Using the HP OfficeJet Pro 9012 All-in-one printer, you can print, copy, and scan documents quickly. This printer is ideal for a small office because it can print 22 pages in black and white and 18 pages in color per minute.
With the press of a button, you can quickly scan or copy up to 35 sheets of paper thanks to the printer’s automatic document feeder. Additionally, you can copy up to 21 pages per minute and print in a duplex.
Keep reading to find out all the details from our comprehensive review.
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Table of Contents
Pros And Cons Of HP OfficeJet Pro 9012 All-in-one Printer
Pros
- It is a 4-in-1 printer, so in addition to printing, it also allows you to scan, copy, and fax.
- You won’t have to wait long for your print job to be completed because the printer can print 22 pages per minute in black and white.
- For a six-month trial period, HP Instant Ink is yours if you register this printer for HP+.
Cons
- Select a smaller size if you prefer a printer that isn’t very large.
- This printer doesn’t make a lot of noise.
Design Of HP OfficeJet Pro 9012 All-in-one Printer
The OfficeJet Pro 8022 from the previous year and other HP MFPs in its class share nearly all of the same visual components as the 9012e. This is reflected in the eye-catching two-tone color scheme, which features a striking white band running through the middle and gunmetal grey for the paper tray and ADF. It has a single paper tray with a capacity of 250 sheets and an extendable capture tray.
HP chose a 6.75cm color touchscreen display, one of the sleekest and most ergonomic we’ve seen, in place of physical buttons, save for a single illuminated on/off. While offering a sleek, lag-free, and intuitive UI that feels more like using a tablet, it can be kept flush to the vertical or angled to make it even easier to use.
Features Of HP OfficeJet Pro 9012 All-in-one Printer
HP has put a lot of effort into developing “smart” printers. It was the first company to offer “ink as a service” in the form of With HP Instant Ink, when a cartridge is about to run out, the printer notifies the servers, and by the time a replacement is needed, it has already arrived on the doorstep. With the first six months of your subscription being completely free, HP claims that this can help users save up to 70% on ink. Home users will find this to be a particularly appealing feature.
Instant Ink is now a part of HP+, a cloud-based membership program that combines ink refills, an extended warranty, and a plethora of cloud services geared toward remote and mobile printing. With just a few taps on the touchscreen, you can print directly from a network folder or NAS after a little setup and even save scans to services like Sharepoint and Google Drive. Cloud-based services require the creation of an HP+ account, which you can manage along with your instant ink account and grant access to additional users. However, we wouldn’t want to use this in a large office.
A USB 3.0 port on the left-hand side of the device is one of its physical features and is perfect for printing directly from a memory stick. For setting up the “nice to have” fax facility, there are two RJ11 ports on the back, along with an ethernet port, an additional USB 2.0 port, and a figure-8 power supply port. Along with 802.11a/b/g/n Wifi, Bluetooth Smart and Wifi Direct are supported.
Setup Of HP OfficeJet Pro 9012 All-in-one Printer
Although you can easily set up the 9012e from the touchscreen, you’ll likely find it to be simpler to use the HP Smart package on your computer or mobile device. If you want to go it alone, a full set of cartridges will cost you £90 (inc VAT) and last approximately 700 pages (color) and 2000 pages (black). You will be strongly encouraged to sign up for HP+, which is required to claim your free ink. HP lists XL cartridges, but at the time of writing, we were unable to locate any UK stock or pricing.
HP offers a business plan for Instant Ink that costs £22.49 (inc VAT) per month for up to 700 pages per month, with overages charged at £1 per 10 sheets. While this may be sufficient for a small operation, it further proves that the 9012e is not intended for large-scale deployments, where running costs would quickly rise, especially given that each printer requires a separate subscription.
It is challenging to compare the costs per page due to the Instant Ink offering, but we have calculated them based on the comparison between purchasing a full set of cartridges for $89.99 and an Instant Ink subscription at the Business rate of £22.49. With Instant Ink, the price per page is only 3.2p in these two situations as opposed to 12.8p with cartridge purchases.
But there’s an important qualification. Instead of 700 pages, the black cartridge yields 1000. A black cartridge can be purchased separately for £29.99, or about 2.9p per page, although Instant Ink cartridges are always sent in complete sets. As a result, if you only occasionally print in color, it might be slightly cheaper to choose that option, but because the cost difference is so small, it’s probably simpler to stick with Instant Ink.
Thus, we are left with a machine whose operating costs can be either extremely high or extremely low. The Brother MFC-J4540DW, which costs 3.3p per page and has no ink subscription offer, makes the HP “standalone” option of 12.8p seem incredibly expensive. Go with the subscription; the HP costs a little less per page (3.2p) and gives you the assurance that you’ll never run out of ink.
Performance Of HP OfficeJet Pro 9012 All-in-one Printer
High resolution always has a cost, but the 9012e can print and scan at 1200×1200 DPI, which is an impressive claim. Even in full color, HP claims that its draft mode printer can print up to 32 pages per minute. Unfortunately, we fell far short of this. We measured either three and a half pages in full color or seven pages of plain text.
But even worse than that, it took an appalling 40 seconds on average from pressing print to the first-page printing, during which there was a combination of loud whirring and clicking and unsettling silence. It’s unfortunate because the print quality is excellent even in draft mode, but that consistently long gap is very off-putting.
We discovered that lag goes away if you print a single page at a time, indicating that the delay is in setting up and spooling larger documents. In a way, this is understandable, but we’ve used the same multi-page document in other reviews and experienced little to no lag at all, so we can only hope that software updates will address this.
Other features perform better; scanning, for example, can handle a generous 1200×1200 DPI with results that are both legible and color accurate. In a single print run, the copy facility can produce up to 99 copies, and just like a photocopier, it allows you to directly enlarge and reduce images without first modifying them on a computer. Although we were unable to test the fax feature, we like that you can send a fax directly from your device without placing a paper copy on the scanner bed.
Customer Review From Amazon
- “You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to locate an HP printer that can connect to LAN and is also compatible with HP Instant Ink! I was ecstatic to discover that the Eero mesh network improved the WiFi speed on all of my devices after I added it to the Virgin Media system in my home.”
- “The HP Instant Ink Delivery system, which is promoted along with the purchase of the printer, is the main focus of this review. I have to admit that was the quickest product return I’ve ever had the misfortune to make. It took just three hours from when the printer arrived until the boxes were packed and the return label was printed.”
- “Due to the aforementioned reasons, I ultimately had to return the 9020 printer. I later bought the 9025 Office Jet Pro, which is basically the same printer with a different blue ADF and instant ink (which I won’t be subscribing to). The ADF also experiences the same stupid issue (slanted scanned pages), as you might have guessed. Each day at work, I scan numerous A4 documents, which I keep as a backup in my Google Drive. even A5 credit card bills, etc.”
- “High-quality prints, simple networking, and simple to use and install. Everything else is a complete letdown because using your own printer requires a monthly subscription. I put up with this for a while, but I’ve now canceled the contract and will buy a different brand printer when the supplied ink cartridges fail, not when they run out because HP will stop letting me print remotely when they do. As a result, a perfectly good printer will end up in the trash because I vehemently reject being used as a bargaining chip.”
Our Verdict
The OfficeJet Pro 9012 isn’t a bad MFP, but it’s also not a great one either because of the things that it lacks. The issue is that HP seems to have given this model everything it could handle without fully justifying its actions.
Keep in mind this if you’re thinking about upgrading soon even though we believe that Windows 11 support will improve. If you have any questions regarding this printer, leave your comment below.
