The right printer is crucial to achieving efficient printing and improving office productivity. Compared to its moderate price, HP Wireless Color LaserJet Pro MFP M283fdw is versatile and well-built as an entry-level color laser machine, a workhorse for home-based offices, small businesses, or workgroups.

Good looking Appearance

The printer has a pretty appearance. The simple, modern design with a 2.7" color touchscreen delivers marketable looks to the M283fdw, and a neutral white color scheme allows the machine to blend harmoniously with other room elements. Not like the glossy surface would show smudges and fingerprints, the whitish-gray plastic of the device is dirt-proof. So you do not need to clean it frequently.

When lifting the scanner lid, the M283fdw measures 13.2 inches by 16.5 inches by 16.6 inches (HWD) and 18.7 inches in height. It is moderate-sized among Laser printers but bigger than most InkJet ones. So it may take more valuable desk real estate to update from an Inkjet printer user. The weight of 41.2 pounds makes it heftier than the sibling M255dw, with a single-print-function weighing 32.6 pounds. The priority after getting this AIO is finding a sturdy table or desk to set it up. 8.6 pounds more but plus three scan, copy, and fax features.It is maybe a little heavy and oversized at home, but how often do we move it? Never! So just let's take more focus on the positive elements.

When you look at the HP LaserJet Pro MFP M283fdw, the most attractive part is the large color touchscreen attached to the automatic document feeder. It is much easier to access and update basic settings or monitor the ink toner level than the old, button-laden control panel. You can finish the configuration on the machine itself and start your print jobs right away. What's more, the touchscreen is rotatable, so the users can sit down and get the work done.

Robust and reasonable structure

The scanner lid is regulable to take thick documents like envelopes or books. It's easy to replace the toner, and the panel comes out with all the four toner cartridges on the front side.

When paper jams happen, there comes an error message on the 2.7" color touchscreen. You can handle the paper jam very easily with specific instructions from the control panel. Do remember to use both of your hands when pulling out the jammed paper to avoid tearing any whole sheets of paper. Sometimes you will need a flashlight to check if any objects are in the machine to keep the problem. The input and output paper trays and canning lid are adjustable and straightforward for different print jobs.

Overall, HP Color LaserJet MFP M283fdw is solid and well-built to last for a long time.

Functionality

HP MFP M283fdw is a four-in-one multifunction printer, which has HP quality and reliability all the way. It can print scan copy and fax, covering most of the printing needs in the office.

Output resolution

Print resolution is a parameter to show the detail an image holds and can be measured in dots per inch. The more dots printed per inch, the higher definition of an image. The print and copy resolution of HP LaserJet Pro M283fdw is 600 x 600 dpi. That is to say, 360,000 pixels distribute evenly in the printed area of one inch in two directions. It is an excellent print output. Scan resolution is even much higher, can reach 1200 x 1200 dpi after several steps configuration. High-resolution scanning is good news for someone who wants to transform precious material docs like photos or pictures into digital storage.

Paper handling

There are a 250-sheet paper tray and a 1-sheet override slot located at the top. The single-sheet feeder is very helpful when printing labels or having other particular print jobs. But be noted, this single paper dispenser is fragile plastic, and do not remove it by mistake. Supported media types are various papers ( bond, brochure, colored, glossy, heavy, letterhead, light, photo, plain, preprinted, recycled, rough), transparencies, labels, envelopes, cardstock. The color laser printer offers automatic two sided printing and a 50-page automatic document feeder to deliver excellent efficiency. Automatic duplex printing helps save time and paper, while an automatic document feeder reduces the need for manual paper input. Also, the 100-sheep output capacity paper tray allows you to keep printing for quite a long time before fetching the papers. In short, HP LaserJet Pro MFP M283fdw has the perfect paper handling feature to meet your polytropic printing requirement.

Printing Speed and Volume

The printing speed and volume of HP Color LaserJet MFP M283fdw are the same as the HP Color LaserJet Pro M255dw. The first page comes out as fast as 10.3 sec for black. The print speed is up to 22 ppm, the same as HP LaserJet Pro M255dw, in functionality, a low-end copy of MFP M283fdw. But when it comes to similar LaserJet printers, the 22 ppm print speed is not attractive. It keeps the same rate of copy print and scan color docs. But when scanning monochrome pages, the speed increases to 28 ppm, which will save time for your scanning need. This is not a fast printing model, and 22 ppm is just moderate during laser printers. Additionally, automatic two sided printing and a 50-page automatic document feeder save paper and improve efficiency.

