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Editorial Review Hp Officejet 5610 All-In-One W/Fax ... Read more Reviews 
OK if you have low expectations, January 12, 2006
Like most people, I wanted an all-in-one to replace a stack of machines: an ancient parallel-port scanner, a nearly ancient fax that prints with thermal paper, and the free printer I got from my last PC. After using this model for a few months, I find it does much of what I want.
I like the ability to scan documents to files for achiving and the scanning of multiple pictures into seperate files.
I suppose I shouldn't complain much for a machine at this price point, but it has several drawbacks:
(1) After running about 200 pages through the fax/scanner page feeder, my fed pages now show up with a line through them. Documentation says to clean the small scan window (which I did to no effect). Otherwise, you're out of luck. Flatbed scanning does not show the line.
(2) Regadless of which scanner you use, the printer adds small margins to each page. If you're printing a document with no margins, it will cut off the edges.
(3) Unlike even the cheap printers bundled with my last two PCs, this one has no wake-on-network capability (that is, since it site in my office, if it's turned off and I want to print, I have to walk over to turn it on). In fact, if something is stuck in the queue and I try to print a second document, it hangs my system.
(4)Like most HP products at the bottom of the cost curve, it feels flimsy. Every time I open the cover, it feels like it's going to fall off.
Exactly what we wanted!, May 4, 2006
We recently purchased the HP Officejet 5610 All-in-One Printer, Copier, Scanner, Fax to replace a clapped out 7 year old inkjet and an ancient parallel port truckbed sized scanner. Getting a fax (which we needed at home) and a copier (which we really appreciate) was enough to seal the bargain.
We've been running this unit for 3 months now - wife using it for faxing workers comp documentation, medical reports and resumes (coming off a work related accident). It is the most convenient unit we could have hoped for. It prints at a speed that rivaled our worn out inkjet (we don't do a lot of large document printing), copies documents and scans with a better quality than original document input (minus chopping of margains).
We have a second printer - a Canon photo inkjet that is now relegated only to photography printing. As expensive as ink is - the HP is still cheaper for office work than the 6 Canon tanks necessary for photos.
I've read a lot of horror stories related to installation of this unit - problems we did NOT encounter. Installation went without a hitch - we disabled our computer anti-virus program and everything spun right up. First time setup (minus the fax) took under 30 minutes. Our fax problem was our own doing as we have dual phone line jacks in our computer room and plugged the fax into an inactive line.
The unit itself priced out under $[...] where we purchased it - bought extra ink tanks as part of the overall purchase. Our unit came with a USB connector from HP, clearly marked on the carton.
At this price point - we got exactly what we wanted with no surprises. Printing is not fast - especially color. Photos are best printed on our Canon. Scans are good enough - but we keep a newer purchased Canon LDE series scanner in reserve for higher quality work.
Color combo ink tank is the greatest drawback - knew that going into the purchase - more expensive to replace the 3 color tank when only one color is out of ink. We're living with it so far - and we have no regrets with any of the functions the unit performs.
BEWARE: Labels & Business Card Printing on HP 5610, August 18, 2006
BEWARE. This printer has one MAJOR design flaw: The print rollers slip on special paper such as Business Cards or any kind of labels. HP has 2 "Workarounds" but for it but neither fixes the problem. They only address the slippage at the top of the page but do not address the constant slippage throughout the rest of the page. I bought 2 of these printers for my business but can't print my business cards, mailing labels, or any other labels. BTW, very poor client service; once I mentioned the "workarounds" not working they stop responding. Selling printers on Ebay. BEWARE
Mediocre, June 24, 2006
This is a decent printer that certainly serves it's basic purpose. Their are some things about it I find troublesome. For one thing, when printing in black ink, the printer uses ink from both the black and color cartridge. This causes the color cartridge ink to run out more quickly. When you select the "just black ink" option, it does only use the black cartridge, but the print is so faint it is virtually unreadable. And the printer won't work without a color cartridge installed.
Also printing photos requires sheet size photo paper. When I tried using small size photo paper, it would always go in or come out crooked so that I could never get the photo printed on correctly.
Generally it is a good printer with good colors and print quality. I just hate that the it is designed to manipulate the customer into purchasing unnecessary amounts of ink.
Also trying to convert from fax or scan back to copy mode is a pain and usually requires turning off the computer and printer and turning them on again. And if you cancel a print you have to do the same thing to clear and print again.
