HP LaserJet Pro M452dw Wireless Color Laser Printer with Duplex Printing (CF394A)

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My first review was glowing. For months this printer was exactly what I wanted: efficient, easy to use, gorgeous job. Now? Drivers keep reporting as corrupted, wont connect to any network or recognize a wired connection. Have been having trouble since it hit its "one year" setup date. At this point, I am desperately searching for a new printer. HP support has been absolutely no help. In short- great printer but unreliable over time.

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This solution is for Mac OS X. Like everyone else on here, I tried to connect this printer through wireless and wired ethernet and within minutes, I get "printer not connected" message. Only thing that worked is turning the printer off/on again. Once it goes into sleep mode, it wont come out of sleep mode till you power it off/on. Even during setup, it lost connection before I was able to print a test page. Dont bother calling HP support. They will tell you to do stuff you probably already did: turn printer off then on, reset your router, delete the printer and add it again, etc. They all wont work, or will work temporarily till the printer goes to sleep. Same issues if you try to print from any iOS devices using AirPrint, "no AirPrint printers found". I am still within the Amazon 30 day return period so I thought about returning it and getting a different model. However, all other HP wireless printers seem to have the same problem according to the reviews. So then I decided to look online for a solution and I found that this is the only solution that worked: Adding printer using HP JetDirect protocol under the IP tab. If you are using wireless or wired, you have to first find your printers IP address either from the printer itself or from the web interface. After entering the IP address, change the name in the NAME field from the IP address to whatever you want (preferably the name of your printer). If the USE field is already filled out with the name of your printer, then your printer has been detected and is likely online. I waited till the printer went into sleep mode and tested the printer from the computer and from my iPhone using AirPrint. Everything works fine! Just to be sure, I tried it again in the morning after the printer has been in sleep mode all night and everything prints fine. Even though the printer works fine and speed is great, I think the one star is deserved due to the horrible wireless/wired. I hope this helps those who are having the same problem.

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I had an M452dw for about 2-3 years until it broke. It was user error that caused the printer to break, so I am not holding that against HP. I loved that printer and it worked perfectly for my home business making stickers. I figured I could just rebuy the same model and it would work just as well as the one that I had before. Sadly the replacement printer did not match the quality of the one I had purchased 2-3 years ago. The toner would not adhere to the sticker paper and after trying every paper type available, without any success, I figured I had purchased a defective model. I contacted Amazon and they sent me another one. The second one had the same issue! I called Amazon again and they were nice enough to send me a third printer. I figured what are the odds of getting three defective printers. Apparently pretty high! The third one also had the same issue. Toner would not fuse to the sticker paper at the exact same setting that I used in my original model. I am starting to believe that they HP must have change something inside the printer. Possibly switching out the fuser for a cheaper one ( like the one in the M252 model). Either way HP had no solution and told me to try every paper setting until I found the right one. Considering I already tried that and sticker paper isnt cheap I decided to return all of the printers for a full refund. If you are only printing on normal paper this printer will probably work for you. I will be trying out a different brand for my next replacement. *Fingers Crossed*

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Colors are not true, as if the white balance is off. Despite recalibrating, using multiple settings, formats for saving, programs for generating file and changing cartridges. There is a yellow shift in all colors, making any color printing useless. Customer service is completely unhelpful. Hard to talk to a representative, and when I did, despite being on warranty, they wanted me to pay for them to assess the problem. Now I am stuck taking it and my computer to best buy for assessment.

