HP PhotoSmart PSC 2610 All-in-One Printer
Index

Compras Nikon
Bluetooth
Make this versatile printer "action central" by networking it to all the PCs in your home. Everyone will have dibs on the same fast, crisp black text and great color printing, photo editing with HP Image Zone, red-eye removal, and lots more.

Features:Note: An integrated digital media card reader is included.

1 Major problems with software
I just bought the Photosmart 2610xi and I have had 2 days worth of headaches trying to get the software installed. I've received one fatal error after another only to be told how to correct it by an HP technician THEN only to have MORE errors pop up. After spending an hour and a half on the phone w/ a technician again today and downloading updates, I was told to expect to spend another FOUR TO FIVE HOURS on the phone with a technician to install all of the downloads. I'm sorry, but I don't have time for this....HP you need to figure out how computers work b/c mine is a basic Dell. I am not sure that I'll ever buy HP again b/c of the software.
2 Great printer...typical poor software (still)...
In the end, I only have myself to blame. I knew HP had lousy software the last time I tried using an HP inkjet printer back in 2000. Back then, HP tech support tried asking for so much free GDI memory that only a clean machine with no installed software could achieve those levels. But hope springs eternal, and I thought that 5 years would be enough for HP to hire some decent programmers. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

I wanted to have this printer to replace an aging scanner and be able to print out quality photos. Shouldn't be an issue in this day and age. Although I didn't scan much (enough to send a fax), the quality seemed pretty good for a multi-purpose device...better than I expected. I did print out a number of photos, and they did turn out first rate.

However, the initial innocent error regarding "volume" got worse in just a few days. Rebooting the computer resulted in "Windows could not load the installer for Volume". Soon Microsoft Automatic Updates started failing 10 to 20 times upon each reboot, and by the 3rd day Win32 services were having problems. Thinking that I had a virus despite plenty of firewall and anti-virus protection, I spent the better part of 2 days trying to isolate what was going wrong. Eventually I uninstalled the HP software (you have to download special software from their site and run it 4 times in a row to clean everything off). And that still wasn't enough...I had to reinstall windows. And I have a standard Dell PC; I shudder to think if I had a custom PC.

So, before installing HP drivers, my computer was fine. While the HP drivers were installed, 3 significant software failures occurred. Fully removing the HP drivers results in the computer operating fine again. Sorry HP, it was you causing the problems 5 years ago, and it is still you causing the problems today.
3 terrible service
My wife and I wasted hours and hours trying to get HP service. HP has outsourced customer service to several developing countries, and each time we called, the representatives were unable to locate the record of our previous call. We were told time and again that we would be contacted by a "case manager" but that never happened. After weeks of trying, it became obvious that we need to discard the product (still under warrantee) and buy a new (non-HP) product ourselves.
4 Horrible software. Stay away -- far away.
HP software is some of the most horrible in the world. I would say it is almost class-action-lawsuit bad in terms of how much time and grief it will cause users. The following are my experiences with it, and I consider myself to be an expert in software installation and maintenance. Maybe I just got unlucky because of particular features of my system, but I doubt it -- I suspect the software just blows.

First, installation was buggy and took many hours between the huge 700+ MB software and the fact that installation consisted of: try install, hang your computer, try unstall, hang your computer, repeat.

Second, if you don't have your computer behind a firewall, you are probably doomed. It takes only a few seconds hooked up to the Internet without a firewall for your computer to get infected with viruses. The HP Photosmart software SHUTS OFF YOUR WINDOWS FIREWALL AS IT STARTS UP, leaves the firewall down for a bit while it poops around, and only then starts back up your firewall. Unbelievable!

Third, the HP software causes problems with other software. HP software starts up sessions that drop me out of full-screen games, for example. This has happened to me at many critical times in on-line flight simulators, for example, causing me to crash -- after a long time of setup.

Fourth, if I don't have the printer turned on, booting up my computer takes about 10 times as long. Now I get to leave the printer on always.