Buyer Beware -- HP treats all sales as "Final" and "As Is", April 21, 2007
The product description for this printer should have read "You are purchasing this printer 'as is' -- all sales are final. In the event of failure, HP will do absolutely nothing -- so don't bother." We purchased this printer brand new in December. The printer stopped working in April (4 months later). We called HP tech support and here's a recap of the horror story:
* HP claimed it was the power cord
* They sent two replacement power cords (neither fixed the problem)
* Called HP tech support again
* They sent us a broken, refurbished printer
* Called HP tech support again
* The technician said "this happens a lot" and offered to send another refurbished printer
* We said "no" and asked to speak with the techie's supervisor
* Got a call back next day. We told the Supervisor that we wanted this resolved after 6 calls, one week of down time, multiple shipments of wrong or broken products, etc. We told the supervisor that we would post a review on Amazon if this wasn't resolved satisfactorily (please send a new replacement printer). He said "look at our Amazon sales volume -- that won't hurt us."
HP's warranty and technical support is non-existent. If you're lucky enough to get a technician on the line, you will have a great deal of difficulty communicating with the individual. They especially have problems with serial numbers, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses (they like to drop digits and letters). We had to repeat these data points 5 or 6 times EACH phone call -- very frustrating. Also, when the calls didn't go well, we asked to speak with the techie's supervisor. Most of the time they said "I don't have a supervisor." One of the techie's had a sense of humor -- he gave us the phone number for the president of HP.
I've been a loyal (and critical) Canon customer in multiple product lines. I thought I should try an HP printer -- it was a horrible mistake. The Canon PIXMA MP530 is a top-quality, supported printer with amazing performance. Don't look at the Amazon sales volume -- read the Amazon reviews. We're not the only ones that have had problems with HP of late.
The HP 5610 does have one useful feature -- it works great as a door stop.
Good quality for the money, September 14, 2006
What I like best is the (relatively) small footprint and light weight. It is easy to move the machine around and to get into the back when I need to do so.
Very good color print resolution. The fax and scan and copy features work fine.
I had resisted all-in-ones, concerned about too much activity jammed into a small space, but there is no sacrifice in quality for my amateur purposes.
CAUTION: The machine gives you a warning (a beep and a blinking light and an on-screeen message) about low ink in the cartridge waaaaay too early. The first time I believed them and immediately replaced the cartridge. The next time I kept printing and printing and printing... a long time, and the quality continued to be swell. I suggest ignoring warnings and carrying on until the quality of the output itself gives you the message.
Good for printing books, November 29, 2006
This printer can print back to front. This is invaluable in saving time if you're printing a novel. It shows you clearly how to reposition the pages to print the second side.
Also, you can save ink by going to File-Print-preferences and changing the ink quality to Fastdraft or Fastnormal. You can still read it. I've already printed about three-hundred or more pages with some color with their sample cartridges and have gotten no warnings for low ink. (And this is with their sample cartridges included in the item). You can also print this in a book form where it's shrunk to fit to half the page in landscape form. I finally got my low ink warning and continued to print.
I didn't need to purchase a USB because it worked with my old printer's cable. I also got a USB extender and was able to move the printer further away from my computer. (I have a one-year-old who broke my last printer.)
The reason I purchased HP was because I couldn't find ink for Dell's printers and when I ordered the ink online the DHL people wouldn't bring it both times.
Another item is that the scanning feature is easy to use. I have so far printed CD covers, 119 page novels (three of them on fastdraft), and I've scanned. I also used the document feeder and it crumpled the paper. So be careful when putting the paper flat.
Okay, it's not kosher but I set the fax to answer the phone after three rings (you can set it from 2-6 rings if you set it to answer automatically) and I screen my calls that way. Unwanted callers get the fax. Did I mention it rings and has caller I.D? It does! It's freaking awesome! So if you get a call from someone you don't want to talk to at that moment you can just let the phone ring and it will give the fax screeeee... (you won't hear it. It's quiet.) If you do want the call pick it up before the machine rings the set number of times that you set.
Also, I bought this item listed as Free Super Saver Shipping. The other 5610 does not offer that. Don't order that one. The ink for this item is 22, 56 and I believe 58 for photos.[...]
I would buy the HP product again. It is lightweight, small and cute.
Oh, and there are very good instructions to set it up. I set it up in a few minutes. The software installing took a long time but I did the complete setup.
