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HP PhotoSmart PSC 2510 All-in-One

HP PhotoSmart PSC 2510 All-in-One

List Price: $488.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: WiFi install good, but not a workhorse
Review: Installation into a WiFi home network worked perfectly the first time. Unfortunately, after 1,000 pages, I get "carriage return" errors.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Awful software...
Review: My wireless setup went smoother than others had posted, but the software installation was awful. Talk about bloatware, it seems like they load the entire contents of the CD onto your hard drive. The installer tells you that the copying of the files will take 15-20 minutes! I didn't time it, but it definitely took awhile. I see absolutely no reason I should be loading that much crap onto my machine for a peripheral.

Worse than that, the software is horribly buggy. It crashes regularly. When it doesn't crash, it refuses to shutdown when I try to turn off my laptop. So I regularly have to kill the process manually. I am honestly amazed at how bad this software is.

I checked to the software update to see if they have a newer debugged version available and the software updater sends HP a complete list of every application loaded onto your computer! I didn't see any way to check for updated software without letting it send all this info to HP. It's so needlessly invasive. They give you some spiel like "to provide specialized feedback to ensure the best user experience" as an excuse for data mining your hard drive. Awful.

This is my first HP product and I am extremely underwhelmed. It feels like the hardware and software were done by two different companies: one competent, and one not so.

If you don't have a lot of patience with tech stuff, steer well clear of this product.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Piece of Crap- DO NOT BUY
Review: Once again, HP fails to deliver. This thing is the worst piece of crap ever... and I am a PC technician... hahaha.. my computer is a 2.4ghz 1gig of ddr ram and wireless networking. Wireless networking ceases to work, it seems to work on some computers but not all, a fact due to childish programming on HP's behalf. The hardware itself looks fantastic, but the software is pure crap, and I can't stress that enough.. it is a gigabyte of junk that slows down your computer and doesn't even work, and this is their latest update!! Their 1 gigabyte of software after installation doesn't even place a printer in your printer spool area, your going to have to figure out how to do that yourself, or have someone over at hp tech support in Bali help you who cant even speak more than 2 words of english, they sound like they are sounding out phonetics from a book or something, and I wonder how much HP pays them? Please support Dell or anyone else, you'd probably be better off building, writing, and compiling your own printer software; even if you know nothing about computers. DO NOT BUY THIS JUNK: YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Caveat Emptor - big time. And yet I'm glad I have it.
Review: Once set up, this machine has made my life incredibly easier.

Currently the only one of its kind - multi-function, small, great print quality, etc. Once you finally conquer the set-up, wireless functions (the only reason I bought this particular version) are fantastic. Haven't had the same issues as other users - wireless works across the board, and I declined to install the fax without problems.

That said,

Its software is ridiculously large and plodding. Again, I haven't had the huge problems other reviewers have had, but I've just started using the machine. Time will tell.

Wireless networking is a set-up near-disaster. The software first roped itself into a several hour loop of finding everything it needed...and then saying it had nothing.

My suggestion - follow the set-up poster's instructions, tell it you're connecting through a network (step 8), but (step 9) choose WIRED, not wireless, connection type. Counterintuitive, and a major manual screw-up, but once I disconnected all cables and told it to work wirelessly - poof! It did fine.

Good luck. Would still recommend. For folks who haven't had much experience installing software and peripherals, set-up and use might be a bit daunting, esp. considering the rep for this machine's tech-support (it's bad). Make sure whomever you buy it from has a decent return policy, just in case.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Functions as advertised and made it thru harrowing shipping
Review: Our HP PhotoSmart arrived yesterday and it was a sight for sore eyes. The packaging had obviously taken a beating and you could hear things clinking in the box. SHUDDER.

Opened the box and most of the manuals and the coverplate are shipped loose in a separated cavity in the box, intentionally, so that was the source of the clinking and a tremoundous relief. Removed the 2510 and started the install expecting problems after having read some of the other customer reviews as I have a wireless setup with WEP encryption and the plan is to make this machine available wirelessly.

It took under 30 minutes to get the printer up and running wirelessly with WEP encryption from the time I opened the box. I think the key with the wireless WEP encryption is to enter your key in HEX instead of ASCII text. At least I entered my key in HEX because I use a non-ASCII key. So get the HEX equivalent of your WEP key and all should go smoothly. Also, if you have MAC address filtering you'll want to first connect with MAC address filtering off, get the MAC address of the printer from your WAP access point log, and then turn it back on. I don't see where the MAC address is written down anywhere or on stickers like most other ethernet devices. This is the one oversight I can point to.

I next put the machine through its paces. First thing was to try the photo printing. I can say this is the most amazing color matching I have seen to date. Additionally, the detail is incredibly fine with my macro photos of flowers. And you know how particular us macro photographers are.

Next up was the copying and scanning. Both worked flawlessly although I have yet to scan a photo. That said I don't have that much photo scanning to do so I'm not too worried about that feature. I like the flatbed style scanner as I can now copy odd sized papers (i.e. receipts) that I could not previously copy with my previous fax/copier. This will make record keeping so much easier for my travel expenses.

