GREAT Entry-Level All-In-One

Author's Rating:

Pros: Extremely easy to use, many features, WI-FI, scans to various file types

Cons: Paper feed only holds 100 sheets, no light on the front display

The Bottom Line: 
For a small home office or personal home use, this is a great entry level All-In-One machine that's fast, affordable and easy to use.

Author's Review
I've been looking to clean off my desk and I figured my best bet would be to replace my printer and scanner with an All-In-One.  However, this being my first All-In-One, I wasn't sure where to begin.  That's when I found the HP J4680 on sale at Staples.  The reviews were completely mixed making it a hard decision, but for the great price I thought I'd give it a try.  Boy, was I surprised to find this All-In-One would also be the first step towards my paperless home office!

The HP J4680 is a wireless (WiFi) Printer, Copier, Scanner and Fax Machine.  This means, I can use this machine from any computer on my network as long as I install the (somewhat big) software package.  Now, lets look at some of the features this bad boy has...

Printer
At 600x600 DPI for Black/White printing and up to 4800 x 1200 DPI for select color printing, the quality is better than I thought it would be. The printer does take a few extra seconds to get started and process the documents, but once it begins printing, it's pretty fast.  HP claims the J4680 prints up to 28 ppm in black/white and up to 22 ppm in color.  I did find the original ink cartridges to go a little fast, but I don't know if they were full or just "starter" ones. 

Quality wise, the J4680 does a great job for basic, around the home/office printing.  I still have my Epson Stylus Photo printer which does a better job at printing high quality photo's.  However, if you're not looking to print high quality pictures on photo paper, this does a great job with color and black/white printing!


Copier
The copier on this machine could not be any easier!  You can either open the top door and use the glass scanner to scan one page at a time, or use the top automatic feeder and insert several pages and it will copy one after another.  This definitely saves a lot of time!  You then have the option to either copy in Color or Black/White.  From the display, you can then choose the number of copies, reduce/enlarge the size, set the quality (Best, Normal, Fast), set the paper size (letter, legal, 5x7, etc.) and paper type (plain, photo, etc.), Lighter/Darker Brightness and finally, you can specify any enhancements you may want (Photo, text, Mix). 

One downside to the J4680 is that the paper tray only holds 100 sheets of paper and the top automatic feeder only holds 20 sheets of paper.  Either way, the J4680 allows you to copy up to 100 pages with a single press of a button. 

The copy scaling feature is another great option.  This lets you scale a document from 25% to 400% in size to make a document bigger or smaller.

There's no more running to the library or office supply store the next time I have to make a copy of something.  The only problem I've experienced with the copier is when I had some old, folded up paper and I unfolded it and tried to feed it in the top automatic feeder.  This experienced problems pulling the paper in one at a time, so I had to resort to the glass scanner and do one page at a time.

Scanner
The scanner part of the J4680 is where most of the thrills and frills can be found.  My wife used to be huge into scrap-booking (back in the day with her 35mm camera), which means we have a ton of printed pictures!  Now, she prefers the printed photo books that you can design and order online.  So, we've been scanning in a lot of those old 35mm pictures.  Normally, this would take A LONG time to accomplish because I could only scan one picture at a time, or multiple pictures and then have to crop each one out in PhotoShop.  This scanner allows you to place multiple pictures on the flatbed scanner and then scan each one to an individual file!  A HUGE time saver!

While all scanners can scan an image or document to a picture file, an "OH WOW Factor" I found was the ability to scan an image or document to Email, jpg/tiff/png/bmp/etc.., Microsoft Word, and best of all... a pdf!  What a great way to get rid of unnecessary paper from my filing cabinet and on top of my desk.  Now, when I scan in all those crazy rebates and personal documents, I can just store them on my computer or flash drive as a pdf and never have to print them unless I actually need them!  I love this feature!

Finally, the J4680 comes complete with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.  What the heck is OCR?!?!?  This allows you to scan in a printed document and then edit it on your computer (in a program like Microsoft Word).  Granted, OCR software is not 100% accurate, it does a pretty good job from what I've seen.  Plus, it sure beats having to retype the entire document in again!


Fax Machine
Much like the rest of the J4680, the faxing portion of this machine is just as easy to use!  From the display, simply select the "Fax" option (Black/White or Color) and then follow the prompts to enter the fax number.

If you're looking to eliminate extra paper (and who isn't), then the Fax to PC option is for you!  With Fax to PC, you can store digital copies of your RECEIVED black/white faxes directly on your computer, eliminating the hassle of dealing with paper files. These files are saved in TIFF format and you'll receive a notification with a link to the folder where the fax is saved.

In the Box
* HP Officejet J4680 All-in-One
* HP 901 Tri-color Officejet Ink cartridge
* HP 901 Black Officejet Ink cartridge
* Software CD
* Set Up Poster
* Fax Getting Started Guide
* Power supply and power cord
* USB cable
* Phone cord

Setup
I could not believe how easy the setup was for this printer, scanner, copier and fax machine!  The directions were easy to follow and all the steps you needed to follow were right there, on the display of the printer!  Aligning the ink cartridges was as simple as printing the test page and placing it on the scanner.... DONE!  Setting up the the fax machine involved answering a few simple questions (like do I have voicemail setup on this line, how many rings does it take for the answering machine to pickup, etc.)... DONE!

I found this printer so easy to use and setup, that I talked my father into purchasing the same one.  He absolutely HATES setting anything up on his own because, "it always asks some question" that he doesn't know the answer to.  Even he was pleasantly surprised by the easy setup.  When he asked how to use the thing, I told him just to press the left/right arrow by the display to select what he wants to do (fax, copy, scan, etc.) and then follow the prompts on the display.  Since that day, I've never had to explain to him again how to use it.  He uses it every day to send/receive faxes, copy documents, print, scan, etc.  My father can perform basic computer functionality (check his email, surf the web, play a game, etc.), so for him to be able to operate the HP J4680 all on his own, this is a HUGE plus!!!