OfficeJet 3830 All-in-One Wireless Printer, Instant Ink, Works with Alexa (K7V40A)

Short version: If you want a reasonably priced, reliable printer that is simple to install and easy to use, this HP Officejet 3830 is a great choice. Set-up: The set up takes less than 15 minutes to complete, and it instantly works with all your devices on the same wifi network. There's no need to download a particular app (though it offers a good one if you like that sort of thing), nor does it require any special set up with your computer. Use: This printer is self-explanatory and intuitive. The touch screen isn't very large, but it's much more responsive than the one on my old HP Envy 100, so it's actually an improvement for me. If you can use a regular sized touchscreen smartphone, you can use this with no problem. Ink: After comparing the various manufacturers' ink cartridge options for ink jet printers, I've found them all to be comparably priced, but I prefer HP, because (1) it requires only two cartridges (black & color), whereas other printers often require one black and three or more color cartridges*; and (2) the HP Instant Ink program (which is optional) is cheaper and extremely convenient. *I know some people have complained about the single color cartridges, preferring to use individual colors to conserve ink. My response to that complaint is twofold. First, in my experience, when one color is out, the other colors are close behind, so the convenience of the combined cartridges is worth it. Second, any ink waste that results from the combined color cartridges is minimal compared to the "waste" generated from separate color cartridges. With combined color cartridges, there is one cartridge, one sealed package, one paper insert and one outer box. With individual color cartridges, there are three (or more) plastic cartridges, three sealed packages, three paper inserts and three outer boxes. That's a lot of unnecessary waste! Other issues: The only other concern that's been raised in the Amazon reviews is the paper feeder. Apparently a few people have complained that it grabs several pages at once, causing paper waste and jams. I've noticed that sometimes the paper doesn't fully load into the feeder, and when that happens, it can cause this problem. The paper feeder itself is a bit awkward. Still, as long as I make sure the paper is properly and fully loaded, I don't have this problem. All things considered, this is a fairly minor problem with an otherwise excellent printer. Long Version - HP v Canon: I literally gave away my brand new Canon MG7520 printer and replaced it with this HP Officejet 3830, and I couldn't be happier. After my trusty old HP Envy 100 took a spill off my desk and shattered, I researched printers online to select its replacement. I've always had HPs at home and work, but I wanted to find the best value regardless of brand. Although the expert and consumer reviews were generally all over the place, with printers receiving 4.8 stars on one website and 2.4 stars on another, I noticed that on most sites the Canon printers were rated the highest of all the major brands. Based on that research, I bought a Canon MG7520 on sale at Best Buy. Though I'm no computer expert, I have set up a number of similar printers for myself and my family members, and based on my experience, I knew it shouldn't take more than about 15 minutes to connect my new Canon printer. Over one month and countless wasted hours trying to get that thing to work, I finally packed it up and donated it to Goodwill (the Best Buy return period had long since expired, and I didn't want to waste any more of my time, even just trying to sell it on Craigslist). During that month of fruitless efforts to get the Canon printer to print something other than the Printer Connection Settings sheet, I tried everything to get it to work with any of my devices. I used the included installation disk; I downloaded the drives and software from the website; I manually installed the drivers; I followed the instructions in the box and the (different) instructions online; and I even talked to Canon customer support several times. Nothing worked. After waving the white flag, I bought this HP Officejet 3830 from Amazon. Two days later (thank you Prime!), it arrived. Ten minutes, 47 seconds later, it was printing from my desktop, laptop, phone and tablet. I never even had to look at the instructions. HP install: Plug in, enter wifi password, insert paper, print. Canon install: Plug in, choose LAN connection type, enter wifi password, download app, change LAN connection type to "offline" set up, register printer, change LAN again, select online options, try to connect, if connection fails even when connected, try to decipher cryptic installation instructions, start all over, etc etc. You get the idea. Does Canon print better photos? I wouldn't know, but I've heard it does. If you're buying a printer primarily for photo printing, perhaps Canon is the way to go. But if you need a printer for everyday, household/small business printing needs, I highly recommend HP, and in particular I recommend the HP Officejet 3830. It's easy and it works. Oh, and the photos look just fine.