While I've seen many complaints about the HP software, and yes on a slow computer it takes a while to install, I'm rather happy with what HP includes. While the software may be basic to your Photoshop equivalent I'm happy with the price and what it can do. The image software allows pretty much all the manipulation I do to a photo (rotate and crop). There are features such as red eye removal, sharpeness enhances among others that work fine although I don't see very much use for the kind of photos I take. Another feature of the software is to automatically size prints and combine them on the same page. I wish it had more flexibility mixing and matching different sized prints on the same page however that is a minor nit.

Sending a fax was trivial. I can't find much documentation on how it decides to dial out and apply area code rules. I'll have to dig into that later and see. My first attempt worked to another area code fax machine.

One nice feature seems that the fax machine portion will let an answering machine answer the phone while evesdropping and pick up only if it hears fax tones. My old fax/copier combo could not do that.

So why 5 stars? (1) It survived shipping so it is well made. The box even had a hole in it. (2) Everything that I have tried so far works. In the case of photo printing it is, quite simply, incredible. I've had photo printers before and this is a good example of photo printing technology all grown up. (3) The software included does everything I need to use the machine without investing in additional software.

Update: I've had a chance to play with the software and it is amazing. There is one feature to write out photos to CD-R/RW disks in VCD (Compact Digital Disc Video) with music! The interface is very easy to use and took little effort in archiving 3 years of photos into a slide show that is now easily distributable and durable.

Additionally, the memory card slots on the printer are mounted to the other computers (with the HP software installed) as the Z: drive. This is very handy as now one just pops the memory card in and it is directly accessible from any computer in the network.

I did scan in a number of my photos and the quality is good.

This machine+software has now completely exceeded my expectations.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Print, fax, copy - Yes, Scan - Ha!
Review: Setting up this was a chore that included 131 minute phone call for HP support (nice people). It downloaded just fine if slowly on both my desktop (Windows 2000 Pro) and laptop (Windows XP Pro) EXCEPT that it would not scan. The faxing, the copying, and the printing was/is great. As I write this I can still not scan to my desktop but can to the laptop; the scanning is very, very, very slow; and I found that there is no two-way communication between the 2510 and the pc's. HINT: use the URL for the printer to check ink levels, etc. Finally, I found that if you hook the printer to a wireless router the whole think works better (my laptop runs wireless).

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Overall not bad!
Review: So the installation is long, but I was ready for it. Overall having the ability to fax, scan, copy and print is sweet! I don't see me using the memory card reader that much because I have a Docking Station w/my digital camera.

My setup is considered WIRED. I have a DI-624 and my PC's are via CAT5. My laptop is wireless. I hooked up a CAT5 connection in the back of the printer and print fine from my PC and wireless laptop (basically you go through your router).

One thing to watch! Make sure you use the phone cord provided! At least put that cord into the 2510 and use an extension to extend the phone line. It mentions this in the book and it will most likely cause problems faxing if you use a standard phone cord!

So the CONs:
Yes, as everyone has said, the software is not that great. I had to instll the full bloat everything on my PC to scan etc. I sometimes get an error with hpqtra08.exe. I hope HP is listening since many people have problems with it!

Next, I had an OLD laptop and it allowed me to install "minimal installation". I wanted that on all my machines, however it automatically sees if you have enough space and decides for you! Com'on HP, give us a "custom install" feature! All I want to do is PRINT from my laptops.

Overall I'm happy with the product. It prints nicely, scans fast and love the featues/looks. I pray HP puts out better software updates in the near future.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great All in One printer, bloatware a pain in the wotsit
Review: The quickest way that I found to install this printer for a wireless environment is to enable Wi-Fi and print the network configuration sheet from the unit. After that, either using an Ethernet cable or wirelessly, configure the printer to work with your network through a browser just like you would an access point or router. The network configuration sheet that you've printed earlier will have all the necessary information to get you connected.

HP's step-by-step directions suggests you change your current network settings to suit the printer , just so you can install the drivers ~ which is a total waste of time.

After that, software took about 20 minutes to load. The 250+ mb it loads on each computer is a waste of space and HP could have done better to atleast give you options on customizing the installation. It loads everything by default.

Having said all that, the ability to print, scan and fax wirelessly from anywhere in my house is fantastic. I don't think there's any other unit in the market that offers this package.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great printer...all you coul ask for in an ALL-IN-ONE
Review: They advertise 4-in-1 multifunction printer, but if you add in the memory card reader that allows you to move pictures and data to any computer on the network, it's really a 5-in-1 printer. What a deal. I couldn't find a better equiped printer on the market.

Installation was flawless. Previous reviews had said there were install problems, but I had none. The key is to follow the directions....everything was very straight forward.

Wireless network works like a champ. I plugged in the printer in every room of my house to test and it connected every time. What a great option!

Highly recommend this printer to anyone. Disregard previous reviews about install problems, they probably didn't follow the directions.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Awesome hardware, horrible software
Review: This is a phenomenal piece of computer hardware, though the software that comes with it leaves a lot to be desired. Under Mac OS X, you'll want to repair your permissions after you install the software. Under Windows XP, be prepared to have nearly a gig of hard disk space. The printer output is phenomenal.


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