Short version: If you want a reasonably priced, reliable printer that is simple to install and easy to use, this HP Officejet 3830 is a great choice.
Set-up: The set up takes less than 15 minutes to complete, and it instantly works with all your devices on the same wifi network. There's no need to download a particular app (though it offers a good one if you like that sort of thing), nor does it require any special set up with your computer.
Use: This printer is self-explanatory and intuitive. The touch screen isn't very large, but it's much more responsive than the one on my old HP Envy 100, so it's actually an improvement for me. If you can use a regular sized touchscreen smartphone, you can use this with no problem.
Ink: After comparing the various manufacturers' ink cartridge options for ink jet printers, I've found them all to be comparably priced, but I prefer HP, because (1) it requires only two cartridges (black & color), whereas other printers often require one black and three or more color cartridges*; and (2) the HP Instant Ink program (which is optional) is cheaper and extremely convenient. *I know some people have complained about the single color cartridges, preferring to use individual colors to conserve ink. My response to that complaint is twofold. First, in my experience, when one color is out, the other colors are close behind, so the convenience of the combined cartridges is worth it. Second, any ink waste that results from the combined color cartridges is minimal compared to the "waste" generated from separate color cartridges. With combined color cartridges, there is one cartridge, one sealed package, one paper insert and one outer box. With individual color cartridges, there are three (or more) plastic cartridges, three sealed packages, three paper inserts and three outer boxes. That's a lot of unnecessary waste!
Other issues: The only other concern that's been raised in the Amazon reviews is the paper feeder. Apparently a few people have complained that it grabs several pages at once, causing paper waste and jams. I've noticed that sometimes the paper doesn't fully load into the feeder, and when that happens, it can cause this problem. The paper feeder itself is a bit awkward. Still, as long as I make sure the paper is properly and fully loaded, I don't have this problem. All things considered, this is a fairly minor problem with an otherwise excellent printer.
Long Version - HP v Canon:
I literally gave away my brand new Canon MG7520 printer and replaced it with this HP Officejet 3830, and I couldn't be happier. After my trusty old HP Envy 100 took a spill off my desk and shattered, I researched printers online to select its replacement. I've always had HPs at home and work, but I wanted to find the best value regardless of brand.
Although the expert and consumer reviews were generally all over the place, with printers receiving 4.8 stars on one website and 2.4 stars on another, I noticed that on most sites the Canon printers were rated the highest of all the major brands. Based on that research, I bought a Canon MG7520 on sale at Best Buy.
Though I'm no computer expert, I have set up a number of similar printers for myself and my family members, and based on my experience, I knew it shouldn't take more than about 15 minutes to connect my new Canon printer. Over one month and countless wasted hours trying to get that thing to work, I finally packed it up and donated it to Goodwill (the Best Buy return period had long since expired, and I didn't want to waste any more of my time, even just trying to sell it on Craigslist).
During that month of fruitless efforts to get the Canon printer to print something other than the Printer Connection Settings sheet, I tried everything to get it to work with any of my devices. I used the included installation disk; I downloaded the drives and software from the website; I manually installed the drivers; I followed the instructions in the box and the (different) instructions online; and I even talked to Canon customer support several times. Nothing worked.
After waving the white flag, I bought this HP Officejet 3830 from Amazon. Two days later (thank you Prime!), it arrived. Ten minutes, 47 seconds later, it was printing from my desktop, laptop, phone and tablet. I never even had to look at the instructions.
HP install: Plug in, enter wifi password, insert paper, print.
Canon install: Plug in, choose LAN connection type, enter wifi password, download app, change LAN connection type to "offline" set up, register printer, change LAN again, select online options, try to connect, if connection fails even when connected, try to decipher cryptic installation instructions, start all over, etc etc. You get the idea.
Does Canon print better photos? I wouldn't know, but I've heard it does. If you're buying a printer primarily for photo printing, perhaps Canon is the way to go. But if you need a printer for everyday, household/small business printing needs, I highly recommend HP, and in particular I recommend the HP Officejet 3830. It's easy and it works. Oh, and the photos look just fine.