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UPDATE: This last step worked but I have no idea which of the above really fixed it. Basically, you may not be able to print wireless to this printer unless you have a windows machine on the network to update the firmware. Mac users BEWARE ORIGINAL REVIEW: So far, Ive been able to install it on my Mac using Airprint but have been unsuccessfully printing anything to it. In fact, it just stays on "Printing Document" screen if you even just sneeze at it. I assumed this may be caused by a firmware bug, no biggie, I went online and downloaded the latest firmware, and lo and behold, as soon as the installation screen starts running the printer displays "Printing Document" and the firmware installer says device is busy. Cant cancel out of it. I can wait an hour after hard reset, and as soon as I begin to do anything it will say "Printing Document" forever, I could leave it until I move on to the next house... Ill report back if I have any other news. Ready to give up on humanity. Things Ive tried: 1) Printing via airprint 2) Printing via downloaded drivers 3) Soft reset then printing 4) Hard reset then printing 5) Updating firmware via wireless on Mac (failed installation) 6) Running software update on printer menu 7) Disabling network protocols via web admin console 8) Updated firmware via USB from windows 9) Manually installed printer via IPP directly to the IP address of printer using HP drivers (not air print)

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Although I have not had the mechanical problems with this printer that some of the folks here have had, I must say: THIS THING IS INSANELY SLOW WHEN PRINTING COLOR! It can print something like a spreadsheet with some red numbers OK, but God help you if you want to print a brochure or some such. It often wont even print the whole document. Fortunately, I dont have to do this much. Restarting the machine does not help. There appears to be no way to increase the amount of memory for this machine, which is probably the problem. One HP could have solved for about ten bucks or less. I can also echo the complaints about HPS "support", which I have tried on other HP products It is both frustrating and useless. although the people themselves are courteous. Just clueless. Our repair guy says HP printer quality has deteriorated seriously since 2014 or so. This used to be such a great, high quality brand. (using MacBook Pro, Sierra, 8G RAM, 5g wireless)

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In the interest of helping provide some help to others, wanted to share a few thoughts. First, this printer will only work on a 2.4ghz networks. If you are using a single band router that optimizes your signal, you are out of luck. HP specs dont tell you this, and I only found out after 5 hours of pretty horrible trouble shooting with HP. HP is not what it used to be - plug and play was the standard. Now a bit different. Also, the website for HP list services at 24 hours 7 days a week via phone; they have changed that and now I believe that is 6 am to 6 pm CST. If you are outside those hours your only choice is chat - a pretty miserable experience. After I switched my router to dual-band and got it set up with both 2.4 and 5ghz, I did network setup and connected to 2.4 ghz network. Worked fine. Hope this review helps save you some pain.

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HP M452dw functions very well with one serious exception: it simply will not print documents that have significant graphic content (images, illustrations, etc.). It especially refuses to print PDFs, MS Word, or MS PowerPoint documents with images in them (esp. PNG files). Nothing suggested by HP Support helps. FYI, Im using the printer in with Macs running on El Capitan.

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I bought this printer because of the HP name. Im guessing that at the end of the day the print engine will be fine and Ill like the printer. But I must say the setup for a wireless connection was a royal pain in the butt ! The CD software setup failed to connect the printer properly and took forever until it notified me of failure. I had to manually make the wireless connection using the small touch screen on the printer. The screen was difficult to read and the response on the screen was very slow. After 4 tries I finally got a successful connection but even then the printer wasnt immediately recognized by my wireless network. I guess I should mark this up to life in the global economy. The printer is manufactured in Vietnam and I wasnt about to call HP support and speak to someone who has problems with the English language. My two cents.

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FIVE stars for print quality and more economic use of toner. Points off for: -SLOW SLOW SLOW! Though the wifi is great, printing large photoshop files really should be done via USB cable. -Hard to fine tune color. I spend HOURS online with different Hewlett Packard reps until one could tell me where to find the controls. I had a 3600 and the color controls were right on the digital control. With this printer, you have to hook up via wifi, and use the printers IP address to find the fine-tuning controls, including "Print Density". I spend half a day making a color chart because the options and controls are not intuitive. The upside is that you can save the settings to a file and re-upload if you have to replace your printer (as I did: the first one printed banded colors!) -The Paper feed jams more easily! I printed a thin paper that ended up jamming and a TINY piece got stuck. I had to pay $76 for an HP tech to come out and find and remove the 1/4" piece of paper...and it was HARD for him to do. That said, once you learn how to manage this printer the prints are incredible, and colors are vibrant and details cannot even begin to be matched by comparably priced laser printers.

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