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I have been test driving the new HP Office Jet Pro 8500 printer this week.  The last couple of days I have been exploring some of the other features that this all-in-one can offer.

The printer has slots that allow for many standard sized photo cards to be inserted directly into the printer.  Since our camera's card does not fit one of the slots sizes on the printer, I used the front USB port to serve as a bridge.  It was reasonably easy to use this way, and the colors on the printed photo were excellent.  The print and copy quality of the printer would allow for reproduction of brochures and other promotional materials at a level of quality that would be more than satisfactory for most small businesses.  I printed a full size photo on an 8 ½ by 11 sheet that had bold colors and a reasonable picture clarity.

When it comes to using a new fax machine or scanner I tend to want to curl up in a fetal position in the corner.  It is a situation where the Luddite in me comes out in full force.  I was one of the very last in my circle of entrepreneur friends to install a fax machine back in the late 1980s.  I claimed it was because I did not see the cost benefit, which was partly true, but it was also because the thought of having to learn another new technology overwhelmed me.  After all, I had just learned how to use the personal computer only a couple of years before that time, and I was still getting over that trauma.

Luckily, the fax and scanner controls are simple enough on this machine for even someone like me to figure out without too much hyperventilating. 

The feature I was most interested in trying out was that it is wireless.  I tend to roam about our home with my laptop - although my home office is in our upstairs loft, I spend many mornings blogging and catching up on things on the back porch, or on colder or rainy days working in our family room.

To use the wireless feature, the printer has to be connected to your wireless router.  Unfortunately, our wireless hub is set up at my wife's computer station at her kitchen desk.  The printer is just too large to put by her spot, so I cannot try this out until I move the modem and router to my loft office where I keep my printer.  That project will have to wait until things calm down from this busy spring term.

As for my conclusion about this printer?  It is a great workhorse for small businesses than need a reasonably robust and versatile all-in-one.  It is probably overkill if you have only occasional or very light use of its features.  But if your business regularly needs high quality printing, faxing and scanning, this machine is a reasonable value, as it is comparable in quality to a laser printer and much more efficient to operate.

As part of this blog marketing initiative, my readers can receive a coupon code to get 20% off the HP Officejet Pro 8500 Wireless All-in-One by clicking this link.

(This is a sponsored post).

My test drive of the new HP Office Jet Pro 8500 printer continued this evening.

I had several long documents that I needed to print this evening at my home office.  Being a bootstrapper at heart - or as some in my family might say, "cheap" - I like the relatively low cost of printing with this machine.  Inkjet is always going to be lower cost than a laser, and this printer seems to perform at a reasonably comparable speed to my HP laser printer at the university.  It has a quality that is clean and crisp.  This inkjet has certainly come a long way from the models I had even a few years ago in terms of print quality.

HP claims that the printer will save 50% over a color laser printer.  Add to this that it can print front and back - saving paper in quite a few of my print jobs - and the fact that you can recycle the cartridges through HP for free, you have a fairly economic printer.

OK, but shouldn't a bootstrapper buy the lowest cost printer on the market?   Not always, as I like to remind people that bootstrappers are cheap, but cheap with a purpose.

It is possible to create a lot of materials that not that long ago would require working with a printing company.  The printed materials that you can create with this printer will be considerably less expensive than if you have to send it out.  And it will look much more professional than the low cost printers I have traditionally had in my home office in the past.

Simple stationary, brochures, and so forth can be created with this printer that is perfectly acceptable for the purposes of many small businesses.  By tying into HP's creative studio, it is possible to create some professional looking materials.  Be aware that some of the links through this site do carry additional costs.

So what don't I like so far?  The one main drawback is that the machine is a bit noisier than I am used to with the smaller printers I have used in the past.  But all in all, so far so good.

As part of this blog marketing initiative, my readers can receive a coupon code to get 20% off the HP Officejet Pro 8500 Wireless All-in-One by clicking this link.

(This is a sponsored post).

I am taking part in something that my colleague Dr. Robert Lambert would call the new age of marketing. 

Through my association with Forbes.com, I was contacted to try out a new model of HP printer, the Office Jet Pro 8500.  They said that they would send me the printer for my home office down here in Franklin, Tennessee.  I was asked to set it up, use it, and blog about it.

While I have been taking ads at my blog for quite a while, this is the first time I have been asked to integrate information about a product in my blog by a sponsor.

I reminded them that I am a blogger, and as such, tend to rant on and on about what I think about things.  I asked them, "Do you understand what that might mean?  I will not say something unless I really believe it to be so.

They assured me that they understood - they get it.

Since I have had HP printers in the past and been satisfied with them, I agreed to give their new printer a test drive.

So let me be completely clear - this is a sponsored project, so this is a sponsored post.

Now I am like a kid on Christmas when I get a new piece of equipment - I can't wait to open the box and see what is inside.  Unfortunately, the box arrived the day I flew out to California with our students this past week.  So tonight is the first chance I have had to open the box, see what is inside, and set it up.

This is Not Your Father's Oldsmobile

As I opened the box my first thought was, "This puppy is really big.  Will it even fit on my desk??"  Well it did - as it turned out its footprint was not that much bigger than my old printer and it fit just fine on my file cabinet.

While a bit more complicated than my earlier, more basic printers, the set-up was not overwhelming.  The pictures helped this Luddite blogger make it though with only a couple of moments of head scratching.

The print heads and ink cartridges were easy to access and easy to install - they are accessible directly from the front of the machine.

Then I turned it on...but, all I got was an error.

I looked up the on-line support and found the number for phone support, as I don't do well with on-line chat support systems. 

I was connected quite quickly, and found out that I had a static problem.  It was easily solved.  Then the support person offered to help me with the rest of the installation, which I gladly accepted.  All in all, it was excellent service.

As part of this blog marketing initiative, my readers can receive a coupon code to get 20% off the HP Officejet Pro 8500 Wireless All-in-One by clicking this link.

(This is a sponsored post).