HP - LaserJet Pro MFP M428fdw Black-and-White All-In-One Laser Printer - White

Having a vast amount of experience with HP printing devices over the years, I can confidently state that potential purchasers should try to avoid this product for a while. HP is known for clunky software/firmware implementation and there are vast resources available which can be read online & support this historical context. Immediately upon setting up my printer, I went through the steps of installing the various software packages available on their support website. There's what is called a "Full" package, there are "Universal" and "Basic" driver packages as well. HP installation routines will commonly crash or become stuck with no apparent reason. To compound the issues further - that I faced - the internal printing mechanism produced some horrendous sounds when it went through it's initial 'power-up' sequences for the very first time. I heard what sounded like some extreme mechanical collisions or slamming. Once I ran through several install/uninstall attempts I was finally able to get the printer to work properly utilizing the "Universal" driver package. Printing, scanning, copying and communication to the MFP's internal configuration all appeared somewhat normal. I did perform a firmware update along the way but this new firmware didn't fix any of the error codes I experienced. When I queried the "event log" of the printer (through an Ethernet connection), I discovered critical failure notifications. I've attached the screen shot of what I first observed. I also receive consistent error messages that the printer is out-of-paper at the end of print jobs. Something is terribly amiss here. I've attached a screen capture of that as well. HP Smart is an application that will automatically install in the background of a Windows 10 machine, and this software will not only provide error messages and configuration settings - but it also links into something called the HP print & scan doctor. Essentially a self help diagnostic app. The HP Smart app is a prime mover in the popping up 'out-of-paper' notifications in the Win 10 notification tray. I do have some good things to say about this printer. It's faster than the M426 generation and looks to employ more power saving and toner saving feature controls than it's predecessors. Perceived sound can be highly subjective but my particular unit seems much louder than older HP MFP's I've used. Perhaps this is related to some internal, mechanical issues. The Good: Faster and noticeably more precise toner application - translated - clearer printing. Compact in overall size & work space footprint. The Bad: Poor software implementation and a tedious installation experience. Louder in operation. False positives with the consistent, out of paper error messages. Prone to "Fuser Drive (internal hardware) 50.04.00 Errors". I can not recommend the HP - LaserJet Pro MFP M428fdw printer at the present time.

The LaserJet Pro MFP M428fdw is surprisingly compact for being capable of so much. I was expecting a huge box, but when it arrived I was pleasantly surprised by the small footprint. Setup was easy. I used the printer's touchscreen to set up a wifi connection (a USB connection could also be used). It connected easily to my internet, and my mobile devices saw it immediately as a printer on the network. I printed documents from an iPad and an Android phone, and that was before I did the PC setup! Loved the connectivity. There is an option if you are an IT person and want to set the printer up for an office environment to do so. Since I am using this in my personal office, I did not try setting up the office environment option. I went to HP's site and downloaded the PC software, including the scanning tool. What's great about this, the printer can scan two-sided documents via the auto-feeder and send them to any computer that you have the scanning software installed on, as well as handheld devices. I tried this with several documents, and only had one glitch where I had to power the printer off and then back on because the scanner locked up. The restart corrected the issue, and I haven't had one since. I love the fact that this unit can print two-sided copies as fast as other units I have had that only print one side. I printed a 17-page peer-review on leadership studies in less than 7 seconds (double-sided). Simply impressive! Print quality was outstanding. I had several other folks send docs to be printed. Both the Macs and the Windows PC's we tested found the printer on my network immediately and printed to it without having to do anything special. I tested the fax component of the machine (yes, people do still actually use those...) by faxing a 6-page document to my workplace fax machine and then back. No issues getting dial-tone, no issues sending the fax, and I set it up to print me a success page after it was sent. In an office environment, or even if you need a high-speed, quality printer at home to scan, fax and print double-sided black and white copies, you can't do much better than this HP. I can't think of an all-in-one printer that I have liked as much as this one, thus the 5-star review. Highly recommended!

HP is my go-to company for printers, and sometimes, scanners. The MFP M428fdw is a fast, very good quality printer, scanner and fax machine. I didn’t test the fax because...who is faxing? The build quality is high and it seems robust enough for home, SoHo and small office environments. Scanning and printing are fast, with very good quality. Downsides? The app you download has struggled with connectivity for me. This may not be the same for you, depending on your WiFi and OS situation. I’m running Windows 10 Pro over a WiFi sub network of our core Ethernet network. The unit is attractive, quick, quiet and I’m not raving about it, but I will recommend the product.

This is a great printer and scanner. The HP Smart App works perfectly with this printer and I love scanning things to my phone using the app. It is black and white only and the paper tray is letter only (you have to manually feed longer sheets). I also had issues with scale when printing from my phone using the native Apple print function (easily fixed by printing from the HP app). This printer is very compact for everything it does. It has a slower quiet mode, but it is already much quieter than my other printer in normal mode. It also is very nice looking and I had no issues with using the touch screen. A USB cable is included and a phone line for the fax. I didn’t need them thanks to being able to print wirelessly and scan using my phone. It also has a USB port for a thumbdrive. I would definitely recommend this multifunction printer based on the app and ease of use.

