HP Laserjet Pro M126nw All-in-One B&W Printer for Home: Print, Copy, & Scan, Affordable, Compact, Easy Mobile Printing

I was looking for a laser printer with WiFi capability and selected this printer based on my budget and its overall reviews on Amazon and external sites.
Delivery:: Delivered in 2 days to the door step, Plastic wrapped not bubble, but handled properly with some minor dents in packaging.
Setup and Driver installation: setup is easy. On MacOS, the system itself has prompted for supporting drivers.
WiFi setup is easy as well. Apps from HP are available to enhance the experience on mobile devices.
Print quality and ease to use: Currently my whole family can connect to the printer using computer or mobile device using wifi. It takes 10-15 seconds first to warm up and can print 15 pages per minute. Quality is good and best performance and quality was observed for the documents in DOC format. Copy function works well and there is a workarround possible to get double sided copy.
Limitations: Not capable to perform double sided print and copy automatically. Limited capacity of the free cartridge.
Suggestions: Kindly use the instructions manual to unwrap the cartridge before using.

The item is multipurpose useful. Prints are neat and smooth without any noise.

Printer quality good but given the empty toner

I was looking for good quality MFP in the 10k range and came across this model. HP name and its features were eye-catcher and I was able to finalize it soon.

I am using this MFP for more than a year and so far had no issues, be it printing or scanning or copier. P.S. I use only genuine HP toner in it, so it’s quite a deal.

HP 126nw, mark this nw in its name as it makes it super useful, giving it network capability in terms of LAN/Wi-Fi for both printing and scanning. This is really useful as you can keep it anywhere and print from virtually any location without any cable connected (other than power cable).

Setting it up, in general, is a breeze while the Wi-Fi scan is a bit complicated. I will list the steps to make it easy for you.
FYI, I got it from Cambium Retail seller.

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INSIDE BOX
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1. Printer
2. Paper stack tray
3. Print collection tray
4. Introductory cartridge
– Pre-installed, (you need to remove orange clip & pull the orange tab to remove the seal, before usage, pic attached)
– Yields approx 550 pages
5. Power cable
6. USB cable
7. Getting Started, Installation, Warranty & User guide
8. Printer CD

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ABOUT DEVICE
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Dimensions: L x W x H 420 x 365 x 254 mm
Weight: ~8 kg

Print Quality: 10/10
Scan Quality: 8/10
Power Consumption: 9/10
Print Cost: 7/10 (wrt genuine cartridge, not wrt compatible, duplicate or refilled ones)
Build Quality: 9/10

Approx cost per page (using genuine cartridge): Rs 3
There’s a huge drop in cost if local ones are used, but those have far inferior print quality (you can easily scratch and remove print) & damages rollers inside.

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PROS
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1. A wonderful multifunction device with laser printing.
2. Detailed control panel with 2 line LCD text display
3. Good print & scan speed/resolution. Print (up to 20ppm, 1200 dpi) & scan (up to 7ppm b/w, 5ppm colour, 1200 dpi).
4. Multiple connectivity options for print/scan. USB/LAN/Wi-Fi.
5. Set up anywhere, thanks to its Wi-Fi connectivity. Just a power source required.
5. Print using smartphone directly via Wi-Di i.e. Smartphone → Printer
6. Print using smartphone via network i.e. Smartphone → Router → Printer (Download HP print service plugin from app store)
8. It can be used as a standalone photocopy machine using the control panel with an extra double side photocopy feature for ID cards etc.
9. All photocopy related controls are available on panel, like one-touch photocopy button, no of copies, light-dark with 11 steps, reduce/enlarge, optimization, paper setting, etc
10. Tiltable control panel for easy access.
11. The good thing with a laser printer is that you don’t have to worry about drying ink or print head. I had 2 heads replaced in the earlier inkjet printer. So even if off for a month, laser one works instantly with the same good quality.

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CONS
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1. Scan quality is not crisp. On full zoom, I find it slightly blurry. But in regular day to day scanning tasks, you won’t even notice it. So not a big deal.
2. No backlit LCD and it’s a pain to operate it without backlight unless you tilt it.
3. No ADF for scanning, so you need feed in every single page to be scanned separately. (But you can’t get everything in this range)
4. Initial warm-up time (power on to ready) is quite large, ~40 sec.

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FEATURES
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-Extensive control panel on the front
-Web panel/local network page accessible via IP address. You can find just everything here, supply status, network settings, paper setting, web services, power options, logs, reports, etc, etc
-USB printing/ scanning (via USB 2.0)
-LAN/ Wi-Fi Printing/Scanning (via Ethernet 10/100, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n)
-Apple Air print
-Printing via Email or HP ePrint
-Printing directly via Mobile using Wi-Di
-Duplex printing support
-Standalone photocopy with id copy mode & options like reduce enlarge, light/dark, mode, etc
-Scan to email/application/file
-Multiple scan formats supported like pdf, tiff, jpg, bmp, png

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INITIAL SETUP (via USB cable or WiFi or LAN)
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1. Remove various seals from around MFP.
2. Take out the cartridge from MFP and remove the orange clip & pull orange tab to remove the seal. Reinstall it.
3. Attach power cable.
4. Use driver cd or download installer from the HP website. Run it.
5. Follow on-screen instructions for the desired setup.
– USB based
– Connect through network
– First-time wireless connection

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CONFIGURING IT FOR WIRELESS SCANNING & PRINTING BOTH
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▶ WITHOUT WPS

The initial setup of this MFP directly via ‘first-time wireless connection’ option, does not enable scan via Wi-Fi. Only printing works. I will take you through steps to enable wireless scanning which is really very handy. It took me a lot of time to figure it out.
If already configured on network and you set it up via 2nd option, then scanning will work.

1. Power on MFP. Do not connect it via LAN cable or USB cable for now.
2. Use driver cd or download installer from the HP website. Run it.
3. Choose USB based setup. Follow on-screen instructions and complete it.
4. Again run the installer and now choose the 3rd option, first-time wireless connection. Follow on-screen instructions and complete it.
5. Now when you run HP scan utility, it will be able to communicate to MFP via Wi-Fi.
6. If you skip step 3 above, it won’t work and give communication error.

▶ WITH WPS

1. Power on MFP. USB or LAN cable is not required.
2. Press the Wi-Fi button on MFP to start the WPS connection.
3. Push the WPS button on your router.
4. Let it connect to the router. Once successful, the IP address will be displayed on LCD.
5. Now start setup and select 2nd option ‘connect through the network’. It will search for the printer on the network.
6. Once found, select it and proceed.

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FINAL VERDICT
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I am using it for more than a year and it never disappointed me in terms of usage, be it printing/scanning/copy task.

▶ This device, M126nw is highly suitable for general home usage where you don’t print every day or light to medium office work where you print/scan daily. You can very well go for it.

▶ There used to be another model m126a without network capability. If you can find it, you can save some bucks. But a few bucks more get you a good deal of value proposition with m126nw.