The Monthly Duty cycle is up to amazing 40,000 pages. But it is the maximum printing volume, beyond which will damage the machine. The recommended volume of up to 2,500 pages represents the actual performance to last long. The device is not a heavy-duty printer but surely more than sufficient for small and medium businesses.

Printing Performance

The machine wakes up quickly in seconds. Black and white text printing is comparable to most monochrome LaserJet printers. The printer print quality with HP toner is very stable for different fonts and italicization, just a bit light at font sizes below 10 points. The result is excellent in naked eyes. You can rest assured to use it for important documents such as invoices, contracts, reports, resumes, and marketing materials. Not to say kids' printing projects for school or some crafting & DIY projects.

Sometimes laser printer is not good at color compared to InkJet printer, but the ImageREt 3600 technology embedded in M283fdw allows the output with realistic and vibrant colors. It is one of the best models among the similar color laserJet printers for printing simple graphics, such as line charts and bar graphs. Lines and bards are solid and bold with bright, vivid colors. The printer produces high quality color and peak printing performance with original HP toner cartridges.

But the pixelation is not enough to show the details clearly. The printer print quality is just acceptable when it comes to photos with large color areas. Dark areas look muddled and lack clarity. It can print on slide photo paper, but the result is awful. Colors are washed out, and pictures look like ages old exposed to light.

Scan

Overall, this MFP model does well in scanning. The scanning speed is as fast as 28 ppm, and the output is perfect with a 1200 x 1200 dpi resolution. The 50-sheet automatic document feeder allows you to scan multipage documents persistently without much manual handling—an excellent feature for someone who has a lengthy document scanning requirement.

That being said, we still expect more from HP regarding scanning. First of all, it does not offer automatic duplex scanning, which is very important for offices with many duplex pages to digitalize. In this case, the only way is manual input, turn over the document after scanning, and then send it back through. That can be tedious, even more so than the single sheet printer feed. After that, you can combine and re-order them in PDF format. Time goes by after so many steps compared to the automatic duplex scanning.

Additionally, you can scan the docs to different destinations like a USB drive, email, and a folder. The scan to email feature is very welcome. But it requires an app-specific password to access your email account, and you need to enable "Allow less secure apps." In my opinion, these are unnecessary steps for security and too complicated for most users. We expect to get the scanning result from a mail just entered automatically on the updated models.

Software and Firmware

The MFP is compatible with most operating systems, such as Windows 8.1, 10,8, 7: 32-bit, or 64-bit. The software is strong security designed to help detect and stop attacks. With the help of a 2.7" color touchscreen and HP Smart App, the users can navigate and access all the core printing and scanning functions well.

Printing scanning from your mobile device

The wireless printer lets you get seamless connections and do printing scanning from your mobile device. HP Smart App is a class mobile print App, which can eliminate steps in repetitive tasks and organize documents 50% faster. It is compatible with the latest features, including HP ePrint, Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Wi-Fi Direct, etc. The last one, Wi-Fi Direct, is a Wi-Fi standard to connect peer devices without requiring an access point, similar as but much faster than Bluetooth. That is to say. You can get a fast, reliable connection to your printer with 5GHz dual-band Wi-Fi capability; even the internet is unavailable. Bios update is a breeze too. What is a little disappointed, the local web interface for inputting and updating settings on this printer looks dated.
In short, the software is more than enough to function well in this printer.

Cost

HP M283fdw is about $500 from HP's official store on Amazon. Not a hefty amount for a versatile MFP. But, for most of the HP LaserJet, the toner is expensive. The printer manufacturers often sell the machine at a low even loss price to win more market share. And the consumables like ink toner are the secret to getting enough benefit to cover the charge for research and development and printer production. As a result, the users pay for expensive consumables for daily work.

Make sure you check the toner prices before deciding to buy this model. Let's check it out.

The M283fdw uses toner cartridges to produce content on the papers as a laser printer. The compatible cartridges are 206A and 206X, which are the same products with different toner powders to print different page yields. Page yield means how many pages you can get from a toner. HP 206A toner set contains four cartridges named W2110A, W2111A, W2112A, W2113A, related to Black Cyan Magenta and Yellow four colors. HP 206A allows you to produce pages up to 1350 yield for black and 1250 for color. And HP 206X toner set, which is named as W2110X, W2111X, W2112X, W2113X, delivers up to 3150 and 2450 yield for black and colors, respectively.

