Customer Reviews
hp 2710 multifunction 
2007-03-27
I rev'd this for a christmas present and used it very little, all of a sudden the carriage quit. I called HP and talked to a man that I couldn't even understand, but basically he told me it wasn't worth fixing buy a new one. So I did I bought a Canon. That will be my last HP.
bubblee from KC,KS
NEVER A SOFTWARE UPDATE 2006-11-29
Stay away from this careless company's products. The machine may function well, but HP does not provide any software updates for its products. As a consequence, my 2710 no longer operates in the Windows XP environment, although it worked in this environment when I paid money for it. Technical support told me "We are very aware of this problem and are working on it." That's nice, but I cannot use the scan functions at all from the PC, nor will you be able to.
Good all-in-one when it works; installing (software) difficult 2006-10-14
Full Review
I bought this all-in-one because I needed the scanner and copier functionality and didn't want separate devices for this. I also needed Mac compatibility and good overall quality. The wireless networking is a bonus for me, I have not yet used it but plan to do so in the future.
I bought it together with the duplex unit so that I can print double sided (note that the printer will wait 10s before continuing printing the backside; this is to let the ink dry). This unit sticks out of the back so it makes the footprint of the printer larger. Also realize that the exit tray sticks out in the front so that the entire device becomes quite bulky (50x50cm footprint). Note that there is no document feeder, so if heavy multiple page faxing/scanning is important to you, the HP is perhaps not the best choice.
I have used now all functions, except the memory card reader and wireless capabilities, and I can say that everything works as advertised: prints are fast and of good quality (sharp to the naked eye; only with magnifying glass you can see rough edges). Scans are also fast, and the copying function is really nice to have. For me these functions were the most important so I am satisfied. Occasionally, I make a photo print (also good), but here my requirements are not so high. It is possible to use special 6-ink color and gray ink cartridges for photos ($$$) so I expect that very good image quality is possible here, but I haven't tried this out yet.
However, the software is not user friendly: perhaps I did something wrong, but the basic installation took me almost 4 hours ! With occasional hang-ups of the system, letting me sitting not knowing what to do. I simply fail to understand why I need to install 350MB just to make a printer work! And this is only the 'basic' installation ('full' installation doubles this). Everything works fine now, but it left me with an uncomfortable feeling.
Bottom line: machine works fine and provides many functions in one device. I can recommend it. The only case in which I would look further is if heavy printing/scanning and photoprinting is very important to you. In that case, I think the HP is expensive (ink) and lacks a document feeder.
Update 9-sep-2005:
I have tried to install the 2710 on a Mac using Airport (wireless connection). I did not succeed. even not with 6 hour continuous support from HP help desk. End conclusion was that, after installing new drivers (even Mac OS was reinstalled!) there were still some settings within Mac OS not completely right so that at startup, the connection was not emmediately reestablished. After so many hours I finally gave up: now I use the 2710 just with a usb cable and that works fine. But this should not happen when you pay a premium for wireless 'capabilities' !
Update 21-sep-2006:
I have had several problems with ink cartridges. I always use original HP cartridges but now I have had a few times serious alignment problems: lines get printed only half: lower half is invisble. Self-cleaning, cartridge-realignment did not help. Only after cleaning them manually with some cloth, reinserting them, printing at least 10 'test pages' the printer works again as it should. But it left me with an uncomfortable feeling: I still do not know the cause, and I expect it will happen again in the future.
There I downgrade my review to 2-3 stars: in general the printer works ok, but too many glitches and software issues for me to recommend it to anyone. My next printer will no longer be an inkjet from HP.
Update 12-oct-2006:
New problems, this time the printer says "out of paper, press OK to continue". Well, I have filled the paper tray and the printer refuses "to continue" no matter what I do. Again I lost half an hour troubleshooting this thing. Eventually it worked again, but I have no idea what I did wrong or should do next time. I downgrade my review to 1 star: just too many annoying problems. I will not buy a similar HP printer again.
Pros
Printing, scanning, and copying quality, user friendly control panel.
Cons
Installing software, annoying problems, no document feeder, ink alignment.
The Bottom Line
This all-in-one performs ok when it works. No sheet feeder. Software installation is very difficult.
Recommended:
No
Major software issues 2006-08-14
After installing and uninstalling the software and patches ad nauseum, I cannot get rid of the DEP error on my screen. Tech support is terrible and told me my operating system is corrupt and to reload it. On Google, if you search on Photosmart and DEP, there are 36,000 hits discussing this issue. I will never buy another HP product in my lifetime.