Fifth, uninstall doesn't work. Don't like this crappy software having its inept claws into your operating system, making it slow and unreliable? Too bad. If I uninstall, I find that all kinds of HP crapware didn't get uninstalled and still starts up every time I reboot my computer.

HP makes great hardware . . . and some of the world's worst software. I knew this before trying this product but figured, "Hey, it's been years since I last tried HP products (and was screwed by their crappy software). Maybe they turned it around by now." Nope. This is bad enough that I probably won't buy HP computer products ever again, no matter how appealling they seem at a hardware level. I have to remind myself of this (and past) software horrors.
5 Just Couldn't Be Easier...or Better!
This is just a great printer/copier/scanner/fax machine! With two Desktop Win XP Pro SP2 computers, an Apple Mac using OS 10.3.9 and an HP PC laptop using Win XP Home SP2 (wireless only), I was just sure that I was going to have major install problems....

I was gloriously wrong! All four computers connected via "through the Ethernet" (an install option) on my hard-wired home LAN in a matter of minutes as a part of the very, very good install HP software provided. If you cannot make this fantastic 2610 all-in-one device work, I'd say you cannot follow amazingly simple directions or have other computer/network problems.

BTW, the print text/photo quality is the best I've seen on an inkjet printer. I'm a very Happy Camper! Attaboy, HP!
6 Not THAT bad :)
I recently bought this to replace an older HP970 Deskjet and at the same time, threw out an old scanner and fax machine. What attracted me to this particular model was decent printing specs in an all-in-one machine, coupled with the built-in networking. Plus, my wife objected to buying one of those ridiculously retro-looking new generation of HP deskjet printers (and I agree with her, those do look awful, what were they thinking?)

It seems from other reviews here that many people have had bad experiences with the software setup of this printer. Well, to some extent I would agree, but it's not all that bad. I have the 2610 wired into a Linksys router, with two desktop computers and one (roaming) notebook on the network. The good part about setting it up: the software installed and worked the first time on all machines. I definitely do agree with another reviewer who commented on the huge amount of software being installed, HP should know that requiring almost 400MB worth of software just to get basic functionality working is ridiculous. I know, I work in the software business. This reeks of one of those outsourced, offshore jobs.

Nonetheless, all my machines are up and running and able to use the machine. It sure beats the pants off my old print server setup which was flaky at best - I like the web-based interface on the 2610 which makes it easy to check ink levels, etc.

Which brings me to the actual point: once successfully set up, the machine is actually very impressive! Print quality is hands down better than my old HP970 Deskjet, and a lot faster. Everything else works as expected: scanning is great, and the copying and fax functions are neat and quite intuitive to use. I like the functionality in this baby! I have not used the HP imaging software that comes with the machine, but my wife has played with it and had positive comments about it.

So far, we are quite pleased with this purchase: it performs well and has reduced desktop clutter in our home office considerably. If not for the bulky software, I'd give this machine 5 stars for functionality. Let's hope HP addresses the problems other people have been experiencing with the software.




