The Truth About HP OfficeJet Pro 9135e Printer

First the good news, then the bad and the bad...

The good news is, the HP OfficeJet Pro 9135e is fast. The bad news is, the positive reviews can’t be trusted. The truth is, this printer is so poorly designed that it shouldn't even be on the market.

Stop! Stop!

It’s an ugly, cheap looking, square-cornered box. It’s noisy unless you use Quiet Mode, which slows it down. Worst of all, there’s no way to stop a print job in progress. You, the user, will watch helplessly as the entire job prints, wasting your time, your ink, and your paper; and nothing short of a wielded sledge hammer will stop this printer unless you unplug it.

Paper jam every time

You can’t leave envelopes or labels in Tray 1. If you do, the printer will grab them every time it runs out of letter paper in Tray 2 and create a horrendous paper jam.

The four-step path to enlightened paper loading

If Tray 1 is empty when the paper in Tray 2 runs out, the printer ought to continue printing when more paper is loaded. It won’t. The user has to intervene by pressing buttons on the control panel.

1. The printer runs out of paper in Tray 2 and stops printing. The control panel displays an “Out of paper” message. DO NOT press “OK.”

2. Load paper into Tray 2 and close the drawer.

3. The message on the control panel changes to, “Did you change the paper?” Press “OK.” This message persists for only a few seconds, so be sure to press “OK” immediately. If the message doesn’t appear, open and close the paper drawer until it does.

4. The control panel displays the “Out of paper” message again. This time, press “OK.” Printing will resume.

If the user fails to follow this procedure exactly, the printer will stop printing after the current job completes and won’t print anything more. The control panel will continue to display an “Out of paper” message even though paper has been fully loaded. The only way to get the printer to start printing again is to reset it by unplugging it and plugging it back in or by turning it off with the power button and waiting for it to reboot.

Won’t print after a software update?

The same remedy applies when the printer refuses to print after a software update. Unplug it and plug it back in, or turn it off and let it turn itself back on.

It shouldn’t need updates in the first place. This product should have been finished before it was brought to market. The updates improve its performance not one iota, anyway.

Printing is an adventure

This printer turns pressing an application’s Print button into an adventure. The user never knows whether it’s going to print or not. When it doesn’t, usually no explanatory message appears on either the control panel or the computer screen. Nothing will print, but the user doesn’t know why. Baffled, the user has no recourse but to reset the printer. When he/she presses the power button to turn it off, the notification, “Error printing” may appear. How helpful!

Sometimes it loses contact with the wireless network. When it does, the notification “Printer offline” appears on the computer screen. In this case, pressing the power button to reset it may not have any effect at all, and the printer must be unplugged and plugged back in.

Dumping WiFi

You can avoid the wireless connectivity issue by connecting the printer to your router by an Ethernet cable or to your computer by a USB cable (neither supplied). Do this after the initial WiFi setup.

However, even after the printer is connected to the router or computer, it frequently refuses to print. There’s never any apparent reason for this, except that the software controlling the printer is defective. Every time the printer balks, the user has to press the power button and wait while the printer shuts down and reboots before it will finally start printing again.

HP’s warranty is worthless

If you’re fed up with struggling with this printer, and you think HP will send you a better one if you return it, you’ve never been more mistaken. The replacement you will receive will have no ink and no printhead. If you try to install the ink and printhead from your original printer, you’ll discover that you can’t. The replacement lacks not just ink cartridges and printhead; it’s also missing the mechanism that holds them in place. HP’s warranty states that any replacement product must have, quote, “similar functionality as the product being replaced.” Similar functionality? Hah! It’s a useless shell.

Folly’s reward

If you’re foolish enough to purchase this printer after reading this and other negative reviews, you’ll get exactly what you deserve for your folly: a horrible printer. Be sure to buy it form a retailer that offers a generous return window.