Customer Ratings & Reviews

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'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.

Set up was quick & easy via Ethernet. Print quality is excellent and very fast. Disappointed that, although it will print automatic duplex, it only does so on 8 1/2 x 11" paper - we often use other sizes plus custom sizes which are not supported for duplex. If HP added support for all paper sizes it would be a standout printer!

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 swear by HP printers. I had a 1320 HP LaserJet, that gave me great service for nearly 20 years, and decided to upgrade last week to this new HP M234sdw. I am glad I did! it's fast, first print is on its way in seconds, nice clear, clean, and sharp text and graphics. It's easy to operate and set up also. Just get it-- you will love it like I do! Stephen/Seattle

Easy setup. Nice size fits perfectly in the spot where we needed it. Prints quickly.

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.

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.

I decided to explore laser printers due to the high cost of color printing, and I'm thoroughly impressed with the HP LaserJet MFP M234sdw. As expected from a trusted brand like HP, it delivers outstanding quality, fast print speeds, and convenient two-sided and wireless printing. This all-in-one laser printer truly has everything I need.

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 easy to set up and connect to. I love the 2-sided, fast printing. Great price, too.

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 love my new HP Laserjet Printer…rasy to set up and use and fast printing!

Sharp fast printing, easy connections from computer and phone.

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.

Works very well for me. Print quality good, Pages per minute fits my business needs

Easy to use, prints quickly, does what it should. Great printer for the price!

What's not to like about a laser printer that offers 30 ppm, Dual Band WiFi, USB, wired ethernet, ADF, 2-sided printing and an app that allows printer monitoring from your phone? I am in love with this printer. If I was forced to say anything negative, it would be that I'm used to a more comprehensive and informative display and it took a bit to learn the sparse display on the paper tray lid.

This is the second one I purchased to replace ink jet printers. Now that I’m retired I don’t print as much as in the past and don’t need color printing. This printer set up easily on my WiFi prints very quickly and has excellent quality print. I highly recommend this affordable and excellent printer.