7 Very troublesome software. NOT plug and play networking
Installing this printer on the home (Ethernet) network took a full day and two calls to HP customer support. Having read reviews of other people I made sure that I did everything according to HP installation instructions. Well... this did not help much. I got this unit because it has built-in networking and because of my past very positive experience with HP networked printers: simple bullet-proof sofware. Not anymore!!! Recommended installation is 740M, takes a long time and trips up on anything. At first, simply connecting the printer to my router would bring the entire network down. Then it couldn't find the printer, then it congratulated me on a successful installation, but the printer driver never appeared, then.... The Customer Support first told me to download latest software of their website (standard BS answer). But the links there don't work. How lame is that?
It shouldn't be this way! If you can, get something else.
If you already got this one, here is a couple of perhaps useful things. 1) Power cycling while holding down # and 3 on the printer keypad does a partial reset of the printer. Good for getting it out of its network funk. 2) Press "setup" on printer keypad and go into "network" and set the IP to manual. That prevented it from bringing the network down and allowed the computer to connect. Later it got reset to DHCP.
Again, one shouldn't have to deal with this to install a $300 dollar printer.
8 BEWARE
This printer installation software is unacceptable. After many, many attempts, downloads from HP's website and a 3 hour call to HP tech, they finally decided that I needed the updated installation disk. The new disk was sent and I still couldn't install it. I have installed ~10 other HP printers on this computer, but there is something wrong with this software. I give up. The printer is going back in the box and back to the store.
9 Wow! Why didn't I purchase this product months ago!
I absolutely love this product. The software that was automatically included makes every task so quick and easy. When viewing a photo I can select print and it automatically prompts me with a wizard to help setup my print style and/or to add additional photos. The installation of the software was a snap; I am not sure why other reviewers had issues with the installation. I would have to guess that older computer may require you to wait 5 to 10 minutes after start up to install this software because of lack of memory. This All-in-one is loaded with functionality and I could easily see a low end computer that was purchased many years ago having trouble with this printer. The photo editing software is really nice, I especially love the red eye removal worked seamless and nearly automatically. I am excited to start a few projects with this all-in-one and I can't wait to explore the additional functionality that I have yet to use.
10 Shaky product at best
We have had this printer for under 3 months and have had lots of problems. First, when we got the printer and tried to register it, the HP registration page was set up so that you can't adjust the page window size and get to the end of the registration form. Next, when we installed the software, we immediately started having system errors on our computer every time we turned our computer on. Eventually HP updated their software to include a patch, but it took 2 months before we got this resolved. Then the printer started having print cartridge errors. The print quality was poor, with colors being used when we specify black, and the ink smearing and printing unevenly. We verified that the cartridges were not out of ink and we have cleaned the cartridges. Our computer gave us a print error message and told us to check the HP printer status box to find out what is wrong. All the status box told us was that our "printer is connected." We have gone through all the trouble shooting we can think of, and ended up needing to call HP directly because their online services wouldn't connect and we got another error message. (We weren't experiencing any trouble with our internet connection.) We were sent to 2 wrong departments at HP before getting through to technical support.

After about 2 hours on the phone with tech support, we could not figure out was was wrong. We had removed the print cartridge as part of our troubleshooting, and when we tried to put it back in, the printer shrieked and started smoking. HP decided to replace our printer.

We received our replacement printer very quickly. But again the software comes with errors and we had to spend extra time downloading patches and uninstalling and reinstalling the software to stop getting error messages. Now our printer frequently experiences errors during printing, which causes the software to freeze up. We can't cancel the print job or try again without re-booting the system. The only good thing I can say is that the print quality is excellent.

We have never had so many problems with a product in such a short amount of time. Even with a reasonable amount of errors, HP is not set up to offer good customer support and their software is just plain awful.
11 Printer driver software is almost un-usable
This is actually not a bad copier or photo printer, but if you need to use it with other hardware, forget it! I installed the obsenely large amount of software you need for this printer on my PCs at home, and it just about broke every other peripheral I had on my system. My existing printer, my digital camera, my iPod, and an external USB drive, all rendered 'dead' by this over-reaching 'HP Digital Imaging' set of software. And it's all designed to get you to use more HP goods and services. Once I uninstalled the nearly 1 Gig of software, everythings back to normal.

Just look on their support page for the printer. Check this out:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/documentSubCategory?lc=en&lang=en&cc=us&product=421134&dlc=en&rule=49927

Be prepared to have to deal with each of these issues if you get this printer.


