pro 8600 N911a. I am > extremely happy with it.
I have one of these and am mostly happy. Well, "HP OfficeJet Pro 8600 Plus" and appears to be the N911g (according to Google CloudPrint, the only place I see the N number). I asked on G+ (extended circles, so can't share links) last July, bought in August, posts for each. I noted that my usage was that if I wanted photo prints, I'd go to a drug store; I just wanted home office. The first recommendations were for discontinued HP OfficeJet printers. There was laser-vs-inkjet discussion; my old bias was pro-laser and avoid inkjets, but all research seemed to show that inkjets have improved *significantly* in the past few years. One good point raised was to beware of ventilation around lasers: most homes do not have the same level of ventilation and air filtering as offices, and laser toner particulates are nasty. The printer failed initial WiFi setup, based on an Apple Airport base-station which I was using at the time, but worked when the SSID was entered manually. HP support claimed that the base-station was broadcasting the SSID with a trailing space, which I never got around to substantiating. After that, WiFi has been rock solid. I tend to connect USB for scanning, it just works more readily. Otherwise, the email-based system of scanning is fine. The duplex unit is horrible, tends to jam. It's the one big downside. I've had a couple of times recently when the printer wedged, not accepting prints from my wife's Mac. I tracked it down to her old Windows (Vista) box being left on and for some reason holding open a connection to the printer, so that more connections wouldn't be accepted. Didn't get to kill the Win box, so just power-cycled the printer to fix those two times. Since then, the Win box has died, so the problem resolved itself. ;) Okay, as a sysadmin, I know that the combination which caused the bug to manifest is now just masked and the problem is still there. I _think_ that wedging was observed to happen after the latest firmware update, but am not 100% sure and don't know if Windows had been used recently before the firmware update. (Rants about the cost of embroidery software, which the death of that machine ended up costing me, are not on topic, but if you want to be turned white some time, look up the prices and remember this is for _home_ use). > - Wifi and hardwired ethernet > - Mac, Linux, Windows drives. The Mac drivers are great... I do tons > of scanning and it works great. Agreed, with USB plugged in; I'd appreciate idjit-pointers for how to do WiFi-based scanning. > - Duplex (never buy a printer that doesn't do duplex!) See above. > - Prints from HP ePrint (over the internet printing) or Googe Cloud > Print (from Chrome, etc. over the internet). > - Prints from Android and iOS Confirmed. The email system works well enough, even though it does mean that copies of all prints go through a central server in US jurisdiction, which might not appeal to those in the UK these days? (I'm a US Person, so theoretically protected). There's also the "might not be always-online" issue. I've printed from an iPad and an Android phone, worked great. Note though that Google CloudPrint uses email to the @hpeprint.com email address of the printer, so Android prints pass through two different systems in the USA outside of your control and you need to be connected to the Internet. By contrast, Apple's AirPrint is local-WiFi and does not rely upon any remote servers. Some of this is generic to all printers; I don't know how other CloudPrint-enabled printers interface, and you're still stuck relying upon remote connectivity to Google, even if the next link is somewhat better for other lines. > The other day I turned it on and it connected to HP for a software > upgrade. I'm not sure if it was a full firmware upgrade or just apps. > If it is doing firmware upgrades then ... well... that's either > awesome or horrible... not sure yet. I love having the latest > firmware. The app updates are distinct, if memory serves, and I've had one firmware complete update, which it did prompt me for permission for. I said yes: network stacks have security vulnerabilities discovered all the time, so at least by updating only HP and the NSA can browse my printer, instead of anyone who can get on the network. ;) -Phil _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