I bought 2 of these printers back in May 2018, one from Amazon for $39.99 and another from a discount outlet for $54.99. The one from Amazon has printed 34,130 pages and the other one over 31,100 pages (per the page counter within the printers). AMAZING. I've had a few problems from time to time but nothing serious. The copier, scanner and document feeders have worked without problems and I've even used the fax successfully occasionally. I have been satisfied with the printing, scanning quality and speed. From the Amazon reviews I see that all printers have plenty of issues and dissatisfied customers but these 3830 printers are the best I've ever used. Mine are just about worn out but I'd buy two new ones if the price was more reasonable. I wish HP was still making and selling this model. BTW I started using the HP Instant Ink service when my printers were new, and it has been good for me.

I just received my printer today, so I am hoping to update this in a few weeks after I've used it for awhile. For now I am going to focus on the packaging, startup, setup, print quality, and durability. I want to take a quick moment to state the fact that HP took the effort to make packaging a breeze! I opened the tape up on the box and the first thing I see it the printer on it side in a bag surrounded by the nice sturdy styrofoam. Now normally when anything is surrounded by styrofoam of any sorts, its a big pain to get it out of the box by yourself. Well HP took the time and thought of the consumer! The plastic bag they wrapped the printer in had handles on it so I was easily able to lift the printer out of the box by myself. After unpackaging the printer the directions of first initial setup was printed very clearly. There are no words printed on setup page, but the pictures are pretty detailed in my opinion so there shouldn't be too much of an issue. I took the tape off and followed the instructions of setup and it took me about 5 min to set everything up. (Connect to my wifi, print the alignment page, scan for the first time etc). (The hardest part for me was inserting the black ink cartridge which was my own fault because I didn't have the right angle at first.) I want to point out I only gave durability 3 stars because the whole body is made of plastic. I know most printers are made of plastic nowadays, but to me this is less durable plastic and honestly if it gets tossed around quite a bit I'm not so sure it would last not that you should be tossing your printer around in the first place haha. Connecting to my wifi was a breeze. After printing the test pages and whatnot the final set was to visit a web site and download drivers which I'm not a novice to. HP wanted me to download their app for Windows 10, but decided not to because I can print from any program itself and not have any extra software. I have not tried printing from my smartphone yet (android) but when I do I plan on updating this review. I have printed a few pages, scanned, and even printed photos on photo paper (4 x 6) and everything has turned out great. I only have changed one setting and that is to print at max DPI so I get the best pictures. I also want to add that the printer comes with ink. Not too much, but enough that you might be able to print about 15-20 text pages. I've printed 2 4 x 6 photos as well as a few text documents and I still have ink in the original cartridges. The printer touch screen is very responsive and not laggy like some are. Overall, this is a great printer for the price. I feel that whoever is reading this will make a great decision and buy this printer. EDIT 1: Mobile printing was a breeze. I have a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge which I connected to the same WIFI as the printer, found a document that I wanted to print , selected the printer on my phone which showed up immediately and printed. My phone showed a message stating that it may take a few seconds before it would start printing because the document had to go through a server first but this was not the case. I selected print and it started printing right away. The quality was just as good as if I printed it off of a PC too.

Works great. Second time purchase as we have had such good luck in the past. Uses easy to find 63 Ink Cartridge. No frills set up and changing the ink is a breeze.

I know this should be a review about the printer, but I see a lot of the reviewers here are not happy with the subscription based ink plan that can be added as an OPTION with this printer. I'll start off with the printer. The printer is great, quiet, prints rather quickly and has all the functions we need. For an all in one, the price point is really good in my opinion. We mainly ordered this for our kid's school projects. Other than that, we don't print too much. For the ink. I let the reviews here start to cloud my judgment even before the printer was delivered. Didn't realize the ink sub was even a thing till I started seeing all the 1 star reviews on it. Then I got the printer and saw that I can print 15 pages a moth for free when I sign up for the ink sub. Then the next plan up is 2.99 for 100 pages a month. In my household, I wont get close to 100 pages. I may be ok with just the 15 pages a month. And you know whats cool? I can upgrade to the 2.99 plan at anytime in a month or downgrade at any time... So if I need 16 pages or 99, I'll up it to 2.99 for that month and then downgrade it. When my ink gets low, HP ships me more ink despite which plan I have, even on the free plan. I'm really sold on this and don't understanding why people are hating on this. When I go and buy ink for my inkjet printer, I spend at least $30-40 on new cartridges. Most of the time my inkjet cartridges would dry up because I wasn't printing enough, but now I can just print out a couple of pages every month just because and it doesn't cost me anything... Overall I am very happy with this and love the ink subscription. Maybe not perfect for all, but really think about how much you spend on new ink every time you go to the store... Is it more than $35.88 for the black and color? Oh and you can even print photos, the ink sub doesn't care... They just count per page printed. One more thing to note that seemed to be pointed out as a negative. The printer must be connected to the iternet for the ink sub to work... Sounds like there are people out there that had a problem for this. For our haoushold, our printer is connected to our network so we can magically print to it without connecting to the USB port... Pretty cool huh? And you know what else you get when the printer is on your wifi or connected to the network? It gets internet! Cool stuff right? No extra steps to connect it to the mystical internet. If you are concerned about security, put it on your guest network. Most wifi routers have them today. Hope all this info helps.