Get an Epson, HP is using their hardware to sell accessories and service (instant share, etc...), and their software is designed to trap you into an all HP all the time environment. It's too much of a burden. Mine will be on e-bay soon.
12 Terrific Printer
This is the best!! Setup without a flaw...works great... very happy with the purchase. HP has outdone themselves on this one. It's well worth the money and at Amazon you get the best deal. Installed the software on both my desktop and laptop and had NO problems. Would recommend this printer to anyone that wants easy installation software and quality performance from a printer. Thank you HP!!! and Amazon :)
13 THIS PRINTER SCREWS UP YOUR COMPUTER
This printer is very nice and prints great but the sotfware is ABSOUTLY HORRIBLE. I had to reformat my computer because of it. Hp says that they fixed the software BUT THEY DID NOT. I tried installing it again and made sure I had every update possible and is made my computer not work AGAIN. DO NOT BUY THIS PRINTER OR ANY IN ITS SERIES BECAUSE THEY ALL HAVE THE SAME SOFTWARE PROBLEM!
14 The Best Value!
I'm plugging this printer to my network router, and print from the network. That way, I won't have to buy the USB cable. The printer has a built-in print server, which you can control using your Web browser. I've been using this printer for two weeks now, and so far, it's working just as well as I expect. I've tried all its features -- photo printing, regular printing, faxing, and scanning, and they all work well. This is probably the best printer from HP with the best value you can buy.
15 Great All-In One Printer!
This printer does it all and it was VERY easy to set-up. I'm not very tech savvy so I was slightly concerned after reading some reviews when a few had written that they experienced difficulty setting-up. I tried first setting-up via USB and found it super easy, then decided to go wireless. I wasn't sure how to set it up wirelessly so called the HP customer service and found them extremely helpful and they walked me through everything (it took about 15-20 minutes). Now I'm all set-up and can be anywhere in my home to print from my Apple Powerbook. I've had it less than 2 months and so far, it prints, scans, copies and faxes great!
16 great networking printer
I needed a network printer in my house due to mutlitple computers and not having to worry about a host computer being on or not. This printer has done the job well. Great quality, quick printing, many options, scans well, and even the fax machine has come in handy.
The only complaints I have is with the software HP provides for this printer. Scanning can be cryptic if you have multiple hard drives and some of the other options take some playing with. But the biggest issue is time to install (very slow and cumbersome) and potential problems with XP SP2. I first ran into the problem when I installed the printer to my work laptop, worked great when I was at home but when I went back to the office I had several errors came up. It got so bad where I couldn't access IE and some programs wouldn't run at all. Even uninstalling didn't fix it, I had to do a system restore to before the software was installed. Didn't happen on 2 home computers (at first). Well, I recently had to reconfigure my router and when I did, I had turned off all computers and the printer before booting up the modem and router. When it came up, I forgot to turn the printer back on and it made both computers go crazy. And then, even though the printer was active and on the network, the 2 computers couldn't see the printer (yet they could ping it???). After many hours of searching HP's website, I couldn't come up with any results and had to uninstall, system restore, then reinstall to fix the problem. Was fine until once again the printer went offline, cause havock on the network. I finally contacted HP and they sent me this link to install this patch. When I did, it seems to have fixed everything. I noted to them that the patch wasn't noted anywhere on the 2610's support page which I hope they have since repaired.
[....]
Note, HP's auto software update feature did not install this patch itself?
17 A Jack of All Trades
I recently upgraded to this printer from a late-model Epson multi-function, and I've been quite pleased with its performance. Key advantages over the Epson:

- Paper feeding is much easier. Printing from the Epson was often delayed by feed problems whereas I've experienced no feed problems with the HP.

- Ink consumption is better. The Epson consumed ink at a prodigious rate whereas the HP seems more frugal with ink while producing similar print quality. I found the perceived cost savings of separate ink cartridges with the Epson to be a myth as the color ink cartridges almost always consumed ink at roughly the same rate, forcing me to replace all of them at the same time.

- Changing ink cartridges is easier with the HP because you only have to purchase 2 vs 4 cartridges. The numbering scheme of the HP cartridges is also easier to use for re-ordering - only 2 numbers per cartridge vs 5 alpha-numeric values per Epson cartridge.

- The color graphics display on the HP makes manipulating documents and performing functions on the printer much easier than the b/w display on the Epson.

- The HP doesn't produce as much noise as the Espon when printing, and the HP's footprint is much smaller than the Epson.

- Print and copy quality is excellent. Scan quality is good.

Finally, I did not experience any of the set-up problems mentioned by others who have purchased this HP printer. Set-up and installation were quick and easy.