I've been looking for a laser printer that would not break the bank for lots of printing on a small home office. Finally found it! Box was a little heavy, but the printer feels compact and solid. It has a scanner, printer fax. They even included the necessary toner to start printing. Setup was easy. Make sure you have an internet connection, because the software has to be downloaded. But after doing so, the install was easy, I was able to set it up with my wifi network and now I can print from anywhere. Print quality is great, as expected from a laser printer and fast. I just looked around and the replacement toners are around $59 to $79, but they last long. The LCD screen was big and easy to read, even for my aging eyes! I highly recommend this all in one for anyone with a small office/home office!

HP Laser Jet Pro MFP M428fdw I find this to be a decent B&W laser printer that seems to largely perform as advertised. Packaging was easy to handle and instructions were easy to follow. I set this up in a home environment using a Windows 10 laptop connected to the internet via wifi. I am running a higher end AC wifi router. Duplex printing and scanning worked as expected. I found the print speed to be as advertised at about 40ppm. Print quality was also good and consistent from page to page. I was not overly impressed with the scanning quality. The document feeder had a tendency to pull pages in slightly crocked and the resolution of the scans was too low in my opinion. I calculated that the cost of running this unit is about 3.5 cents/page + paper cost based on a standard HP 58A cartridge with a 3k page life at about $105 through the HP Shopping app that loads automatically. I was not able to get scan to email from the app on my laptop to work. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I’m sure I could look it up online and get it to work, but I got frustrated and gave up on that part. I was able to scan to email directly from the printer without any issues. The unit also copies easily. The touch screen is easy to navigate and fairly intuitive if you have spent any time around HP printers. I was able to print directly from my android cell phone without having to install any additional apps. The printer showed up on my phone automatically because my phone was on the same wifi network. It supports a wide array of mobile printing platforms from Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc. I also turned off wifi and plugged directly in via usb. Everything worked perfectly. The installation I will describe in a minute set up all forms of connectivity at once. All in all, I like this unit and would recommend it to anyone looking for a quick B&W Laser Printer that is easy to set up and use (except for the scan to email from a computer). Now I will walk you through my setup experience. I did not set up the hard-line network connection or the fax functionality as my home network is not conducive to those features. Upon opening the box, I saw right away that they had a diagram explaining the best way to remove the unit from the box. This is helpful as the unit is a bit bulky and heavy, weighing in at about 29lbs. Following these simple instructions made it easy to remove. Included in the box was the printer, HP toner (preinstalled), a power cord, a USB printer cable and a phone cable for the fax functionality. The first thing the instruction book has you do is set up the paper tray. It is fairly simply. Just pull it out of the unit and adjust sliding guide rails to match your paper size. I set up for standard 8.5x11 paper. I did realize the hard way that the unit needs to be on a hard, flat surface in order for the paper tray to slide easily. I initially had it sitting on a folding chair with a padded seat. It would not slide back in until I put it on a hard, flat surface. I should have known better, but here is a chance for you to make fun of me and learn from my mistakes. After setting up the paper tray, I removed all of the tape holding the doors and units together, and plugged in the power cords as instructed. I did NOT plug in the USB cable as the instructions did not tell me to do so. I then went to the web site as instructed and chose to use the Easy Start wizard to set up the printer. After my laptop downloaded the installer application, I tried to launch it only to find that Windows threw a warning because it is not a Microsoft verified app. I simply told my laptop to “Install Anyway” and had no issues. The app automatically detected the printer in my house even though I was not physically connected to it. I’m not sure if it used Bluetooth or Direct Connect functionality to accomplish this, but it worked very well. I then chose the Auto Wireless Setup option. The software then automatically joined the printer to my home network so that I could print over wifi. It also set up wifi direct and prompted me to turn on device sharing on my laptop to make everything work. You don’t need to know what all that means. The point is, it works if you click your way through the setup application. It then downloaded the full featured driver and software set for the printer. The current software package is 277mb. The HP website was quite slow. Even on my high-speed internet connection, it took almost 20 minutes to download the software. That was probably a fluke as HP isn’t normally a slow website for me. Once installation started, it pretty much took care of itself. It automatically loaded 10 apps over the course of about 5-7 minutes. The installation window disappears and reappears several times during this process. Just be patient. It works. It will tell you when it is complete. After installation said it was complete, the fax setup wizard popped up. There is a skip button that I clicked since I don’t have a fax line here at home. It then had me register the device. I did note that the HP website I used to start this whole process never closes on its own. Once you get to this stage you can simply close your web browser. I also noted that the printer rebooted automatically after I finished the software installation. I’m not sure what it was doing, but I could not print to it until after that reboot. If it doesn’t automatically reboot and you can’t print to it, you might need to power cycle it once to get it going. There was a 2nd instruction sheet in the box that tells you how to update the firmware. It is simple to follow. You just go to the HP support website and download the firmware updater. I followed the instructions, but when I got to the actual update process, it told me that I already had the latest firmware. I would recommend checking for firmware updates when you set up the machine just in case they have released something new since this review. The installation put 4 icons on my desktop. The scanning app, printer assistant, shopping, and a setup icon for the printer and scanner doctor app. The Printer Assistant is really all you need to keep handy. It has shortcuts to everything else built into the interface. The scanning app make it easy to scan to your computer in either jpg or pdf. As I said earlier, I couldn’t get scan to email working and gave up since it wasn’t important to me. I found the assistant app easy to navigate and pretty intuitive. There are more advanced setting available for custom network configurations and such, but I did not need to use those options in my simple home network. I am an experience IT professional, however, so I looked through the more advanced settings and surmised that it should be relatively easy for an IT technician to set this up in a standard domain environment. That’s about it. I hope you have found this review helpful.