I am in general an"electronically challenged user" so being able to set up a printer and have it work without having to ask anyone for help, swear, throw things (including a fit) is nothing short of amazing! This is my first experience (I know where have I been right?) and it took less than an hour from box to yahoo it works! The written instructions are easy to understand, it has a DVD as well and the only tool I needed was me. It arrived in perfect even the glass was spotless condition. I kept the protective film covering on the front panel controls so the photos make it look dingy but it is absolutely bright pristine and the touch screen works effortlessly. The photo with the lid up has the Alignment page ink which is a printout done during the set up and is exactly how it should be. It came with 1 phone cord but it needs 2 so I used the phone lines from my old printer. Note Instant Ink Enrollment: I want to purchase ink on my own so I set up the printer without it and every time I print I get a pop-up message thanking me for installing HP Instant Ink with a link to learn more and enroll. However, at the time of this review I haven't checked out how to turn it off so that's on me. I thought I'd mention it since that's what's happening without the enrollment.
I don't print very often and I never fax, but I have been looking for a wireless sheet-feed scanner and this seemed like a good way to handle that need while covering my occasional printing needs. So far I'm pretty impressed with it. It was fairly easy to set up for printing, but when I tried to scan remotely from my computer I was told that I needed to download additional software, but was not directed to where that software might be. I searched the HP site for the Easy Scan app to no avail. I finally searched Google and found it on the iTunes store. Once I downloaded and installed it I was able to scan easily by controlling the scanner in my guest room wirelessly from my laptop in the living room. I also downloaded the scanning app for my iPhone and was able to manage the scanner from that as well. My office is my living room so I don't want a bunch of office equipment sitting around everywhere. With this machine I can keep the printer, scanner, fax (does anybody fax anymore?) machine out of sight but still have it on standby when I need it. In the past I would have to dig the scanner out of the closet, plug it in to my laptop and leave it on the coffee table for the duration of it's use. Now the scanner is available anytime I need it without cluttering up the living room and I can put a stack of docs into it, walk away and manage the scan from the other room. Perfect!
I also like the ability to print from anywhere using the iPhone app. When I come home anything I've printed is sitting on the printer waiting for me. Cool. The only thing that I don't love about this all-in-one is that the ink cartridges seem kind of pricey. I think they price them higher so you'll be motivated to join their auto-ordering scheme (basically your printer rats you out to HP whenever the cartridges start getting low.) They pretend that there's a terrific discount through this program, but they seem to be hiking up the prices so they can appear to discount them to a fair retail price. Welcome to the new subscription-based economy! Other than that this is a very practical all-in-one device.
PS - Writing reviews has become an accidental hobby for me, and it always makes my day to know that people find my reviews helpful (and if not, why.) Also, if you have any questions, clarifications, or comments please feel free to leave a comment below. I usually respond pretty quickly and almost always within 24 hours. This item was provided for review consideration.
Cheers! Claire
We bought this for my Mother-In-Law for use with her iPad. She doesn't have a computer or a Wi-Fi network, so we wanted to surprise her with something which was easy to use and simple to setup. We couldn't be more please. It worked nearly right out of the box, and her iPad 3 connected and printed immediately every time. It prints quickly and quietly, too.
First things first: I'm using this with a Macbook Air 13" running OS X Yosemite (10.10.5) on a home network with router supplied by my cable company (it's an integrated cable modem + router). My background includes 32 yrs in IT (software development), but I'm NOT a "hardware geek," and I can be a little intimidated by some hardware. So I often approach installation/setup of new electronics with some trepidation.
This was probably the smoothest install/setup I've encountered. There is one issue which didn't impact the actual install/setup, but I'll get into that later.
From opening the box to printing my first page, I spent under 20 minutes. This included EVERYTHING: unpacking the printer, connecting all the bits that needed to be connected. powering it up, and installing the HP software on my Mac. You get a CD, but I didn't use it at all. I just followed the instructions and went to the HP website which led me step by step through the process. Also in the box are the power cord and the two ink cartridges (black and color). There is NO USB cable to connect it directly to your computer, so if you aren't planning to use the wireless feature, you'll need to furnish your own USB cable. Once it's powered up and the cartridges are installed, the printer will automatically print a test page.
I had no issues at all connecting it to my wireless network. Once I had entered my network's password (I have it stored in a keychain, so I didn't have to manually type it in), it connected immediately.
