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What You Should Know

Hands-On Test Report

HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer

Table of Contents

Executive Summary...............................1

What It Is................................................1

Image Quality.........................................2

Print Productivity...................................5

Copier Productivity................................6

Scan Functionality .................................7

Fax Functionality ...................................7

Ease of Use.............................................7

Print Drivers.........................................11

Client/Management Software ..............13

Hardware Installation...........................22

Software/Network Installation.............23

User Maintenance ................................28

Media Handling ...................................30

Cost Per Page .......................................30

Space/Power/Warranty ........................31

Eco-Friendly Features..........................31

Recommendation .................................32

March 2010  Wirth Consulting, LLC  Denville, New Jersey USA  www.wirthconsulting.org

Page 1

Executive Summary What It Is

Starting at $99.00, the Officejet 4500 All-in-One Series enables even

the most budget-conscious end-users to enjoy a color All-in-One

without sacrificing reliability, image quality, or effective, easy-to-use

software.

First-Rate Image Quality And Media Handling

 The Hewlett-Packard Officejet 4500 produced image-quality

samples as good as higher-priced Officejets—whether producing

black text documents or photos on glossy media, image quality was

very good.

 The system produced very good color photographic quality with its

dye-based inks: ISO raw TIFF test photographs produced in testing

displayed very good detail and color saturation, no banding, and

very realistic flesh tones. Photos displayed a very pleasing,

professional-quality appearance.

 Media-handling is versatile enough to handle graphic-arts

applications, for instance, for printing brochures in-house (avoiding

the expense of outsourcing such jobs to commercial print shops).

 Print on custom media up to 8.5”x30”—useful for instance when

printing signs, banners, larger presentation materials, etc.

Easy, Painless Installation And Officejet Software Functionality

 Hardware setup took only about 18 minutes, and required just a few

steps. There’s no guessing about what to do, and everything installs

correctly the first time. Following the installation utility’s prompts,

it took just about five clicks to install the system on our wired

network, and four clicks to install software.

 HP’s Solution Center software, which HP bundles with its higher-

priced Officejets, is also included. It provides the same scan and PC

fax functionally from the computer workstation, as well as easy

device-management capability, via an intuitive user interface.

 Although this is one of the lowest-priced Officejets, HP includes its

Document Manager document-management software, OCR

software, and a utility for more effective printing and layout of Web

pages.

Low Acquisition And Operational Costs, And Green

 The Officejet 4500 Series consumes a maximum of 17 watts of

power when operating, or less than half that of a 40-watt light bulb.

This is lower than that of most ink-jet All-in-Ones, and considerably

lower than laser All-in-Ones’ power consumption—in fact, the

Officejet 4500 Series consumes approximately less than 10-percent

the energy of color laser All-in-Ones. With its very low power

consumption, and with HP’s ink-cartridge and product-recycling

programs, the Officejet 4500 Series can truly claim to be one of the

greenest, most environmentally friendly All-in-Ones on the market.

HP Officejet 4500

All-in-One Printer

“Just when I thought that it was impossible to lower the price point of

an ADF-equipped four-function color AiO, HP unleashes the Officejet

4500 All-in-One on us. In testing, the system performed very capably

and exactly as we would expect from similar products coming from

HP. Its thoughtful design and familiar feature set should satisfy the

needs of SMB and home-office users, especially those looking for an

AiO/MFP with SMB-class features at a very affordable price point.” -

Terry Wirth, President, Wirth Consulting.

Imaging Technology: Thermal Color Ink-Jet

Functions: Color Print/Copy/Scan/Fax

Print Speed: Draft: 28 (black)/22 (color) ppm;

Laser Comparable: 6 (black)/4 (color) ppm

Maximum Monthly Volume: 3,000 pages

Suggested Retail Price: $99.00

Availability: Retail, www.HP.com

Introduction Date: March 2010

Background Information

With a starting list price of just $99.00, Hewlett-

Packard’s new Officejet 4500 All-in-One Series is

one of the most affordable entry points for small

business and home-office users seeking a color All-

in-One.

Two configurations are available: the Officejet 4500

All-in-One with wired Ethernet connectivity that

lists at just $99.00, and the Officejet 4500 Wireless,

the latter of which lists at $129.00 and adds

convenient wireless connectivity. Wirth Consulting

evaluated the Officejet 4500 All-in-One with

standard 10/100BaseT Ethernet network interface.

