HP OfficeJet Pro 9135e Printer

Comparing the old with the new

When my HP OfficeJet Pro 8600 died of old age at 12, I bought an OfficeJet Pro 9135e to replace it. How much progress has HP made toward improving printer performance over the last 12 years? I compared the old 8600 with the new 9135e.

Steps forward

1. 9135e prints faster.

Steps backward

1. 9135e is cheap looking.

2. 9135e is noisy.

3. 9135e has no way to stop a print job in progress.

4. 9135e grabs envelopes or labels from Tray 1 every time it runs out of letter paper in Tray 2, creating massive paper jams.

5. When it runs out of paper and more paper is loaded, 9135e requires the user to press buttons on the control panel in a specific sequence to get it to continue to print.

6. 9135e displays low ink warnings in tiny, hard to read text on the control panel instead of in easy to read notifications on the computer screen.

7. 9135e is unreliable. Often it refuses to print for no apparent reason, forcing the user to shut it down and wait for it to reboot before it will start printing again.

Simple arithmetic

One step forward, seven steps back. That’s 12 years of printer progress at HP, Inc.