HP Officejet 6500 Wireless All-in-One Inkjet Printer
February 5th, 2010
As the number of laptops in our household increased, we got tired of plugging and unplugging them to our printer so we finally bought a wireless printer. We were apprehensive at first since we didn’t know much about setting up wireless printers and thought that if we had a problem, we would return it rather than call an IT person. Surprisingly, this printer was extremely easy to hook up [wireless that is], and feature for feature, the HP OfficeJet 6500 Wireless is an excellent all-in-one printer for its price!
Advantages: Prints color or black and white, prints plain paper or photo paper, copies, scans, faxes, prints double sided, effortless wireless set-up, option to have ethernet connection, reasonably fast print speed, not bulky considering its functionality, all these leading to its being a great value for the money. It is also an attractive looking printer. The mechanical set up is also straightforward. I had my 7 1/2 year old son help me install the ink cartridges, duplex tray, etc. with my supervision, of course!
Disadvantages: Printer is somewhat noisy as it gets ready to do its job and leaves you with the impression that it is starting to break down! The software took a little long to install so you have to be patient.
For those who are worried or can’t figure out how to install a wireless printer, if you have a router and were able to set up your computer to be wireless, you can set this printer up easily. The steps are the same.
1. Plug the printer to an electrical outlet. 2) Run the installation disk in your CD/DVD drive. 3) The software will load, you have to be patient, and when done, follow the instructions. If you mess up, you can always remove the CD from your drive and start again.
This is what the CD will tell you to do and as you go through the steps, when done correctly, you will be prompted to hit the “next” button. 1) Connect the printer to your wireless computer/laptop using the provided ethernet cable. 2) Keep the CD in the drive. 3) The CD will run again and wait for the printer to recognize your computer’s wifi configuration, SSID, encrypted password, etc. 4) After a few minutes [did I say the software took a tad long to run?], everything is ready!
The only thing that annoyed me about this printer is that I bought it before the sale price came. I would have bought 2 printers for what they’re selling it today – sigh! Get it now while supplies last plus it looks like you get free shipping! Can’t beat that!
Oh, and if you’re worried about incompatibility problems, we didn’t encounter any. We have 2 Compaq laptops, slightly different models, an HP laptop and an Acer laptop. They all have the disadvantage of running on Windows Vista and we had no issue with that.
