Reviews4,313 Reviews

All Reviews > Hardware > Multifunction devices

September 10, 2008

HP OfficeJet J4680 review

Product Code: CB783A#BEV

HP's OfficeJet J4680 is a £119 inc VAT multifunction colour inkjet printer that gives small- and home-office users a reasonable helping of business features at a really low price.

Unfortunately, the HP OfficeJet J4680 falls short in speed and long-term economy.

The HP OfficeJet J4680's star attractions are its integrated 802.11b/g wireless and fax connectivity, and its 50-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) - rare features on such a low-priced machine.

Those features make up somewhat for the HP OfficeJet J4680's minimalist 100-sheet input tray, which doubles as a 20-sheet output tray - yes, printed pages drop right on top of any blank paper you have loaded.

We dislike this part of the HP OfficeJet J4680's design: there's too much going on in one place. Duplexing (two-sided printing) is not available.

The control panel of the HP OfficeJet J4680 consists of a one-line monochrome LCD and a second line of simple arrows that point to function labels beneath the display. You use the two navigation buttons to choose a major function and to drill through the menus. This system is easy to use - except that longer messages scroll across the display like ticker tape, making them hard to read.

In our tests, the HP OfficeJet J4680 delivered good-quality output at adequate speeds. It printed plain-text pages at a rate of 7 pages per minute and graphics pages at 2.1ppm or worse. On plain paper, text looked dark, crisp, and precise; colour images looked natural though somewhat grainy. On HP's own photo paper, colour images improved, acquiring a smooth and natural appearance. Scans and copies looked okay, but scans came out very slowly.

The OfficeJet J4680's ink costs are reasonably good--and far better than those of the Dell V305W. The machine ships with a standard 200-page black cartridge and a 360-page tricolour cyan, magenta, and yellow cartridge. A high-yield (700-page) black cartridge costs £18.

Visit Business Advisor for the latest business IT news, reviews, tips and tricks - plus sign up for our unique and FREE business IT newsletter

Buy it now: click here

VERDICT >
1 | 2 | NEXT >

Independent customer reviews from

HP OfficeJet J4680 scored:
8.4 out of 10 100% real reviews

The 2 most helpful reviews based on 93 reviews:

03 Feb 2009 Alan, Ballymoney

9

Good Points

looks, size, price, easy to set up & use

Bad Points

Quite heavy ink use

15 Feb 2009 Nigel, Folkestone

8

Good Points

A great little product that has the benefit of being both USB and wireless. Printing speeds are respectable as are quality. Overall, a good product well priced

Bad Points

Wireless can be a little tricky - despite using the install disk and the printer claiming it had found my wireless network and had the right password, it gave itself a totally wrong IP! So had to create a fixed IP on the router to resolve.

See more HP OfficeJet J4680 reviews on Reevoo.com

Best Prices

£110
Go»
£110
Go»
£110
Go»
Prices, delivery and availability at 5 retailers
Go»

Keep up to date by adding PC Advisor Reviews to your iGoogle home page or Google Reader

What is this?

Subscribe to PC Advisor now and claim your FREE gift

Question of the day!

Does your smartphone replace your need for a laptop when on the move?

Question of the day!

Does your smartphone replace your need for a laptop when on the move?

% of PC Advisor readers agree with you

Yes
TBC
No
TBC

What tasks can your smartphone do that would have traditionally been done on a laptop?

119 characters remaining

Follow the conversation at @SmartphoneFocus

Mainly email but getting better at spreadsheets etc, RT @IDGdan

Total reviews: 4,313

  • www.hp.co.uk
  • 020 7949 0300 or (local) 0870 013 0790
  • Hewlett Packard [use HP]
  • £119.17 inc VAT

Click here to buy now

See product specs

expert rating

Build quality

3/5

Features

3.5/5

Value for money

4/5

Overall

3.5/5

expert rating

HP OfficeJet J4680

READER REVIEWS


Google


Recent reviews

Reviews index


Latest reader reviews

Latest reader reviews


Top news

News index


Latest blog entries

Blogs index


Sponsored Content

  • Take the internet to new places with the Nokia N800
    Communicate how you want to, where you want to with instant messaging, email and internet calling. View movies, browse the internet wirelessly and watch TV on the high-resolution screen and listen through high-quality stereo speakers with headphone jack.
    Buy now