I went ahead and signed up for the HP Instant Ink 3-month trial. The price after the free trial period isn't too bad, considering the cost of the ink cartridges. I figure if I don't like it, I can cancel (there's no "contract" or minimum membership limits), and not having to worry about ordering ink on time is a nice convenience. I don't print a lot, really -- maybe 30 or so pages a month -- so this should work from an economical standpoint.
After finishing the installation process, I sent it a variety of documents, both black and white as well as color, text, photos, drawings, etc. -- 10 in all -- to test out the print speed and quality. I sent them in "batches," waiting for the printer to idle between batches to determine how long it took to "power up" to print. It definitely prints faster than I expected -- both color and black & white seemed to print quickly -- and the quality is good. Black & white quality is really excellent; color is OK -- not perfect, but I was printing on general purpose inkjet paper, not photo paper, and it was fine for my use. I don't print photos on my home printer, so the need for precise color matching isn't as great for me. It does a "good enough" job. Power-up from idle is almost instantaneous, too. Overall, I'm very impressed with the performance.
I also opted to install the HP printer "electronic help" that is supposed to integrate with Apple's Help function, and this is where things didn't work. You get only minimal product and usage info in the box, so you're supposed to install the more detailed help documentation during the installation process, which I did. Unfortunately, it seems to disappear into a black hole on a Mac running OS X 10.10.5 (Yosemite), because the instructions they include in the minimal "get started" guide that detail how to find it after it's installed bear no resemblance to anything I can find on my Mac. I spent the better part of an hour searching among the various Mac "help" functions for the list of commands presented in the HP 3830 "get started" guide -- they simply don't exist anywhere in the OS X Resources --> Mac Help tree. I finally went to the HP website, and even there it wasn't intuitively obvious where to find a "user manual" for this printer. I did finally locate one and downloaded the .pdf. Without the manual, you'll have to figure out how to use the document feeder, handle two-sided copying, etc. by trial and error.
Given that having a detailed user guide to provide guidance on more advanced features of a printer is kind of important, I'm knocking off 1 star. At a minimum, HP should provide a link to the actual .pdf user manual somewhere in the documentation. The link provided for "additional support" goes to the "Drivers & Downloads," "Troubleshooting," and "Support Forums" page. Clicking on "Drivers & Downloads" allows you to select "Printers," and after a couple more clicks on a couple more pages with more dropdowns, you'll eventually get to the page for this printer where you can select "User Guide." It shouldn't be this difficult. How about just including a link for the guide?
Feature Product
- Main functions of this HP color inkjet compact printer: copy, scan, fax, wireless printing, AirPrint, touchscreen, Instant Ink ready so you'll never run of ink, and more
- Mobile printing: print from anywhere using your smartphone or tablet with the free HP ePrint app, easily print from your iPhone or iPad with AirPrint, print even without a network using Wireless Direct printing
- Optional quiet mode helps keep noise to a minimum
- Original HP Cartridge Yield (approx): ~480 pages
- Print high-quality documents with Original HP ink cartridges-more accurate alerts can help ensure you don't run out of ink at the wrong time
- Get up to twice as many pages vs. with refills. Based on a Buyers Laboratory Inc. 2014 study commissioned by HP for the on-average performance of cartridges refilled and remanufactured compared to Original HP ink cartridges
Description
Very nice printer for the price hardware wise exceeded my expectations once I figured it out and got it set up . Hardware wise this is a 5 star , software wise I would give this a massive fail . Also know that the manual that comes with it is pretty useless as goes for the downloadable manual from HP.
So here is my journey thru the install , I logged it to my router ,like I would any device like for example, my cell phone. , which was not easy because the touch screen is tiny and what the manual does not tell you is that the numbers and letters are set up in groups of two , so A and B show up in one block or group , in order to select " B" from the "A B" group you tap very quickly twice or it will default to "A"
Ok so I got past the router login I launch windows printer manager in windows 10 it picks up the printer and directs me to the windows store to download the "HP app " installed that but wow this is a huge app in file size and when I launch it I READ , HP collects user data , files sent , names addresses . and so on , great spyware from HP . If you are carefull when installing this there is a option to not do this but I suspect most will fly by this option .
