HP Officejet 6500 Wireless Multifunction All-in-One Printer, Copier, Scanner and Fax User Reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: A Good All-Rounder With Just A Few Minor Niggles
Comment: This printer is a solid all-rounder that does it all. It includes features such as automatic duplex (printing on both sides of a page), that you might associate with more expensive machines. The quality of text print is not at all bad, and is, I would imagine, entirely acceptable for just about anyone. The colour output is reasonable, but just a little washed out perhaps. Certainly for my needs it's fine though, and most users are unlikely to take issue with it for casual or normal run of the mill colour and even light photo output.
The wireless features and the modem all work, though as with much of this technology, it can be more of a hassle than it should be setting up. That though, is a general complaint, and not something that's fair to lay at HP's door. The bottom line so to speak, is that it does all work. The instructions that come with it are in my opinion better than most. Likewise the scanner and copying function won't let you down, though it would have been nice if HP had bundled a little more in the way of software for the scanner. Still, it does work well, and what is included will get you started.
This model has attracted some comment because of its noise levels. Whilst this is fair in that it does make a bit of a racket starting up, and then occasional other noises thereafter, this has I feel been slightly exaggerated. I'd agree that if you really need a whisper quiet machine, the 6500 probably isn't for you. Otherwise though, I wouldn't let these reports put you off.
If you buy the maximum capacity ink cartidge in black, then the 6500 has reasonable printing costs, relatively speaking. (Don't get me started on ink prices!)
It's not an out and out speed machine, though it is fast in economy mode, again though, I found it to be easily fast enough right across the board.
I now turn to the software. HP's software has taken a few knocks recently. The core software that comes with the HP 6500 is okay. It's nothing fancy, in fact it's pretty basic. That's not a problem though since it does what it is supposed to. However, HP have in their wisdom included in their software CD, an automatic link to their online shop. My advice is at the installation stage, to exclude this so that it isn't loaded. My pc was crashing and slowing down after installation, and I eventually traced it to this. I can't understand why HP after taking knocks for the quality of their software, would want to do this. It's a pity because it has people feeling bad about a product that is actually good.
The 6500 wireless isn't subtle being quite a big beast. But nor is it ugly, and I could see it slot into most small offices or home studies quite nicely. It offers good value for money, and is a well balanced machine doing it all, and for reasonable running costs, relatively speaking.
Customer Rating:
Summary: All in one printer.
Comment: A good quality all-in-one printer at a fantastic low price, easy to set up and use.
Customer Rating:
Summary: HP All in One printer
Comment: I didn't manage to make the wireless connection work so rely on the cable connection to my laptop. Occasionally it fails to turn itself on when I instruct it to print and, contrary to good practice, I disconnect it and reconnect it. It then works!
Otherwise I am satisfied with the machine which is vital to my personal and business affairs run from home.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Clunky, complex and unreliable
Comment: I read the reviews but thought some must have been exaggerated. The printer shakes the desk as it prints; it does not feed the scanner (each scanned document needs to be placed on the scan bed)but it does feed the printer; the wi-fi was easy to set up but we have one laptop on Vista and another on XP and the software does not appear to be able to cope; the print buffer regularly throws back an error message - but the printer will print twice when you give up on the wi-fi and finally plug it in; the printer also refuses to recognise ("printer not connected") your computer but then prints out! Frustrating, inconsistent and unreliable.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very good printer, some hassles
Comment: Great printing, scanning and copying. Excellent quality
Good solid quality machine (although it does shake the table a lot!)
Excellent value, especially for such a high quality machine with so many functions.
Bit slow to start printing, and also with the duplex. Also took ages to calibrate itself once started.
Bit noisy when it settles down after doing some work.
I like the digital display, even though it took me a while to understand it.
Problems installing - the pictorial instrcutions are not very clear, and I couldn't find text instructions in the manual. So I ended up putting the USB cable in the phone plug socket (didn't know one could do that!), and then the software wouldn't install, and I couldn't exit. So I had to crash it and uninstall and re-install. Took me hours, with strange printer errors that I could not find explanations for.
The fax I have not been able to resolve (something wrong with the line), but I do not like the fax programme - very user unfriendly.
Lots of software bundled with it, but I thought most of it was memory hungry, badly designed and a bit pointless. eg "HP Solution Centre" & "HP Photosmart Essential 3.5". Still, as long as one stops them running on start-up, then no harm is done.
Also, a warning - HP have lots of different models with slightly different numbers. They use one model number in some places and a different model number in others, and Amazon does not always make these clear. So, make sure you are getting the one you want.
All in all, I recommend it, despite a few flaws.
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