Summary of content (33 pages)

PAGE 1
What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer Executive Summary What It Is Starting at $99.00, the Officejet 4500 All-in-One Series enables even the most budget-conscious end-users to enjoy a color All-in-One without sacrificing reliability, image quality, or effective, easy-to-use software.
PAGE 2
What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer Executive Summary  Wirth Consulting recommends using the higher-yield 901XL black ink cartridge, which has the highest page yield (700 pages) among competitive systems in this segment. In this segment, competitive systems’ high-yield black cartridges typically yield approximately only 500 pages, so that users will have to replace them more frequently.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer PRINT-MODE IMAGE QUALITY SAMPLES (RAW TIFF DIGITAL PHOTOS) (Best Mode) Raw TIFF photo of the test target printed on HP bright white paper. Although this was printed on plain paper, fleshtones were very realistic, halftones were accurate, and color balance was very good. Raw TIFF photo of the test target printed on HP Advanced Photo Paper. Note the rich color saturation and very vibrant overall appearance.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer The ability to produce all halftones correctly is essential in order to produce accurate grayscale and color images. The Officejet 4500 produced virtually all halftones correctly for each CYMK ink color in increments of 10% from 10 to 100% as seen in the test chart to the left. It was also able to produce virtually all halftones correctly for orange, green and blue.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer In color copy mode, the Officejet 4500 reproduced crisp black text, and clear, readable text down to 4 pt. font size. It was also able to reproduce clear lines as thin as 3.6 lp/mm in both horizontal and vertical orientations. Also in color copy mode, the system was able to correctly produce the black halftone scale in increments of 10%, as seen on the left, from 10 to approximately 90-100%.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer Operating Systems Supported Microsoft Windows: Windows 7, x64, Vista x64, Vista, XP Professional, XP Home. Apple Macintosh: Mac OS X v 10.4.x, Mac OS X v 10.5, Mac OS X v 10.6. When the user selects duplex printing in the print driver, a dialog box launches, instructing users how to perform the process. PCL 3 GUI PRINT-FILE SIZES (MB) Native File Print File Size Size Test Document 1-Page Photo 2.011 8.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer SCAN FUNCTIONALITY CSI; 48-bit The Officejet 4500 Series is equipped with color scanning to Scanner Type: Scan to Hard Drive: No computer workstations running HP’s Digital Imaging Monitor Flatbed Scanner: Yes software. TWAIN and WIA scan drivers are provided for pull Optical Resolution.: 1200 dpi scanning from a computer workstation using HP Solution Center Hardware Res.: 1200x2400 dpi Grayscale Levels: 256 software.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer   Navigating the menu system is simple via two arrow keys on the right of the control panel. First, the user selects the function (fax, copy or scan) using the two arrow keys, and then presses OK. Once the user selects the function, the LCD panel displays an arrow pointing to the function. Users advance through the menus by pressing the two arrow keys, and press the OK key to confirm the selection.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer Specify the paper size that the copy will be made on—letter, legal, 4”x6”, or 5”x7”. Specify the paper type—plain paper, premium inkjet paper, or photo paper. By specifying the paper type to be printed on, the system will adjust ink coverage in order to provide optimal image quality. Press OK. Adjust the copy’s lightness via a lightness/darkness scale (press the arrow keys). Press OK.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer The Setup key (wrench icon) circled in red above enables users to configure system defaults and settings, and also access Help Guide software that is launched on the connected computer workstation. Alternately, the scanned document can be saved as a text file that can then be converted into editable text at the computer workstation with OCR software provided by HP.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer A convenient feature enables users to reprint received faxes. Within the Help Menu (7), users can access guides for using scan, copy and fax. Guides are then automatically launched on the user’s computer workstation for easy viewing. Also provided is help for performing common tasks, such as loading originals in the automatic document feeder, loading paper, etc.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer The Features tab enables users to manually configure settings, including image quality, paper size, borderless printing, simplex/duplex, portrait/landscape, color-management type, etc. The Printer Services option in the lower right launches HP’s Toolbox utility (refer to Client Software below). Users may also specify paper type (see next screen capture).
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer CLIENT/MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE The Officejet 4500 All-in-Ones Printer’s client and management STRENGTHS  HP’s Solution Center software is easy-to-use software for software includes Hewlett-Packard Digital Imaging Monitor, scanning from the computer desktop, convenient sending and receiving faxes at the computer workstation (PC fax), and for Solution Center, Toolbox utility, OCR software, Smart Web converting files into editable text
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer SOLUTION CENTER HOME PAGE Solution Center has an attractive, un-cluttered interface that’s easy to navigate. It provides a broad range of functions: pull scanning from the computer workstation, fax send and receive at the computer workstation, converting image files into text-editable files with OCR, etc.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer This dialog appears when the user selects “Scan to Picture.” From here, users can make extensive adjustments to the image before saving it to disk. Solution Center’s Scan Document function is for scanning text documents. The same dialog box previously shown launches, except that the “Scan Document Menu” option is highlighted.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer Once the document is processed by the OCR engine, it can be edited in Adobe Acrobat or Microsoft Word (shown). Access HP’s In-house marketing creative studio by clicking on this button. Solution Center’s In-House marketing provides links to online HP Web resources for creating marketing materials such as flyers, brochures, posters, etc. At HP’s marketsplash.