Customer Ratings & Reviews

Setup wasn't too painful but the system doesn't seem to recognize the toner cartridge that came with it. Updated all the drivers, updated the firmware, checked the chip and contacts, restarted and reseated the cartridge countless times, but still displaying Error 11. Not sure if it's an issue with printer, the cartridge, the software, but in any case it's really disheartening that they expend all this effort to prevent you from using 3rd party ink but apparently don't put in the effort to make sure you can even use their own ink... HP customer support isn't available on the weekend it seems, so if we don't get things solved on Monday then it's back to the store to return it!

We like HP laser printers; this is our third, & this model is virtually identical to the HP M234sdwe we set up for my stepson more than a year ago we kind of knew what to expect going in. Fortunately, this MFP isn't as heavy-handed on the Instant Ink subscription program as the M234sdwe was. Instead of being locked into a 6-month Instant Ink program out of the box (where ongoing subscription costs are likely subsidizing a bit of the M234sdwe's price which is you can buy it just a tad cheaper & get an extra year's warranty), the M234sdw comes with a microchip-enforced HP toner cartridge & a 2-month trial of Instant Ink. For those of you unfamiliar, HP Instant Ink program is a subscription service where toner refill shipments & cartridge recycling materials are mailed out based on HP’s monitored usage of your printer with prices/output ranging from $.99 for 10 pgs/month to $24.99 for 700 pgs/month. Excess pages will cost you if you don’t have enough limited rollover pages remaining from a prior month’s use. If you print a LOT or generally follow a very regular or predictable toner use pattern, Instant Ink may be economical for you, especially if you go through a lot of high-capacity cartridges. But unless you produce a lot of copies/printouts, you are probably going to exceed the trial period that comes with this printer before you need your first refill & thus not get a sense for what subscription rate might be a good fit for your needs. During setup, you are notified that the printer will regularly check for new firmware to update the printer’s genuine HP toner enforcement, ostensibly to ensure you remain locked into using & purchasing ONLY genuine HP toner cartridges (if you’re not on an Instant Ink plan). So long as you’re comfortable with one of those two options for purchasing/ordering new toner (which always ends up costing far more than the price of a budget laser printer anyway), that about sums up the primary differences I can see between this M234sdw & the M234sdwe. But assuming you don’t have the benefit of a nearly identical HP LaserJet to compare this one to, what does the M234sdw bring to the table? PROs: - Super-fast! About 7 seconds for the first page to come spitting out while additional pages take less than 3 seconds; a dual-sided page took a bit less than 5 seconds to fully run through the auto-duplexer (NICE!). - Text is razor-sharp, clean, & crisp as you would expect & demand from a laser printer; straight lines, corners, & curves are all rendered with equal clarity & definition. - Grayscale graphics are produced without obvious banding, blockiness, or sloppy-looking stippling. Copies, especially of complex images & shapes, do not suffer from serious image degradation - The top-mounted auto document feeder holds about 40 sheets of paper; the output tray will accommodate about 100 pages, while the paper tray will give you a capacity of 150 sheets (which, I grant you, may feel just a tad cramped if your output needs lean more on the heavy side) - Network & printing connectivity options are extensive with dual-band WiFi, local USB, Ethernet, WiFi-direct printing, Air Printing, & printing via HP Smart App (which is really cool because you can access most functions & print documents from LITERALLY ANYWHERE via HP Smart.. - I had to go to HP’s support website for the M234sdw because I found conflicting information online, but it looks as if the maximum resolution of the printer’s output is 600 DPI which matches the optical resolution of the scanner itself…this means you won’t be making larger image/document scan files than necessary. - The paper tray’s fold-up/fold-down dust cover features a small LCD display with buttons for making copies with adjustments in image size down to 25% of the original or zoomed enlargements up to 400% as well as adjusting copy count, creating a single sided-page of 2-sided ID cards, adjusting brightness, wireless on-off control, & canceling or resuming the current print job. - The companion HP Smart app is a very user-friendly hub of utilities including monitoring printer & supplies status; changing scanner settings; creating shortcuts like automatically emailing a scanned copy or saving a document to GoogleDrive, Dropbox, etc.; creating various documents for crafts & projects (HP’s “Printables); accessing HP’s Mobile Fax–a capability that allows you to use the M234sdw as a bonafide FAX machine even if it’s not hooked up to a phone line, printing photos & documents; extracting text from documents, & adjusting multiple admin & advanced settings CONS: - The auto-document feeder is single-sided only; that’s to be expected in a budget-level laser–and at least you can duplex your printed documents, but a duplexing document feeder would have really knocked it out the park! - The paper tray sticks out of the front of the printer at ground level by nearly 5 inches. The tabs that secure the tray into the main body of the printer aren’t very long nor do they feel well-supported. I suggest you figure adding several inches front-to-back to the shelf-space you expected the printer to occupy, which is really unfortunate given the otherwise quite diminutive footprint. - The control panel buttons are sparse to the point that you can’t do much more while standing at the printer other than make photocopies–sadly, you can’t set up shortcut buttons/macros to scan a document that is automatically saved or sent to your computer or anything like that. All other functions must be done through a phone/PC app. At the very least, I would have loved a 1-sided/2-sided button for copies so I wouldn’t have to access my phone or PC if I needed to change the default copy/output settings. - The LCD display is not backlit though the buttons on the panel are–it would be nice to see the LCD readout in lower ambient lighting. & despite having an auto-off/sleep feature you can adjust in the admin menus, the network & power LEDs remain illuminated all the time which might be intrusive if you happen to keep the printer in the same room where others sleep. - Like 4 of our other 6 HP printers, this M234sdw was not configured on our network without incident. The HP Smart app would error out after the printer pulled an IP address from my router but would not authenticate to HP’s servers or finish device configuration (if you’ve searched HP printer support requests lately, you’ll see this is a pretty common occurrence). *** What worked for me was to let HP Smart’s “Setup a New Printer” wizard error out, then go back into the app & complete the setup by choosing “Finish setup or add a printer that’s already set up” from the add-printer dialog. This worked for my father’s troublesome HP LaserJet, too. Note that if HP Smart still doesn’t find your printer, you may need to check your router’s client table to see what IP address it was assigned & then tell HP Smart to connect to the printer directly by IP address (I had to do this for my PC, but not my phone). *** - HP support for the M234sdw can be confusing because most features are accessible through HP Smart, but there are other settings, monitoring programs, features, & troubleshooters that are available in the HP Easy Start setup package that you can download from HP’s website, & there are no less than 10 separate downloads (!!!) on the printer’s support page, many of which sound remarkably similar; if HP Smart failed you, it may not be completely obvious which alternative programs might be necessary. - As I observed with our other HP MFPs, all my Windows programs with TWAIN support baked in did not read the M234sdw as an available scanner even after it was online. I don’t know if it’s something I’m not seeing/doing correctly, but from what I can tell, scanning functions appear to be accessible only through HP Smart or a separate scanning program installed via one of several HP downloads (HP Easy Start, Basic, or Full HP Universal Scan packages). I do not know if things would be different if the printer was set up locally via USB. - If you loathe reading instructions, be aware there is a PIN code on a label inside the printer you’ll need to access any "Advanced Settings" submenus & adjustments–but if you just stumbled across those settings within the HP Smart interface, you might not know that the hidden PIN is the admin password being requested. Thankfully, the mechanism to open/close the top of the assembly doesn’t require much force, which is a nice departure from the concerning amount of pressure (and accompanying snapping sounds) it takes to get the lid open/closed on my LaserJet Tank MFP. If it sounds like I’m being overly critical, I’m not trying to be. For the price, the M234sdw really *is* a solid light-to-medium-duty MFP & a pretty good value for the asking price. It offers remarkably clean/clear print quality, incredibly speedy output, surprisingly decent graphics performance (maybe even slightly improved from what we saw with the M234sdwe), & a number of convenience features that make it fairly simple to use--especially if you are one of the lucky ones who can get it online without any of the networking or setup hiccups that seem to plague a number of users. Granted, negotiating many MFP functions through HP Smart may rub some advanced users the wrong way; and those lulled into thinking everything they need will be available via the simple/user-friendly HP Smart interface may be intimidated when they need to make adjustments in the more detailed & picture-free advanced setup/configuration pages. However, the fact that I’ve been willing to continually put up with such issues (and even recommend these budget LaserJets to my family) should hopefully say something. If you can get past some of the speedbumps I've indicated, there's still a lot to appreciate here--recommended.