Actual printing cost

We should first learn the actual printing cost, the cost per page. The formula for a monochrome printer is simple: Cost Per Page=consumable price/page yield. Some consumables are cheap with low page yield and bring an extremely high cost per page. Many InkJet printers will cost you a hand and leg in the long run. We pick the black HP MFP M283fdw toners for comparison; those are W2110A and W2110X. An HP original 3,150-yield black toner cartridge W2110X alone will cost almost $100, which means about $0.03 per page for black color. The result for 1,350-yield W2110A is $0.05 per page. The high page yield W2110X is more economical than W2110A. We can use this knowledge when comparing the cost of different printers. Above all, check the consumable price and the cost per page beside the printer itself.

A color printer's entire cost per page is the summation of 4 color cartridges(Black Cyan Magenta and Yellow). For the printers with the same page yield color cartridges, the formula is (Black cartridge price/page yield) + (Color cartridge price/page yield) x 3 = Color cartridge cost per page. So the economic high yield option HP 206X will cost you $0.4 for every single page on average.

Save with True Image

This printer comes with high running costs. A set of high yield HP 206  is as costly as nearly $400; that's 80% of the printer itself! The starter toner cartridges with the new printer are just 800 pages for black and 700 for color. The pain will come soon when the limited consumables run out. We believe that the users should have the right to choose a more affordable replacement. Besides the expensive original ones, a third-party manufacturer produces compatible toner cartridges, which offer the same function.

Our Ture Image compatible toner cartridges are premium quality to deliver the best cost-efficiency. Our products are produced and tested under strict industry standards and are 100% compatible with specific printers. The related printers include HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M283fdw, M283cdw, M283fdn, M282nw, and HP Color LaserJet Pro M255dw. The cost per page of True Image 206X is $0.16, just 40% of the original ones. You can save even more if you buy bulk with a more significant discount. Terms conditions are favorable, and you can rest assured to shop in our online store.

Note: HP might automatically upgrade firmware to prevent your printer from using compatible cartridges. You can disable HP printer firmware upgrades or downgrade HP printer firmware to make compatible cartridges accepted by your printer.

The printer family

The OEM factory often produces a model and updates it with new advanced technologies in the following years or decades. The printers mentioned above are siblings with the same consumables. Usually, You can find the secret from the product number. For instance, the product number of HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M283fdw is #7KW75A#BGJ, while 7KW72A, 7KW73A, and 7KW74A are for M282nw, M283cdw, and M283fdn, respectively.

The letters in the model name indicate the specific functions. For example, f means fax, n is network, d is duplex, and w means wireless. Please be noted, the "d" of duplex represents duplex printing, but not about scanning, copying, and faxing. To make sure if the MFP printer offers automatic duplex scanning, you will need to check the ADF is duplex or not. For instance, M283fdw can automatically print duplex docs but need manual help scanning and copying on both sides.

7KW64A for HP Color LaserJet Pro M255dw is a little further because it is a single function printer, which can't scan, copy and fax. These five models have the same printing performance, such as printing speed, output quality, duplex printing feature, and many more.

Besides the siblings, there are clone relationships with different consumables but similar specs. Another series uses 202A and 202X toner cartridges include seven models: HP Color LaserJet Pro M254dw, M254dn, M254nw, and HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M281fdw, MFP M281fdn, MFP M281cdw, MFP M280nw. Compared to M283fdw, T6B82A MFP M281fdw has an identical appearance, structure, and even identical specs. What is the difference between HP Color LaserJet Pro M283fdw and the M281fdw? Only the consumables. Likely the cloning phenomenon is just a marketing tactic from HP to differentiate the competition for different vendors. 

Conclusion

HP LaserJet Pro M283fdw is a well-made printer to last long at a moderate price. Seamless connections and robust software support make it responsive to handle all core functionalities well, including print and scan. The machine delivers high quality color and peak printing performance with original HP toner cartridges.

The modern and fashionable device produces professional output for important docs in your office. When duplex scanning is needed frequently, you can consider spending an additional $150 on the M477fdw. Crafting & DIY projects, students' school projects can use the $150 cheaper one M255dw instead. And, this series of color MFP models are not suitable for family use for photos.
If you don't mind paying for performance to meet your diverse printing needs, the M283fdw will not let you down. If you want to use this printer with a relatively high printing volume (more than 400 pages per month), try our Ture Image HP 206A and 206X replacement to lower the running cost.