There are two aspects to a review of this printer—of the printer/scanner/copier/fax machine itself and of the setup process, the latter of which was anything but trivial, at least for me. First, as a printer, this is an HP Laserjet. That’s all I should really have to say. The print quality is going to be wonderful because HP is the gold standard of laser printers, having practically invented them and having been in the business of making them for more than three decades. This printer is no different. I’ve owned or used many HP Laserjets starting in the late 1980s. The build quality, smoothness of operation, and print quality of this printer are all excellent. There are three printer trays, so you can add rarely-used types of paper (colored paper or envelopes, for instance) in one tray without disturbing the store of normal paper in another tray. The scanner function works fine and is easily controlled with the Windows SCAN program. Scanning right at the printer works well, too, as does copying as well as does printing directly from a flash drive connected to one of the printer’s USB ports, so long as what you want to print is a pdf file. The printer comes out of the box with a toner cartridge installed, so getting it up and printing is no more complicated than removing shipping tape here and there and plugging it in. Connection to a computer (let’s call it the host computer) via USB cable is a simple matter as well, and the setup process has you visiting the HP website to download and install the drivers as well as install what’s called the HP “Smart App” to also control the printer. Where I ran into some problems in setup was in getting the printer to connect to a remote computer (one not connected to the printer by a USB cable) wirelessly. Connecting the printer to your wireless network is simple and is done via a wizard accessible through the printer’s touchscreen. Just select your network, input the password, and you’re done. Then you go to the remote computer and add the printer as you would add any printer. But you’re presented with a couple of options here. If you have set the printer up on the host computer to be a “shared” printer, you’ll find it on the list of available printers when you go to add the printer to the remote computer. The process is straightforward and involves installing the same HP Smart App that was installed on the host computer. But you are also presented with a second option in installing the printer on the remote computer, and this is supposed to be one of the great features of this printer. By having it connected directly to your wireless network, you can also, in the Add Printer section of Windows, add it as a “Direct Wireless” printer. Connection in this manner allows printing to the printer without the host computer even being turned on, which is always a necessity when printing to a network printer that is hard-wired to a host computer. And this is where I ran into problems. No matter what I did, I could not get the remote computer to print to the printer. If I uninstalled the Direct Wireless printer and installed it as a network printer shared by the host computer, I had no problems. But I could not install it the Direct Wireless way, which was disappointing as this is supposed to be, as I noted above, one the printer’s significant advantages and one I was hoping to use. So it was off to chat with HP on their support site, and after about 45 minutes of interaction with the tech (who was quite patient with me and quite helpful), which included several minutes of his assuming control of my computer via a remote-desktop hookup, he solved the problem by creating a new, separate TCP/IP port for this printer. Once that was done, everything worked fine. It’s just unfortunate to have to go through this process at all. I have been buying and setting up printers since the 1980s, and I’ve rarely encountered a situation where I wanted to set the printer up as a network printer and I did not have one kind of problem or another. It’s usually a “printer offline” problem, but this time it was something new and something different. So I give the printer four stars. As I noted at the top, as a printer/scanner/fax/copier, it works great, and I would have expected nothing less. But setup, at least for me, took half a day to accomplish because I tried several other approaches first (including the time-honored “uninstall/reinstall”) before resorting to an online chat. I can’t say that another person will experience the same problems I did or, conversely, will have the installation process go smoothly. My experience might be an outlier. But I can only speak from my experience, and I consider myself a pretty computer-sophisticated person who has built several computers on his own as well as having, as noted above, installed many printers of all types over the years.

The HP M428mdw is packed with office support features - it's a sharp 1200x1200 laser printer, a flatbed scanner, a simple copier, and (if you ever need it) even a fax machine. Printer output is fast and clean, just be careful with parts like the slide-out paper support tray because everything is very lightweight and fragile, certain to break under rough handling. Paper transport is a bit noisy, but not too bad. For the price, though, it's a great value.