If you're in the market for a multi-function printer, this HP model should be at the top of your list.
18 Problems with install on XP
The 2610 printer is a USB device. The installation disk asks for an XP SP2 disk, for USB print drivers. Who has an SP2 disk? My SP2 came from the net and I didn't get the the drivers. HP service said my XP upgrade was faulty. Even if it was why doesn't the install disk (all 1+ hour of it) come with drivers. Do I now wait 3-4 weeks to get the SP2 disk from Microsoft?
19 Great All-In-One! Easy Install! Photos a little grainy.
I am a big digitial photo enthusiast and was looking for a home unit to print pix. I received an Epson photosmart portable printer for Christmas which produced outstanding picture quality but was NOT user friendly at all (no LCD screen to view/edit photos). At the same time my printer died so I decided to go with an all-in-one unit to do some home-based business as well. I purchased the HP 2610, installed it today (single windows-based PC - took about an hour) and it's working great! I was very concerned about the installation because of some of the other reviews but I had no glitches whatsoever. I have been able to fax, copy, print and edit/print photos with no issues! The photo editing software has all the standard features including cropping, red eye reduction and ability to add effects like sepia, etc. The software is alo pretty easy to use as is the entire unit. I have not read ANY of the instruction manual yet (only the set-up pamphlet) and was able to perform all of the functions on this unit. That's impressive because I'm a medical person...not a computer person! The only reason I didn't give this 5 stars is that, compared with the little portable Epson printer, the digital picture quality is a little grainy and not the best I've seen. But, will definitely do for an amateur. Also, the printer in general seems a little louder than some others I've heard on display in stores, but still better than my old deskjet that died. I am very happy with my purchase and recommend it highly for an all-in-one unit!!!
20 Great all in one
Just purchased a 2610. Installed on a home network. Installation was simple and instructions easy to follow. Print quality, photo quality, and fax are 5 stars. Scan quality just average. Bought this unit because I have limited space and the footprint is smaller than other units.

Very pleased

21 Wireless and loving it
I chose the 2610 over the 2710 because the 2710 got so many bad reviews. It seemed like if I plugged the 2610 into our Linksys wireless router, I would be able to use my iBook with air port to print. And it worked!!! I will admit it took a long time for my iBook to "find" the printer over the wireless network --I even called the help line--but while I was on the help line, the computer found the printer. So now I can be anywhere in the house and print from my laptop. Also, the scanner works wirelessly too.

Next we installed the software on the PC. We were worried because it seemed like Mac users had fewer complaints about the software than PC users. Well everything works fine on the PC, too!

And a note about their customer support--I called during the weekend and got a live person immediately, who was American (some people complain about their calls being routed to India), and extremely helpful. A+

So far this printer is great and I can't wait to get rid of our fax, scanner, ink jet printer and laser printer!
22 Everything I wanted in a printer
Just bought the HP 2610 All-in-one and I must say, thus far it exceeds all my expectations. I am by no means a computer expert, but was able to set up this printer on a wireless network on my first try (running Windows XP, connected via a wireless Linksys router). Faxing comes through beautifully, and the print speed at this price point is astonishing. Print quality even at the most rudimentary level is almost laser quality. Haven't tried photoprinting yet, but if it is even close to the quality I get for Eckherd's photo processing I will consider this printer a steal.

By the way, if you own a wireless router, don't waste your money on the HP 2710. The 2610 has built-in networking, and your router will act as the hub for printing from multiple wireless PCs. This feature in addition to photoprinting, faxing, copying, scanning for under $300 is quite remarkable.