Major Scanning Problem 
2006-06-27
I am using the 2710 in a Mac environment. It works well except for one major design oversight. It will not scan a multi-page document into a single PDF file. If you have a ten page form or document that you need to scan into PDF so you can email it off to your lawyer or broker or whatever, you end up with ten PDF files, one for each page. Ridiculous. The response from HP was that since the product does not have a document feeder, it can only scan one page to one file. That makes no sense whatsoever. It could easily be the case that you need to scan pages from a book or other material that will not go through a document feeder anyway. Besides, flatbed scanners of all ilks (including HP) can be used to scan many pages into a single file. The worst part is that it would be a trivial software tweek to enable it to do the right thing but their latest driver (June 2006) does not fix this glaring oversight.
Great printer, wish it lasted longer 
2008-01-28
I owned this printer for about 3 years. In that time it gave me very good service.
The good: I bought this for its 4-in-1 capabilities and wireless Ethernet support. Like other all-in-one printers it's a compromise of features. It prints basic documents just fine. It does a very good job with photos, though not as good as a dedicated photo printer. Since there's no auto-feed you have to place each page manually for fax/scan/copy which is fine for my occasional use of those features.
The bad: Like all Photosmart printers, it comes with a huge bloat of crappy software. I eventually uninstalled most of it. I'd recommend installing the basic print driver on most computers and limit where you install the full bundle. You lose some of the esoteric features, but all the basic stuff still works. After paring down the software it was largely trouble-free.
The worst: the last cartridge change did the printer in. As others have experienced here, there's a metal spring in the cartridge bay that can break loose which then damages the innards of the printer when you insert the cartridge. Used replacements are available aftermarket, but as with all these printers it's not worth the expense. Of course, you discover this problem just when you've shelled out $$$ for new cartridges. I believe that all the HP printers that take the 95/98 cartridges suffer from this design flaw, though more recent ones may have improved the design.
Overall: I was really happy with this printer up until it died. :) I'm glad I got 3 years out of it, unlike some folks who've had them die much sooner. If you have or are considering one of these, be super careful when inserting cartridges. Check the metal spring that juts out into the cartridge bay to ensure it's not loose. And if it seems that the cartridge isn't going in smoothly, don't jam it in!
Basically a expensive disposable printer 2007-12-11
I had just installed my 2nd print cartridge in this printer and it started getting a cartridge error. I could see that a tiny piece of flimsy plastic had broken that holds the wire that indicates the cartridge is installed. It was no longer under warranty so I called around to find someone who could fix it. I was told by the service person at the store where I bought it that they just tell people to throw that printer out & buy a new one because it will cost too much to fix. Between the printer & cartridges which I cannot use, I spent almost $500. It is only 2 years old & used very little. I couldn't even find the part listed on HP's site. I'll never buy another HP printer.
Amazingly Bad 2007-11-27
I have spent HOURS, and I am NOT exaggerating, trying to install and use this printer. The list of what goes wrong is endless! I have always been impressed with HP products and own an HP Media Center Desktop. I thought this printer would be super compatible. Boy was I wrong! I have installed and uninstalled this printer so many times that I have nightmares about it. The software installation itself takes almost an hour on a fast computer, then most of the time it will stop at "97%" finished then the installation aborts and then the software cleans up the the installation files which consumes even more time. Then to add insult to injury it doesn't really clean up all the files requiring you to delete a printer that was never installed. Otherwise, when reinstalling, you get a message that the printer is already installed and the installation aborts again. In fact you have to download a special utility from HP to completely delete the installation.
When I install the printer on my home wireless network the computer will not recognise it even though the printer says it is on the network.
HP has work arounds for many of these problems, none of which work for me.
My advice is to NEVER buy this printer. It is a very expensive door stop.
The few times I got it to print, the print and color quality was excellent, but a printer that won't print is not much good.
I finally got a Lexmark X9350 for less than $200 which installed on first try on my wireless network and works like a champ. Although it is not as good a printer as far as print and picture quality, this is far overshadowed by the fact that it actually prints!
Pretty good.... until it died 2007-09-17
I had this printer for a couple of years. For the most part it did the job for me and I was happy with its performance. Networking with an ethernet cable so that all the mac and PC machines in my house could print to it was fairly easy....
Then last week it said I had a paper jam in the carraige. After hours spent diagnosing the problem online and going through step after step to fix it, nothing worked. There is no paper jam... there is just a printer that no longer works because it thinks there is a paper jam.
I've decided to give the Canon MX700 Office All-In-One a try. It's brand new so not many reviews out for it yet but I've heard good things about the Canon's and this one seems to do everything I need for only $200 dollars. I'll try to review it here on Amazon after a few months of use.
HP Photosmart 2710 2007-05-30
I loved this photo printer so when my boss wanted one for her desk this was the first printer that I wanted to purchase.