THE BIGGEST REGRET PURCHASE I HAVE EVER MADE! No joke. So many times, it was so frustrating I literally *almost* threw it across the room into the trash can. I wouldn’t even attempt selling it to a stranger on Craigslist. Bc of how wholly UNHELPFUL it is. I’ve had this thing for THREE YEARS. I’ve maybe had .... 4? functional moments of it actually halfway working!!! I’ve used several different Mac [desktop or laptop]. I’ve tried it with PC. You have to download an entire confusiiing program. Over n over again, even after following exact instructions, even making sure my device was listed as compatible, it wouldn’t give me a successful result. I mean HOURS wasted on this piece of JUNK. SO MANY TIMES! So many different friends tried figuring out for me too, with their various devices n computers. Yes, we had fresh new ink [which btw, ***it is hecka difficult to even find in stores** this exact version of this printer’s compatible ink cartridge. Even at Walmart, where you can find everything, had no clue when they’d get more of it. Low demand for it. We ended up finding black ink, no color. Even tho I never actually use color ink, just typed up Word docs, that I “save as pdf file” which makes for a better format when printing from anywhere; just a trick I learned in my computer class] Also, Yes we doubled checked if the ink was was properly placed. Yes, it was all plugged in & the ON light was lit, indicating it wasn’t a lack of power issue. Yes, we had paper loaded in the exactly correct slot. Oh, btw. It’ll hardly ever scan-in documents to save into your computer files either. Even tho I had less need for that than printing, it was still a feature I made sure I bought one that could do that for me. I was able to figure that out only a couple times a good result. And those times, I had to use that goofy complex program I had to download on my PC computer. Something that should’ve taken 2 mins max, I’d be sitting there fooling with it for like half an hour!!! FAIL attempts. Customer service call was useless—more Waste Of Time. More than an hour, then we were still stuck with a dysfunctional machine!! Even looked up tutorials online & such. Read the trouble shooting & FAQ on their official website. No luck. I’ve tried the HP Print App—which btw is $15/mo! No free option. Even if I do try sending a PDF via the app, it has an error every time I try to connect it into our WiFi [when everything else at our home is perfectly connected; meaning nothing wrong w the WiFi; I’ve also tried several different WiFi’s at different points in time. Same problem]. Our network usually isn’t even listed as an option to try to connect it, on its tiny little touchscreen menu. Which will send you in circles trying to figure out the correct settings for everything. I tried all of them, any n every combination. And it would only ever just print the sample “how to get started manual” which I followed to a T! Many times tried it. And the brief moments it did miraculously connect into our WiFi, the document would show up on my computer’s “printing queue” as if it were about to print any second now. Then it just stalls & won’t go any further. Never actually prints anything out. Not even the first page. And yes I would make double sure I selected the correct printer to send it to. ** I wish they would’ve included the USB cable option *** to be able to hook into your computer n just print it like that, without needing Internet. Nope. Common sense didn’t occur to them. There isn’t even an outlet or port where you could go buy your own cable to use it that way. And of the very RARE occasions, it would actually print something, half the words would be striked out, mostly illegible. And yes, this is with fully stocked new ink. Like the laser of it, goofed up? And the document would have some random jibberish junk printed on the other side that wasn’t showing or typed by yourself, anywhere in your document. I’ve also dusted it meticulously & used that “electronics specific aerosol spray can product” made no improvement. DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY. PLZ TAKE THIS REVIEW SERIOUSLY. I wish I could return it. But the window of time to do that, is long passed. I had just assumed for awhile, maybe I just need to learn how it works. Maybe I’m just dumb w printers. Maybe it’s this certain device it doesn’t like. I spent a good chunk of change on it, and wanted to get good use of it. Never found that happening for me. MOST USELESS THING I HAVE EVER BOUGHT