Would be nice if there was a document feeder for high volume faxing/copying, but unless this feature is high on your priority list, this printer is just about perfect.
23 2610xi is a good all-in-one unit
Prints fast. Scans fast. Copies fast. Output is pretty decent. Photo scanning with both color and black & white is less than perfect. Hooks up directly to local network. Network software install is a big job especially when you're dealing with several systems having different OS's. I was a bit surprised HP would release the s/w with a major bug that slowed everything down, but HP's posted patch (which currently isn't included in their updates) resolves the problem. One thing I discovered which is nice is that when you hook up the unit to a phone line, you can fax right from any system (e.g. wireless) on the network much the same as if that system is connected to a modem.
24 Amazing all-in-one printer.
What I like about this all-in-one printer is that its very usefull whether it is for the home place or at work which means you don't need to use a scanner and other stuff, it doesn't use a lot of space. It is very easy to setup 10 minutes maybe less and it has a HP No. 27 black ink jet cartridge and 28 tri-colour ink jet cartridge that prints out the best quility picture and has a HP memory disk creator that works when the pc is switched of. The compact size fits A4 size paper but thats all that is needed, the scanner and copier work just as good.
25 HP can we get some decent software?
I have no complaints about the hardware. The most important part, the print quality is quite impressive.

The software, on the other hand, is a different story. I have Windows XP Service Pack 2 and the HP software has been a nightmare. I have twice uninstalled and reinstalled the software because it caused Windows Explorer to take about 45 seconds to open. Reinstalling the software works for a while and then when the HP software updates itself over the internet, things get bad again.

Lest you think this user error, I'm a software engineer and my computer is a late model with 1.2 GB of RAM. I cannot recommend this product because the software is huge and buggy and the self-updates make the problem worse.

This is a huge disappoitment after my troublefree experience with the HP LaserJet 1012 monochrome laser printer and its clean bug-free software.
26 Exceeds expectations
I did lots of research and I'm glad I bought this beauty. HP's photo quality is the best in the business and all the features on this product make it so fun and easy. The LCD screen is awesome for photo printing and the all-in-one functions help me run my household. Great job HP....I love it!
27 beautiful hardware, imperfect software.
Original review 12/04/04:
Needed a new all-in-one to replace old clunker EPSON. This model looked promising and had a great price tag. The machine itself is a work of art and the quality of scans, prints and copies are supurb (haven't faxed yet). It's very quick and quiet too.

The software setup on my home network (XP Home SP2/Netgear Wireless) was OK. The setup software does take a long time to run, but generally everything went well, with one exception. When booting the PC I get a message about "Data Execution Prevention on Generic Host". I emailed HP customer support, and within an hour they replied that this is a known issue with SP2 and they're working on a driver update. They suggested a temporary workaround. I subscribed to the email list to be notified when the new drivers are available.

All said and done.... I'm pretty darn happy with my new HP.

Update 12/05/04:
There was another minor bug in the HP Director software which HP Customer Service was able to help me fix. Their software may be buggy and untested w/ SP2, but their customer service has been wonderful.
28 Excellent Quality, Efficient Space-Saver
Our home office had become congested and cluttered. We had too much stuff - scanner, printer, slide scanner, external drives - you name it. And now we needed a fax. Rather than try to find a place to stuff it, we opted to get an all-in one. But there was a problem: I didn't want to put up with a loss of color printing quality or scanning quality. Also, my wife wanted a printer with digital memory input slots. From my previous shopping, I immediately thought of HP. We went to an appliance store to shop, because I needed to see the printing and scanning results to be satisfied. The 2610 printed and scanned very well, and was faster than the competition. It is easy to use - very intuitive. The install is a bit slow, but once you're up and running, it's a breeze.
29 Great Value--I love my all-in-one!
I was discouraged at seeing some of the prices for all-in-one printers until I came upon this beauty. I am a student, and space and productivity is essential. I can do everything with this thing and I especially love the scanner. You can do so many things with a scanner that I never realized. All of my old pictures are now digital and archived on my computer! Copies and printing are a breeze. Let me tell you, 30 pages a minute is fantastic. I was also happy to find out that this printer wasn't a ink guzzler like my old cannon. It is indeed very efficient and was a great buy!

Monday, 06-Oct-2008 18:14:28 CDT
Quote of the Day:


Those who can, do; those who can't, simulate.






Q:	Why don't Scotsmen ever have coffee the way they like it?

A:	Well, they like it with two lumps of sugar.  If they drink

	it at home, they only take one, and if they drink it while

	visiting, they always take three.