Review on HP Laserjet Pro M501dn (J8H61A): High-Performance Laser Printer with Advanced Features by Rance Riley

Update 10/21/20: I've changed my rating from one star to five stars because it's a really GREAT little printer now that it works. I spent 2 weeks on the phone with HP support waiting for parts, service etc. They eventually replaced the formatter card(?). Not sure what it is, but it looked like a printer's brain and now it works great! I printed two separate print jobs of 300 pages each last week and it blew them apart! I'm still using the starter toner that came with the printer. I can't wholeheartedly recommend the printer simply because it was a nightmare to get it to work and TWICE I've been told things by HP support that my service reps said weren't true (that the USB cable, the connecting the printer to my laptop had to be shorter). than 6 feet [so I ordered a new one]; and that the problems are due to the USB port on my laptop being 3.0 and not 2.0 like on the printer) so I don't fully trust the HP team. But in the future I'll just double check everything they tell me if it sounds wrong or doesn't solve the problem. I have had many small HP printers in the past and they have always worked great so now I expect good results from this mega printer! I bought this printer two months ago to replace a cheaper ink eater. I really wanted to love this printer and really liked it the first few times I used it to print a large document. But 5 days ago I tried to print 50 pages and it stopped after 20 pages. From that moment on, the printer threw a tantrum that made me hate him. It's stuck warming up, so the 'Status' and 'Error' lights keep blinking, which means it's not ready to print. Sometimes it warms up nicely and the display says it's done, but when I submit the job it might print a page or two and stop, or it might just print a blank page. In most cases, however, it does not help. The green status light may blink like it's getting an order, but nothing happens. The first day I had problems, I called HP support and they told me the USB cable I was using was too long. They said anything over 6ft could cause problems. So I ordered a new cable and received it within two days. Connected and the same old problems. I called HP and talked to them for 2 hours (firmware change, etc.). FINALLY we thought we fixed it and managed to print 80 pages. I didn't want to overheat the printer so I decided to wait until the next day to print the rest. The next day the printer started having the same seizures again, but HP support was unavailable as it was a Saturday. Luckily I had an additional 24/7 service plan from Assurion so I gave them a call. The tech told me to unplug everything and hold the power button for 30 seconds while it was off. This caused the printer to go through a warm-up period, but then it still wouldn't print. I tried plugging it into a different outlet and it worked 5 times in a row (by turning it off and on again) so I thought we fixed it. I managed to print 10 pages. Then he started throwing tantrums again. So today (Monday) I called HP support again and this time the guy let me look at my laptop's device manager and USB controllers and saw that the root hub is 3.0. and this printer only works with USB 2.0 ports. The rep said this meant my laptop wouldn't work with the printer and that I needed some sort of adapter that only an IT person could install. When I got on the phone with this representative, I found that he never answered my question about the printer being stuck during the warm-up period, so I called back and the new tech I spoke to got me to click the paperclip . to the back of the printer which did some sort of motor test and got it to print paper with a bunch of lines on it. The tech then told me to turn off the printer, then hold down the up arrow while holding the X button, then turn on the computer (still holding the buttons). Then a message appeared after the computer finished warming up. I can't remember what it said, except that it ended with "initialization". which I think meant something was initialized. And THAT caused the printer to walk past blinking green and red lights. So I called my IT pro to ask if he could get this adapter to make the USB 2.0 printer work with my 3.0 laptop and my IT pro said that's not true at all and that everyone IT -Profi knows that's not true. He said the 2.0 printer should work fine, which I also talked about in some materials I found online. So now I don't really trust HP reps (and yes I've spoken to real HP techs using the number on the warranty card).