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer Users can also conveniently convert any older saved files into editable text with OCR by selecting the Convert to Text option shown above. With the “Convert to text” button, users can select stored images and send them to the I.R.I.S. OCR engine for processing into editable-text format. Once the I.R.I.S. OCR engine finishes processing, an editable RTF file is created in the designated folder.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer SOLUTION CENTER HELP PAGE Solution Center’s Help page enables users to search for help by search term. The Solve a Problem option includes guidance for common tasks such as replacing ink cartridges. Online Resources also provides a quick link to the Officejet 4500’s product Web page, and enables users to provide product feedback to HP. More help is provided via Additional Resources.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer SOLUTION CENTER SETTINGS PAGE Select Solution Center’s Settings page at the bottom of the page. The Settings page provides an intuitive, easy-to-use workspace for configuring scan, print, fax and network settings.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer Users may also enable the system so that it will automatically check for software updates and updates to HP Print Projects. SOLUTION CENTER STATUS PAGE Solution Center’s Status Page indicates current device status and if ink cartridges are ready, as well as current ink levels.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer DIGITAL IMAGING MONITOR Digital Imaging Monitor (circled in red) runs in the background and is installed on the Microsoft Windows’ task bar. With just a quick glance, users can check device status (the icon glows green when the Officejet 4500 is ready). Solution Center can be launched by double-clicking on the icon. When users right-click on the Digital Imaging Monitor icon, the above options launch.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer EMBEDDED WEB SERVICES Embedded Web Services (EWS) is the Officejet 4500’s embedded Web page that indicates current system and consumables’ status and configuration, and provides an alternate means for configuring wired and wireless network setup (depending on Officejet 4500 version), fax setup, fax address books, etc. EWS may be password-protected so that unauthorized users can’t change settings.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer SAVINGS BOOKLET A sampling of free offers for HP customers contained in the Savings booklet. From left are: free McAfee VirusScan software; free shipping for stamps ordered through PhotoStamps.com; and free QuickBooks accounting software. Other available offers include: 40-percent off pricing for poster printing at youneek.com; 30-percent off pricing for Corel Painter Essentials 4 software; and a link to free HP computer games.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer A routine end-user agreement to allow installation. Choose an automatic or custom software installation. In a custom installation, the user chooses which software to install. HP Imaging Device Functions is required for using scan and PC fax. We also recommend users install HP Solution Center, OCR Software by I.R.I.S., Print Projects, SmartWeb Printing, and HP Document Manager.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer Select a local USB connection or wired Ethernet network connection. We selected the wired Ethernet option. The utility prompts the user to connect the Officejet 4500 to their router or access point using an Ethernet cable. We had to turn off our Firewall software in order for the system to be discovered. March 2010  Wirth Consulting, LLC  Denville, New Jersey USA  www.wirthconsulting.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer Select the Officejet 4500 and installation continues. Network installation is now complete—the entire process for installing software and installing the system on the network required just about 30 minutes. The HP Officejet 4500 AIO shown completely set up and ready to undergo testing by Wirth Consulting. March 2010  Wirth Consulting, LLC  Denville, New Jersey USA  www.wirthconsulting.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer FAX SETUP WIZARD The fax setup wizard is a quick and recommended way to set up walkup color fax, as it enables users to set up fax at their computer workstation (versus at the control panel) by following a series of prompts. The process takes just a few minutes. Specify whether the phone line will be used for both fax and voice calls. The first step is to enter your name or company name that will appear on outbound faxes.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer DIGITAL FAX SETUP WIZARD Simply select Finish to complete setup. HP also provides a utility for setting up digital fax (PC fax), so that users can automatically receive black-and-white faxes at their computer workstation.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer INSTALLING PRINT HEAD AND INK CARTRIDGES The Officejet 4500 uses a black ink cartridge and tricolor ink cartridge. The ink-cartridge carrier is accessed from the front of the unit and located under a drop-down panel. Both cartridges incorporate a print head, so there’s no need to install a separate one. First unwrap the black ink cartridge. Insert the color-coded cartridge into its color-coded slot and press up.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer MEDIA HANDLING The Officejet 4500 Series is an A4 color All-in-One system that Max. Media Size: Min./Max. Custom Media: prints on up to letter- and legal-size media. It can also accept Recommended Media Weight: custom media sizes up to 8.5”x30”. It’s equipped with a 100- Max. Media Weight: sheet paper-input drawer, 25-sheet output tray, and 20-sheet Borderless Printing: Std./Max Media Capacity: automatic document feeder.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer SPACE/POWER CONSUMPTION/WARRANTY While space is typically not a major concern in larger enterprises, SPACE REQUIREMENTS Footprint (inches): it’s an important concern in small and home offices. In all Footprint: (mm): enterprises, power consumption is an important concern, as most Required Cubic Feet: seek to conserve power consumption as much as possible for both Required Cubic Centimeters: economic and environmental reasons.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer RECOMMENDATION With its starting $99.00 list price, Hewlett-Packard’s Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer Series is a very effective entry point for small business and home-offices users that require a fully capable color All-in-One.
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What You Should Know Hands-On Test Report HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One Printer both power-save and standby modes). While there’s a lot of talk among digital-imaging vendors today about environmentally friendly products, with its very low power consumption, and with HP’s ink-cartridge and product-recycling programs, the Officejet 4500 Series can truly claim to be one of the greenest, most environmentally friendly All-in-Ones on the market.