Hp Color Laserjet Pro Multifunction M479fdw Wireless Laser Printer Review

Competing straight with our recent Editors' Choice from Lexmark, the MC2535adwe, HP'southward Color LaserJet Pro MFP M479fdw ($599.99) is a midrange all-in-one color laser printer designed for use in a small-to-midsize function or workgroup. Like most HP lasers, this one churns out adept-looking documents, though it's not the fastest and its running costs are a bit on the high side. The M479fdw is a solid performer overall, but there's nothing unique or exciting enough about information technology to set it apart in today's broad and highly competitive market for midrange colour AIOs. Even then, if your monthly print and copy book is moderate—say a thousand pages or fewer—this surprisingly compact LaserJet should serve y'all well.

The M479fdw measures 15.seven past 16.4 by 18.vi inches (HWD) and weighs 51.six pounds. Information technology'south far from featherweight, but that's somewhat smaller and lighter than most competing light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation AIOs. The Lexmark MC2535adwe mentioned above, for case, is a few inches wider and longer and weighs about 8 pounds more. Canon'due south Colour imageClass MF746Cdw and MF741Cdw are both taller and wider, besides as a few pounds heavier. In contrast, though, Epson's 2019 WorkForce Pro WF-C5790 Colour MFP Supertank, an inkjet-based laser alternative, has a similar footprint and weighs about x pounds less.

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With printers in this class and price range, y'all get not only a fairly robust automobile merely likewise a strong feature fix. For example, the HP comes with a l-sail single-pass auto-duplexing automatic document feeder (ADF) for sending ii-sided multipage documents to the scanner. Of the four competitors listed in the previous paragraph, only the Canon MF741Cdw lacks an auto-duplexing ADF. Instead, its feeder requires you to flip two-sided documents by hand to capture the second sides.

Lexmark's MC2535adwe, by contrast, has a reverse-duplexing ADF, meaning that subsequently scanning the first side, the ADF pulls the sheet back into the mechanism, flips it, then scans the second side. Then information technology starts the process over again for the next sheet. Granted, this method involves a few more steps and allows for a few more points of possible misfeed, but I've tested many AIOs with both types of duplexers and then far I haven't found i method to be more reliable than the other.

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Some other feature mutual on AIOs in this toll range is a relatively large color touch-screen control panel. In this example, nosotros're talking a spacious 4.three-inch brandish with plenty of room for navigating with your fingers. Similar most HP printers nowadays, this i supports HP's Smart App for automating specific functions. (Nosotros'll look a little closer at Smart App in a moment.)

You'll besides find most tasks and configuration options, such every bit monitoring consumables, generating usage reports, and admission to security settings, on the M479fdw's built-in web portal, accessible from nearly any browser, including those on your smartphone or tablet.

Newspaper input capacity out of the box is 300 sheets, split between a 250-sail primary drawer and a 50-sheet override tray. If that'due south not enough, y'all can add a 550-canvass tray ($199.99), increasing the capacity to 850. The HP'south maximum monthly duty bike is 50,000 pages, with a suggested monthly book of 4,000 prints.

The two Canon machines mentioned above as well come with 250-canvass main drawers and 50-sheet override trays. You can expand both machines to 800 sheets, and their duty cycles and suggested monthly volume ratings are the same every bit the M479fdw's. The Lexmark features one 250-canvass drawer and a one-canvas override tray; you can expand it to 1,451 sheets, and its monthly maximum duty cycle is a whopping 85,000 prints, though with a suggested monthly volume one-tenth of that. Finally, the Epson WF-C5790 defaults to 330 sheets and is expandable to 830. Its monthly duty cycle is 45,000 pages, with a recommended peak monthly volume of two,500 prints.

Connections, Software, and Security

The M479fdw's standard connectivity consists of Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11b/1000/north Wi-Fi, USB, and Wi-Fi Directly, the final being a peer-to-peer protocol that allows you to connect mobile devices to the printer without either them or it being role of the same network. In addition to Wi-Fi Direct, other mobile connectivity options include Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Impress, HP ePrint, HP Smart App, Mobile Apps, and Mopria.

Smart App is HP's cross-platform combination driver/value-added interface. One way it attempts to streamline your interaction with the AIO is by providing a similar interface across the Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows platforms it runs on. You too become HP Smart Tasks, a collection of customizable workflow profiles—such every bit for scanning with your smartphone or printing from specific cloud sites—that y'all admission from customizable shortcuts within HP Smart App.

Security is adequately straightforward, consisting of the standard network hallmark and encryption protocols, in add-on to Secure Print for assigning personal identification numbers (PINs) to sensitive documents to lock out prying eyes. You likewise go department ID authentication for controlling which features, such as color printing, are allowed for which users.

A suite of embedded security features helps protect the Colour LaserJet Pro MFP from being an entry point for attacks, and the optional HP JetAdvantage Security Managing director lets yous fix configuration parameters and thwart potential attacks, taking immediate action with instant notifications of security issues.