One thing I noticed is that connecting this thru my wifi is that its a bandwidth hog ,and I am on comcast cable, my tv internet box would studder playing tv shows so I turned off the wifi on the printer , disabled the fax , and hooked up a usb cable ( yes You can disable this VIA the menu on the printer, itself another feature not covered in the manual ,Thanks HP )
uninstalled the software app from HP and that is where some issues began it does not completely uninstall crashed, my windows store app and left pieces of the program installed . So it hosed my windows install again thanks HP ( Grrr !)
This printer can accept a usb cable it is a usb a to usb B style cable amazon does carry it search for hp3830 usb printer cable
I tried direct download of the hp software 60mp compressed file , really ? I tried installing that but know that it is no better then the app wanting to install google tool bar and google chome , wonder how muck kick back HP gets from google from this ?
Ok so here is what I ended up with , no drivers or software from HP , I uninstalled everything , removed all HP printers from my device manager , rebooted , plugged in a usb cable , windows 10 found the drivers on its own , I can use windows fax and scan to scan , will print anything I want with out the HP spyware and if You will search major geeks website their is open source software to scan with for free , I use " NAP52"
So hopes this helps someone
Oh and BTW this printer WORKS in Linux !
Revised Review: The trick is to have a good wifi connection. If your wifi is not strong, you will have issues. Also, it is best to turn off the printer when not in use and then reconnect when needed. I have not tried printing from anything other than my computer, but the HP app works well, the scanning feature works well from the app, and copying works great. It is a standard speed of printing, but for the price this printer is great if your wifi is strong and you just need it for personal use.
Original Review: This printer works great for about 2 weeks. Then the wifi feature basically stops. My computer will not recognize, connect, print. Then after uninstalling/reinstalling the printer it finally will be ready to print and it will then only print halfway through a document until it stops and cannot finish. So annoying. Obviously frustrating. Maybe it works better connected directly to the computer?
I love this printer.
Much better than my old Epson
Love the mobile printing feature
You are able to print with only the black ink once the color ink runs out
The printer is sleek and compact
Reviews were either people loved it 100% or people hated it 100%, so decided, at the price, it was worth trying, and I'm glad I did. The printer is very light-weight and compact, compared to my old Dell. Installed the ink cartridges w/o too much difficulty. Followed directions for quick set up, and had no problems doing it-I'm 72 and not tech-savvy,by the way.
I immediately had some HEAVY usage for printing, scanning, copying of documents and color pictures-some from photographs, some from Amazon Cloud Photos on my Kindle, and some directly from my camera, as well as texts from my Android phone. Paper and document feeds both worked well for me--no jamming. (But one thing I've learned is it's always worth buying the high-quality copy paper-not the thin cheap stuff-for any printer to work better).
It was for a legal matter, so if it hadn't worked out easily for me right away, I'd have been over to Office Max or Staples to have the work done and it would have cost me over $100 easily--plus the inconvenience. I signed up for Instant Ink, but to my surprise, still haven't had to install the new cartridges--the originals that came with it still work.But the Instant Ink Customer Svc was outstanding, and gave me good advice--based on my experience, I absolutely recommend this for anyone who needs a reliable, inexpensive printer for home office use, and the Instant Ink as well.
Note: Most of what I needed did not require me to connect the printer to my HP laptop, and that was good, as it took a little more time for me to figure out how to get the right connection and use all of the functions associated with that. But that was more my lack of tech savvy-not any issue with the printer. Now that I have, I can type using my laptop in the living room and print to the bedroom w/o issues.
Well priced printer. Easy to setup. Windows quickly found the drivers and installed the without need for the CD which was included. USB cord is not included in the box. Phone cord and power cord are included. (HP: you couldn't afford to include a $2 USB cable given what you make on consumables?) Quality of photo printing using photo paper is pretty darn good. Printing on regular copy paper isn't so good as the ink saturates the paper making it "moist". As you can guess printing photos uses quite a bit of ink and the ink is not cheap. Scanner worked well - no issues although the paper does like to shift around a little so you have to watch as it loads the sheets. One issue I found in teaching my 92 year old father to use this printer is that the touch screen can be difficult to use. He accidentally pressed quantity "50" copies and we had to cancel immediately. HP should fix that screen.
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