HP Officejet Pro L7680 All-in-One
We haven’t touched upon printers at this blog but that is set to change as I review one of the best AIO printers by HP, pioneer in making printers. The Officejet series from HP is aimed at professionals working in small to medium organisations. HP has always been a pioneer in printer manufacturing and HP Officejet Pro L7680 is no exception.
HP Officejet Pro L7680 specifications :
- Dimensions : 20.9″ x 15.8″ x 14″
- Printing Technology : Inkjet Color
- Monthly Duty Cycle : 7500 pages
- Display : 2.4″ color display
- Standard memory : 64MB
- Flash memory support
- Copying speed : 35ppm(mono)/34ppm(color)
- Scanning resolution : 2400 x 4800 dpi
- Printing resolution : 1200dpi(mono), 1200 x 4800 dpi(color)
- Printing speed : 35ppm(mono)/34ppm(color)
- Paper tray capacity : 250
- Approx. price : $300
The Officejet Pro L7680 has minimalistic looks and the black body is quite apt for office environments. Its dimensions are no where near small and its bulky weight keeps it quite stable at the desk even when employees give it a couple of knocks! Its price is very attractive and its performance as we will see later is what makes it a winner.
The L7680 supports only 250 pages in its tray which is a bit less considering medium business organisation but HP gives you the option to jack it up to 600 pages after buying a secondary optional tray. It also has support for flash memory such as CompactFlash, Memory Stick, SD Memory Card, XD-Picture Card. HP has done well to include Pict-Bridge support, hence enabling you to print photos directly from Pict-Bridge enabled devices such as your digital camera.
The control panel has a 2.4″ color display which is also capable of displaying copied documents before printing. The buttons on the printer are widely spread and neatly organised into groups, making navigation very easy. The cost of cartridges is also low making it highly cost-efficient, a need for all organisations.
The printer has quite a number of fax features such as assigning frequently used numbers to speed dial, block faxes from a certain number, forward faxes to another number etc. Copying isn’t as feature rich but as I mentioned before, you can preview the copied page before printing. Scanning has a great option called “Digital Filling” which can scan your network folders without the need for a PC. Scans turn out pretty good at the mentioned resolution.
Printing is a strong point of the printer. It managed to print black and white text pages at 10.2ppm and colored ones at 5.5ppm. Photo prints were slow at 1.5ppm. Documents were copied at 6.6ppm for black and white pages and the colored ones at 4ppm. The print quality was great and the letters had the sharpness and there was no visible distortion. Color prints also turned out brilliant with optimal color saturation. The grayscale prints disappointed and were a bit messed up.
Pros :
- Good design
- Nice set of features
- Color display
- Excellent print quality
Cons :
- Slow scanning
- Below average grayscale prints
Final Thoughts
The HP Officejet Pro L7680 is a great printer for small to medium organisations. It has got everything right about it and its negatives aren’t much of a concern too. You get great quality prints at low cost and the copy,fax function also do the job efficiently. So go ahead and invest in it.
My Rating : 4/5
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Written by Ankur Gupta on June 2nd, 2008 | Category: General | 5 Comments »
Mark Dubin
June 9, 2008 at 11:01 am
Yes, I have reinstalled new drivers and the entire software package MANY times after “thorough” removal (to answer the most common response). My L7680 will NOT scan to my computer using Windows XP over my tiny local ethernet network, but I can print TO it just fine. Scan to computer—>scan to file just hangs and sits there and eventually quits, with no scan. (This is true even if I disable the firewall temporarily.) Numerous anti-this-and-that programs show no viruses, malware, etc. I have seen a number of other references to this problem on the Web, but no solution. I am growing to hate HP products, given that this is a replacement sent to me because the first one I bought simply stopped scanning anything via the feeder (a different problem, I admit). Has anyone found the answer to this question?
Lisa Martin
August 20, 2008 at 7:46 pm
I just purchased a HP Officejet PRo L7680 All-In-One and am having problems fax more than one page at a time. How do I load different pages manually and than fax them all at once. Right now I have to fax one page at a time. It is a real pain. I know there is an easier way, but I can’t figure it out. Help!!!
Joy Cehlar
December 26, 2008 at 1:49 am
For the most part, the HP Officejet Pro L7680 AIO works for our business/personal use. However, you cannot scan! Reading the manual is like reading the new math, where it is much more complicated than it needs to be. A hypothetical situation is given to tell you about digital filing, but does not do enough to actually walk you through How To Scan Into The Computer. It is frustrating! If you have this same problem, write to the President/CEO of HP. Last time we checked, it was Mark Hurd. They change CEOs like most people change underwear. Ever wonder why?
Joy Cehlar
December 26, 2008 at 1:55 am
To Lisa-
For faxing, check the top tray to make sure that it has not fallen out of position. Also, try fanning the pages, so that the top page on the tray is forward (by perhaps a 1/4″). If it fails to multiple feed, suspect a problem with the individual unit. Contact HP if it’s still under warranty. Good luck with the Indians.
The Cehlars
Karl
March 16, 2009 at 11:02 am
Hi Joy-
I have this printer and it works fine on my Vista based desktop. The scanning works as well. I was so pleased with it I recommended it to my mother. Unfortunately it has been a disaster for her. After installing major HP bloatware and drivers onto her XP computer we had trouble getting anything to work. We initially hooked it up via USB and it would print at first but not scan. After restart nothing worked, neither the printer or scanner. After a week of emailing and calling tech support and going through all of their silly advice, screwing up my moms computer to the point of having to reinstall XP, I decided to buy her a network bridge and hook it up by ethernet instead of USB. I finally got it to where all functions work except scanning.
We called their level 2 tech support again which of course was a big mistake. First as you stated, they are Indian so its very hard to understand and connect with them. Second, they are trained to go through a series of steps which take about 2-4 hours on the phone (I’m not kidding), all the while assuring you that this would be taken care of and fixed in this phone call. Third, even if you have performed all of these steps multiple times they still have to perform them so watching them do what you just spent hours doing really sucks. At the end of my call the under-trained Indian guy screws it up so nothing works at all and just says ok we have to refer you on to Level 3 which will call you back in 24-48 hours. He left the computer WORSE than how he found it after hours of nonsense installing and uninstalling.
I’m really frustrated. Especially frustrated because you look around the net and they have been having these software issues with many many people for a printer that they have been producing for 2-3 years now. You cannot bypass their horrible Indian tech support either. You have to deal with them, which really wouldn’t be bad but they can NEVER fix anything! Seriously, I have yet to have a productive tech support session with any of them and I have spent hours and hours with them. They are there just to follow a predetermined list of steps HP tells them to do regardless of the issue.
I will write to Mr. Hurd and let him know that I am definitely going to look for another brand of printer on my next buy. As much as I love my printer on my machine, it is unacceptable the type of software issues and support they are providing. If I wanted to get a class action together I bet there are enough unhappy people about the software that could join. Just look around the net. If you want to be able to scan, you are rolling the dice with this printer!