When you take it out of the box there is a paper (English and one Spanish) that tell you how to set it up. It's very simple!
Must be me....., August 16, 2006
....I am seeing all of these glowing reviews but I had a bad experience like several of the lesser reviews here.
Bought the unit, brought it home, installed everything in a snap (software, etc., Windows XP). The problem was that the printer wouldn't eject cyan ink so all pictures came out red/yellow. Called tech support, tried to explain that no blue ink was coming out of the print head on the cartridge, but i still had to go through myriad steps because they just wouldn't believe the cartridge was bad, and the tech wasn't authorized to send a replacement cartridge. She "escalated" my problem (after about an hour on the phone with her) and told me a "case manager" would call me in 24-48 hours (yeah, my boss would accept that excuse for my late project). Of course, that was Monday, today is Wednesday, and still no call from HP. I bought a new cartridge myself, printed 12 color 8.5 x 11" pages, and the ink indicator tells me I am already low on color ink!!!!! So, that's $18 for 12 pages....do the math. At this point, I am guess the problem COULD have been the printer, but not sure that it wasn't the cartridge. In any event, spent many hours trying to get this thing to work and failed despite my best efforts. Others are raving about this machine, so perhaps I just got a bad one. But I wonder how many people have printed 12 or so full-color pages, only to find out another cartridge was already needed at that point. With the cost of HP ink cartridges being what they are, definitely consider this issue when looking at this machine. Incidentally, my last HP printer/fax worked great for 4 years, which is why I decided to go with them again. Thinking of Cannon now, or at least any printer with separate ink tanks for economy as I do a lot of full-color printing.
UPDATE: Went with the Cannon MP500, available here at Amazon (great price, too, even with shipping). THIS is the machine to get--read my review there (when I get around to it). The MP500, however, does NOT have a FAX function--otherwise very happy with it.
HP 5610 - could be the best low end all-in-one value for HP, March 27, 2006
Was 12 hours in the store, looking at various machines, before I got this one. I returned 6 machines. Two were HP 1410, real dogs, both broke down. No frills, but does what it does well and economically.
Was looking for a copier to make nice B&W copies, especially of books, where I could leave the cover open in a dimly lit room and I would get a white border around the copied object, thereby saving lots of ink. The HP 5610 did this as well or better than any model/brand. Epson ink vapor gave me headaches and the brother ink cleaning-system seemed worrisome because I have gone weeks without copying.
The 5610 may be the only new HP that still uses the legacy #56 and #58 cartridges for B&W and photo color (although it does use the new 5 ml #22 for plain color) - I hope this printer is a big success, so HP will be compelled to continue using older economical cartridges for new machines. The 5610 seems to be a maverick from HP's new business model which is obviously "the cheaper the machine, the more expensive the ink $ per ml."
No problems. The 5610 makes perfect copies, extremely fast in fast mode. The feeder is OK, even with cheap, newsprint-type paper. The setup defaults to "actual size," which cuts off 3/4 inch of what you copy at the bottom, but you can change the default to "fit to page" and that will shrink your copy a tiny bit, hardly noticeable, but will definitely capture the entire original, while giving you about a 1/2" white border all around. It did come out of the box with a strong plastic reek from within, which was remedied by swapping it for the store shelf demo, which had "gassed out" over time.
At first the software would not install, but when I disabled the resident shield of my virus checker, it installed smoothly. HP seems ignorant of this solution, in literature and customer support. I had to figure it out myself.
totally frustrated & disappointed, February 3, 2007
i had an office jet t45-all in one which lasted about 6 years and was starting to run down.hp suggested upgrade to 5610. installation was relatively easy. however i was having trouble faxing from computer & scanning. tech service(india) tried to help however couldn't solve the problem. they promised to replace unit and they did with a remanufactured unit which also had the same problem. i spoke to a manager after i wasted over two hours with tech trying to solve problem.i told manager i wanted a brand new unit.he stated because i had 2 defective units he would ship a brand new unit which would arrive in a few days.it's almost two weeks and nothing. i called hp was connected to bombay india- i told them the manager was in the u.s. and i wanted to speak to him only.they were going to get back to me.two days have passed -nothing- i called amazon from whom i ordered unit.told them my tale of woe and they gave me a full credit and will ship unit to hp free of charge. amazon (excellent) hp(terrible)
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Decent Printer Terrible Paper Feed Problem, March 7, 2006