When looking for an All in One wireless laser printer, there are a lot of features you need to keep in mind. Speed, efficiency, paper capacity, connectivity, security features, and environmental impact are just some of the features you need to define your needs for.
For your uses, what is the most important aspect of an all in one wireless laser printer? If you have an office, maybe you need a printer to be fast so your employees can get back to work quicker. Maybe you are just starting a business, so you need something that will print on the cheap. Maybe you’re a realtor, and you need to print a high volume of stunning flyers.
The HP Laserjet Pro M477fdw delivers on most everything one could want from an all in one wireless laser printer. It is fast. It is efficient. It is relatively compact and pleasant to look at. However, is it enough for your needs? That’s something you have to determine, and I’m here to help as best I can.
The Pros
Speed
The HP Laserjet Pro M477fdw has speed capabilities you’d expect from an all in one wireless laser printer. It prints black and white documents at up to twenty-eight pages per minute. While this is nowhere near the fastest in the industry, it is on par with most printers in this category (for now).
Efficiency
This printer is designed to save you money. The HP Laserjet Pro M477fdw uses HP’s 410 series of toner cartridges. The 410A cartridges each print 2,300 pages, while the 410X cartridges print up to 6,500 pages of black and 5,000 of color. This is a cost per page of 2.4 cents for black and 4.2 cents for each color.
Another nice feature of HP Laserjet Pro printers is a built-in drum unit for each toner cartridge. While this does increase the price of the toner cartridges slightly, it is a much better option in the long run. For most laser printers, when you replace a drum unit, it is a huge cost; up to the price of a new printer. For HPs, this is not an extra added expense.
Lastly, the HP Laserjet Pro M477fdw comes with a host of energy star features. It will save you on your energy costs while in use. It also has power saving features, and you can set it to go to sleep after a certain interval of no use.
All these features of this wireless all in one laser printer are designed to save you money. These make the HP Laserjet Pro M477fdw a great option for customers with a monthly printing budget to meet.
Security Features
Most customers don’t realize what a security risk wireless printers are. They are connected to your network, and unlike your computers, they don’t run an antivirus. Certain worldwide corporations have come under scrutiny in past years for hackers stealing their customers’ credit card information. I know of at least two where the hackers gained access to their database by hacking their printers.
HP has spent hundreds of thousands on R&D to combat this issue. With the HP Laserjet Pro 477fdw, you can now password protect your printer, create approved users, and authorize individual print jobs. It also has a secure boot and a firewall to be sure your network is secure.
Paper Capacity
This is more of a neutral point than a pro or a con. The HP Laserjet Pro 477fdw has a paper tray that holds up to 300 pages. While this is likely more than enough for your standard office, a high-volume printing environment will probably be filling paper a few times per day.
In my opinion, any wireless all in one laser printer for a business should fit a full ream of office paper in the tray. So, while 300 is a step in the right direction, HP needs to up their storage capacity if they want to keep up with brother in this space.
Scan like a pro
Two-sided printing is a standard feature in any wireless all in one laser printer. What the HP Laserjet Pro 477fdw has that much of the competition doesn’t is a single-pass two-sided auto-document feeder.
Now, most printers that have a two-sided ADF operate by scanning one side of the page, then sucking the page back in and scanning the other side. A single-pass two-sided ADF scans both sides of the page at the same time using two separate scanning mechanisms. This means much faster two-sided scanning for you to get your scanning done and get back to work.
All these pros come back to a singular purpose: saving you money. If it costs less to print, then it saves you money. And, if it saves you time, it saves you money. I don’t know about you, but I like money.
The Cons
High speed, higher competition
As I said above, the HP Laserjet Pro 477fdw prints up to twenty-eight pages per minute. While this is fast, other printers in the all in one wireless laserjet category are printing up to forty pages per minute.
In my opinion, this is an issue with HP laser printers. With their JetIntelligence technology, they boast the fastest first page out. This is true in my experience, but it doesn’t make up for being much slower than the competition.
Lower ADF Resolution
One complaint I’ve heard multiple times is regarding the ADF Scanner. The resolution is noticeably lower than the flatbed scanner. For document scanning, this may not be a huge deal, but this printer is about versatility. If your scanning purposes include a lot of images in quick succession, then this is going to be an issue for you.
Horrendous Customer Service
Printers break. In fact, all electronics break, a lot. It’s a part of life. This isn’t automatically a reason to hate a product or manufacturer.
Where it becomes an issue is when a manufacturer does whatever they can to place blame elsewhere. I’ve had many customers bring their printers back in because they aren’t working. If it’s been two weeks, we’ll gladly exchange their product. However, after six months, the culpability is on the manufacturer.
I’ve had over twenty customers bring HP printers back because customer support told them that’s what they are supposed to do. My HP sales reps have told me that support is supposed to send out a replacement if they can’t talk through the issue on the phone. But my customers say they don’t even try to resolve the issue on the phone.
If the customer tells the phone representative they can’t bring it back to the store, and it’s still under warranty, then the rep tries to find a reason why their warranty is void. This is a serious problem. Tech support can solve most of these issues over the phone, but they are trying to keep call times and return volumes low.
I’m not just picking on HP either. Most tech companies I work with have terrible customer service. Unfortunately, bad tech support is also a part of life. However, if I had to choose, HP’s tech support would probably be the worst, so it makes it difficult for me to recommend their products.
The Verdict
The HP Laserjet Pro 477fdw is a great all in one wireless laser printer. It isn’t the best, but it is very good for many users. If you print a high volume, and the speed capabilities and other features meet your needs, I would definitely recommend this printer. Just bear in mind that you will need to be firm with tech support, should you need to call them.
Click here to purchase the HP Laserjet pro 477fdw on Amazon
