printer

By Rieva Lesonsky

About 16 months ago I told you how I fell in love with a Officejet Pro X HP had sent me. Well, that’s over. It’s not that I’m fickle; it’s just that HP sent me a new printer—the HP PageWide Pro 577dw Multifunction Printer—to review. And it was love at first sight. Literally.

When I slit open the box to remove the printer the first thing I noticed is the color. It wasn’t black—which may sound trivial to you, but to me it says HP is paying attention to detail. The light-colored printer makes a visual difference in small offices.

HP says its reinventing printing and boasts the PageWide printers are best-in-class in terms of professional color, cost of ownership, fastest speeds, security and energy efficiency. And while it may be hard to improve upon perfection, in my eyes HP did it. These devices are the world’s fastest desktop printers—it can print as much as 70 pages per minute.

The ink cartridges are even bigger than before (and they were big—I haven’t refilled them since I got the printer); the black toner should print about 17,000-20,000 pages.

The PageWide Pro 500 series are ideal for small businesses with 5-15 users printing between 2,000-7,500 pages per month. Set up is beyond simple—the printer immediately connected to my Wi-Fi and ready to print minutes after I plugged it in.

The printer I received retails for $899. There are other PageWide models with different features and price points. The HP PageWide Pro 400 series is for small businesses with from 3-10 users printing up to 4,500 pages per month and the 300 series for businesses with 3-10 employees printing up to 3,500 pages per month.

The front control panel is customizable—for instance I removed the fax button from mine, since I never use it. The scanner on the Pro 577dw model is thinner, but scans twice as fast (it’s truly speedy).

The printer is quiet—previously I could hear my older printer when it stopped and started when I was in another room—but I have to really strain to hear this one.

Some other facts you should know:

  • Costs 1 cent to print a B&W page
  • Costs 6-7 cents to print a color page
  • You can print a document or PPT from a thumbdrive
  • You can specify who has access to the printer
  • The paper tray holds 500 sheets of paper; there’s also a 50-sheet multi-purpose tray
  • Almost paper-jam free (I’ve had fewer than 5 paper jams in the 16 months I’ve had my old printer)

It’s environmentally friendly, consuming 1/5th of the power of an equivalent laser printer and producing about 1/10th of the waste of laser printers and copiers

The PageWide technology was developed by HP for large format printers and web presses and has been tested and proven, practically guaranteeing you a great printing experience.

HP says its new products are designed with three primary things in mind. It’s all about:

  1. Boosting productivity
  2. Managing IT Costs
  3. Solving security threats

If you’re concerned about security, HP is introducing HP Secure Managed Print Services. This enables security experts “help customers secure their print environment with the strongest protections available in the industry and then maintain security over time to address evolving threats and compliance requirements.”