I use it with a free standing Windows 10 desktop not connected to the internet and by WiFi to a laptop.

Works great. Appreciate one black cartridge rather than the expensive individual color tanks

Box cane with a used old product came with rusted wires and broken printer it even came with a black hair I’m so disgusted

I'm having a problem connecting my printer to HP Smart always error i tried many times i want to return it but the return window is closed yesterday.

My Epson 4850 print dried up after a year, and I do not print that much anymore, so I decided to go the laser printer route. I print for basic reasons i.e. shipping labels, travel itineraries, etc. sometimes far and in-between, so the most important thing for me is connectivity and consistent and efficient use. I went back and forth between this and the color version with the LCD screen for 2x the price, but ultimately decided on this. Despite never having the need to print in color, this printer is smaller in size, and we love the box shape, so it looks as good as a printer can on display. Also, the cartridge replacement process is very simple. Just open the machine, and slides in and out. This is so much better than some of the other machines out there. I had a couple initial troubles attempting to install the app / software, but it was my own fault for not following instructions. Once loaded, works great. Quick and easy 1 button copy and scan. HP Smart app works great for scan to email, and printing documents from email. For the price it couldn't be better for usage. If color is absolutely necessary for printing, then go with the next upgrade, but if not this is perfect! Very satisfied

I bought the HP LaserJet MFP M234sdw because I was tired of babysitting inkjets that acted like they needed emotional support to print a single page. This one? It minds its business and does its job. Setup was painless once I used the proper HP Smart app — not the random “helpful” links floating around online. After that, it connected, stayed connected, and hasn’t thrown a tantrum since. It wakes up fast, prints faster, and the pages come out looking clean and sharp every time. Toner replacement is straightforward and doesn’t require gloves, a prayer, or a YouTube tutorial. Scanning works well, and the ADF is surprisingly handy for a compact machine. If you want a printer that just works without drama, this is it. No flair, no nonsense, no excuses — exactly how a printer should behave. --- If you want it even more blunt, more sarcastic, more Michigan‑practical, or with a little extra Erv spice, I can tune it again.

Had this for a few weeks. I don't do a lot of printing, but it has been nothing but great. I haven't had one issue installing, using the app, or wireless printing, granted it only prints in black and white, but that's ok.

On the advice of the great sales clerk, we purchased this black and white laser printer. It is wonderful, easy to use, and gives us perfect black and white documents each time. Best printer we ever had.

I’ve been using this HP printer for a while now, and it strikes a great balance between reliability, print quality, and ease of use. HP has always been strong in everyday office performance, and this model continues that trend.

As with all the HP printers I've used in the last ten years, this printer is nothing short of top notch. This particular printer has less features than many of the others, All the pages I've printed have been clear and crisp, the paper isn't curled, and the printer doesn't seem to give off a lot of heat like many of the larger laser printers. Unpacking the printer is simple. It's small enough to manage easily. Just be sure to get all the shipping tape. I took a few pictures while unboxing. It's clear where the tape is, you just have to be sure to check all around it. The last step is loading paper and setting up. Setup is easy if you follow the directions and use the correct WiFi password or using ethernet. I set mine up using the wrong WiFi network, so I had to connect via ethernet to reset the printer and get it set up on the correct network. The onboard control panel accessible via the IP of the printer is relatively easy to use and has all the information you would ever want to know about the printer. The paper tray is convenient enough, and the display/controls on the paper tray "lid" are convenient. I would like to have seen the display screen backlit, however. The scanner works well, and the printer is quiet when in use. There isn't a lot of lag when printing, and multi-page print jobs finish quickly.

Very nice printer for a small office/home office. I liked how well built and versatile it is. They include a toner cartridge to get you going. It can print, scan and copy. It has a nice paper tray, about 150 sheets fit in there so you don't have to worry for a while. It has nice mono LCD screen indicator on the paper tray to. It also has an automatic document feed on top, for fast copies in example, then there is a flat bed scanner inside too. I love that it is auto duplex and its super fast in this mode (my old printer will take a millennium printing both sides of the paper, so I was greatly impressed), this mode will save you tons on paper. It can also use many types of media like envelopes, labels etc. It does not have fax functions, however it has tons of connectivity options. A USB port, an ethernet port and dual band Wi-Fi (both 2.4ghz and 5ghz). The easiest and best way to use it is connect it to your local network. That way you can control and use it over your network and also using the HP smart app on your phone or tablet, which I love. You can keep an eye on your toner level and print on the go from your phone too. If you need good a printing quality, fast and versatile printer for your home office/small office, this is the one for you!!!

Excellent reliable printing with easy setup for printing. Very good print quality. However the set up for scanning leaves a lot to be desired. It requires downloading an app and I am growing weary of searching for apps. Likewise, you need the app to be able to see the ink level. There is supposedly something that you can have on your desktop PC but I could not find it and was always driving to download the app. I really don't want HP informing or directing me to buy their ink cartridges.

I’ve liked HP for many years, their ink seems to last a long time. When our other printer died, I found this at Best Buy. I didn’t know at first that it is only B&W !! But I’m ok with it because I’ll never use color at my age. It’s a great printer! Easy setup, fast, I can’t speak highly enough about this printer. Thank you to the man in the Geek Squad who helped me make the decision to buy this one.

nice printer , right size for my work load. fast and reliable.

This laser printer is very easy to setup and get online for remote printing. The printing is sharp and clear. At this price, it’s a great home printer.

This printer replaces an old Konica Minolta commercial printer and it is better than the one I just replaced, easier to use and it has a smaller foot print on my desk area. Great buy for a black and white printer.

Really like this printer. It’s fast and easy to use plus it has a copier.

I've purchased this printer twice, for 2 members of my household. I have yet to run into any problem with them. This printer has performed like a workhorse for me. It is absolutely reliable, and prints pages out at a fast speed.