HP OfficeJet Pro L7680 – A Fully Loaded All-In-One Printer

Pros

The HP OfficeJet Pro L7680 is a multifunction all-in-one printer with plethora of decent features for example a built-in ADF, Digital Filing; media card slots; a duplexer, fast-enough print speeds for small offices and workgroups and brilliant print quality. The printer also delivers low print costs.

Cons

The HP OfficeJet Pro L7680’s grayscale could definitely use some improvement and the Photo menu of the printer could be reconfigured to make it slightly more spontaneous.

Introduction

The HP OfficeJet Pro L7680 belongs to the latest office-oriented inkjet all-in-one printer series of HP. Like all the other printers of the series the OfficeJet Pro L7680 offers a lot of features along with superb quality and fast prints. The OfficeJet Pro L7680 we are reviewing here is a step up from the L7580 base model, but the print quality and print speed delivered by the printer is identical to all the three printers of this series, because of the fact that they all runs on the same print engine.

Most of the office all-in-one printers we’ve reviewed are intended for home or office environments, while the L7680 we are talking about here is intended directly at small to medium sized work groups or businesses. The features like built-in networking, monthly suggested volume of 7,500 pages and scan-to-network functionality makes the printer perfect for small to medium sized work groups or businesses. Seeing all the features and functionality of the printer, we can say that this $400 priced OfficeJet Pro L7680 is an exceptional option for its targeted audiences. So if you have a small work group or office, with high-volume print needs, and you are looking for decent printer then considering the

L7680 is a nice option to go with. Although, if you have your monthly print need above 7,500 pages, then its better you get comparatively highly priced monochrome Lexmark X342n or even more one the Epson AcuLaser CX11NF.

Design

The HP OfficeJet Pro L7680 is a comparatively bigger printer fully clad mainly in black. The all-in-One L7680 measures 25.4 inches deep by 14 inches tall by 20.9 inches wide and weighs around 35 pounds. The dimensions of the other printers of this series vary a tad, depending upon the features such as additional paper trays. the printer comes with a 50-page automatic document feeder (ADF) mounted on its top, and allowing you to scan, copy, or fax the multipage documents without giving all your attention to the printer. the ADF of the printer is positioned on top of the scanner lid, that opens to reveal a legal-sized flatbed scanner. The printer facilitates PC-free printing with its PictBridge-enabled USB port and built-in media card readers from the PictBridge-enabled cameras and USB storage devices.

The control panel of the printer is comparatively bigger, but is decently organized; the buttons here are grouped by task. The control panel have dedicated buttons for some of the general tasks, such as copy enlarge or reduce and fax redial. The centerpiece of the control panel is the 2.4 inch color display that lets you preview and edits photos or check a variety of menus. There also is an alphanumeric keypad which lets you dial the fax numbers or key for the number of copies you want to make.

System Configuration

Price: $425.00 – $489.89
Manufacturer: HP
Part Number: C8189A
Printer Type: All-in-one printer
Inkjet Technology: HP Thermal Inkjet
Operating System Supported: Linux, Apple Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

Dimensions (W x D x H): 20.9 x 15.8 x 14 in.
System weight: 35.1 lbs
Microsoft Certifications: Works with Windows Vista
Included Accessories: Ethernet cable and Phone cable
PC Connection: Ethernet 10 Base-T/100 Base-TX and Hi-Speed USB
Supported Media Type: Banner, Cards, Envelopes, Labels, Plain paper, Photo paper, Transparencies and Greeting cards
Software Included: Drivers & utilities
Supported Flash Memory: Memory Stick, CompactFlash, SD Memory Card, MultiMediaCard and xD-Picture Card

Performance

The HP OfficeJet Pro L7680 delivered reasonably fast performances in our performance test. The Pro L7680 delivered black text at the speed of 10.22 pages per minute (ppm) and while for  a mixed page of color and text graphics,  the printer took around 5.45ppm. the printer printed a single 4×6 photo at the rate of 1.44ppm, but for the batch of 10 photos the printer delivered somewhat decent print speed of 1.82ppm. The simple thing that we can say after seeing the performance of Pro L7680 is that if your office or small work groups needs faster prints, or if you needs to print more than 7,500 pages every month, then its better that you consider a multifunction laser printer. The reason why we are saying this is because for the same price of Pro L7680 you can get a monochrome laser multifunction like the Lexmark X342n, which is capable of printing text at the rate of 17.13ppm. Also if you don’t have problems in paying a little extra for color and other things, then the Epson AcuLaser CX11NF, producing black text prints at the rate of 18.44ppm is a decent option.

The print quality was near laser printer when we printed on the coated inkjet paper; the prints were clean, consistent and sharp here. Even the color-graphics print delivered decent print quality, with pleasing color saturation, outstanding color reproduction in the photo elements and smooth gradients. Though there were minor problems here and there in the print quality delivered by L7680, but in general the print quality was decent and if you are not a quality freak, you can use the prints for your small office or workgroup usage.

Support

The HP OfficeJet Pro L7680 all-in-one printer gets one year standard warranty with the printer, which is on equivalence with the competition. Though, if you want you can pay and extend the warranty for you. You get toll free telephonic support 24×7 under warranty period for free. The online support includes downloadable software, drivers, and manuals; there also is online chat and e-mail tech support; a troubleshooting guide and FAQs available for any sort of self troubleshooting.

Word from the Experts

The HP OfficeJet Pro L7680 comes loaded with plenty of office-oriented features, immense print quality and speedy prints. All these features make the HP OfficeJet Pro L7680 an immensely compelling all-in-one printer for small businesses or work groups. Considering every aspect of the printer, we give it our recommendation.