Testing the M479fdw: Midrange Performance

HP rates the M479fdw at 28 pages per minute (ppm), a center-of-road print speed for this level of AIO and the same rating as the Canon MF741Cdw and MF746Cdw. The Lexmark MB2535adwe, on the other hand, is rated at 35ppm, and the Epson WF-C5790 at 24ppm. I tested this HP (and all these other machines) over an Ethernet connectedness from our standard Intel Cadre i5 testbed running Windows 10 Pro. (See how we examination printers.)

Like the Lexmark and Canon machines discussed here, the M479fdw comes out of the box configured to print ii-sided (duplex) pages. In these scenarios, we fourth dimension and record both the printer's one-sided (simplex) and two-sided performance. With that said, the M479fdw printed our start examination, a 12-page Microsoft Word document, at the charge per unit of 22.1 images per infinitesimal (or ipm, where each page side counts as an image) and 31.4ppm—three.4ppm quicker than its rating.

The Lexmark MB2535adwe's duplex score is about 5ipm slower, while its simplex showing is 8.4ppm faster. The ii Canons' scores were similar to the LaserJet's. The Epson does non default to duplex, so nosotros recorded only its simplex scores: Information technology came in about 5ppm backside the HP.

For the adjacent part of my tests, I clocked the M479fdw as it cranked out our drove of Adobe Acrobat PDFs, Excel spreadsheets and respective full-page graphics, and PowerPoint handouts containing complex business graphics and fonts in varying sizes and colors. Combining these scores with those from the text document yielded boilerplate speeds of 10.8ipm and 17.7ppm.

In sum? Taking this HP, the Lexmark, the two Canon AIOs, and even the Epson inkjet model together, there'south just not very much speed difference hither. These scores are inside an ipm here or a ppm in that location, inappreciably enough variance to warrant much word.

The M479fdw is non a photo printer, just I also timed it equally information technology printed our test 4-by-6-inch snapshots. It averaged about 10 seconds per image, which is about average for nigh color laser printers.

An Middle on Quality: Dependable LaserJet Output

Near laser printers produce near-typesetter-quality text, and the M479fdw is no exception. Your text documents should exist suitable for most business scenarios. Where some laser AIOs don't excel, however, is in printing pristine-looking business graphics and photos. The PowerPoint handouts and Excel charts with gradients and solid fills I printed were nearly faultless, with smooth gradations from one colour to the adjacent and no noticeable toner distribution problems. Blacks and other night fills and backgrounds came out uniform, and colors were accurate, brilliant, and vibrant for color laser output.

Photos, as well, looked good, with bright and accurate colors and excellent particular. The drawback versus inkjet output is that light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation printers tin't impress borderless pages, and photos (and some other types of documents) look more finished and professional when the content bleeds to the edges of the paper.

The Consumables: Somewhat Expensive Operation

The M479fdw's biggest drawback is its cost of operation. When you purchase its highest-volume toner replacement cartridges (7,500 blackness pages and 6,000 color), your running costs should be well-nigh 2.2 cents per monochrome page and 14.2 cents per color page. If you print a lot, shut to this auto's suggested 4,000-page monthly output volume, you'll discover these numbers are relatively high and could wind upwardly costing you plenty over the life of the printer.

In comparison, the Lexmark MC2535adwe's per-page costs are 1.8 cents per monochrome page and 11.7 cents per color 1, while the two Canon machines will prepare you dorsum 2.5 cents per black page and 13.3 cents per color folio. Epson's WF-C5790 inkjet tells a much dissimilar story, delivers running costs of nearly 1.6 cents for monochrome pages and half dozen.4 cents for color.

If you shop around, you can find midrange and high-volume printers with slightly lower running costs. HP'due south ain PageWide Pro 750dw, yet another inkjet-based laser alternative, delivers monochrome pages for as picayune equally one.1 cents. When shopping for a higher-volume printer, keep in mind that for every 100,000 pages y'all print, a 1-cent difference will price you $1,000. If over the life of the automobile yous print, say, half a million pages...you lot go the idea. That's a lot more money than the initial printer price.

A Color Light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation AIO Running With the Pack

Overall, I liked this AIO, just there'due south no reason to pay high running costs if you don't have to. And that's where the HP LaserJet Pro MFP M479fdw falls curt. It prints well at respectable speeds, and it'due south got all the necessary productivity and convenience features. But if you lot plan to print thousands of pages each month, close to HP's recommended performance ceiling, Lexmark's more than robust MC2535adwe is a meliorate value.

Notwithstanding, if yous don't mind shelling out slightly more than for Toner for a more than pocket-sized usage situation, I tin't recollect of a good reason not to consider the M479fdw every bit your daily page churner.

HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M479fdw

Cons

The Bottom Line

HP's Color LaserJet Pro M479fdw is a midrange color laser all-in-i with a stiff feature set and solid output, making information technology a good choice for moderate-to-medium-volume businesses and workgroups.

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Source: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/hp-color-laserjet-pro-mfp-m479fdw

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