I read a lot of reviews and want to clear up some things. The biggest complaint I saw in the reviews is paper jams and HP Instant Ink. Both of these are not an issue if you do the setup correctly. First, the HP instant ink service is 100% optional. Some say they were forced into it. But I find this nothing shy of user error. I did the setup and downloaded all HP printer software and never did it force me into the service. Furthermore, it simply asked if I wanted to sign up for it with the ability to say no and have it never come up again. The software does have a tab for the HP instant ink but it never comes up on its own. Only if you open it. I think the people complaining about it are the same people that just randomly clicked through the installation and didn't bother to attempt to setup the printer to their liking. Now on to paper jams. I bought a stack of cheap Walmart paper and it has yet to jam at all. I've printed 10 to 20+ consecutive documents for classes and work and have not had the printer jam since buying it. The printer feeds the paper in great and consistently. An issue I noticed with my old hp printer was that it would try to grab paper, would fail, then would go on full over drive mode to try to grab the paper. Only to have one little feed wheel grab it at full speed while the other lacked behind and then the paper is sideways. This printer is much better at grabbing it. Only takes a second and its always an even feed. Through the 15 pages of consecutive notes I printed today, the printer never seemed to have troubles grabbing it. All of the pages were fed in, and pushed out quickly without any delays. Its a very tight system. The timing seems to be down and the printer overall feels accurate and precise. This printer isn't amazingly fast. It takes time to print pages full of text and don't get me started on large photos or drawings with complex lines; it can struggle to keep up. However, its definitely good for my uses and does as intended without issues. If you simply need a printer for light/moderate use. This is it. If you need a better more professional printer, the OfficeJet 9015 is what I use at work and it runs laps around print times vs the 3830. Capable of printing 100+ pages at a time it is the better option for teaching or other document intensive work. Ink might be an issue for some, understandably, at HP prices ink is not cheap. However, do what I do and buy re-manufactured Ink from a third party. Its about $80 for a full set of color and black of 63xl cartridges from HP where re-manufactured ones costs about $30 for the same XL cartridges. This is because HP sells printers at a loss and make their money buy selling ink. By cutting out HP from the INK buying process you are paying for what the ink actually costs rather than what the ink costs plus HP's OEM fee and make-up fee for the fact they lost 100% to 200% on the printer itself. Overall this printer is great. And if you buy the re-manufactured ink like I do it makes this printer one good deal.

Just got this printer, but so far it's worked beautifully. I had an old HP K80 deskjet that was probably 10+ years old. It was still working well on my old Windows 7 laptop, but wouldn't work properly on my Windows 10 laptop. I guess I can't blame HP for not providing updated drivers for a printer that's over a decade old. Setup was simple. I didn't use the included software CD. I just hit the wifi button on the printer's touch screen and typed in the wifi password. It connected and went through the setup process of installing the ink cartridges and printing/scanning the test page. The Windows 10 laptop had no problem finding the new printer and automatically installed the drivers. My Windows 7 laptop also connected wirelessly to the printer without any problems. It's as close to plug-and-play as you could get with a printer. I tested it out by printing out a 30-page document, and then copying that same document with the copy function. It worked flawlessly. I obviously can't speak to the reliability over the long term as I just received this a couple days ago, but so far I am very happy with my purchase. For $40, it would be hard to beat this printer. The only negative is the cost of the replacement cartridges, but that's pretty much the same with any inkjet printer. I've also read reviews saying this printer is slow, but compared to my old printer it is much faster, so I have no complaints. UPDATE (6/1/18): I really love this printer. So far it has done everything I have wanted it to without any hassle. It not only prints well from my laptops, but I have it printing from my smartphone with the HP app. UPDATE (2/13/19): I've had this printer about a year and am still loving it. I've printed wirelessly from both Windows computers and Android phones without any problems. I've also copied, scanned, faxed without any problems. I see a lot of other reviews saying that they lose WiFi connection, but I've never had that happen. Maybe it's because my printer sits right next to the wireless router, but I've never had it disconnect from my wireless network. I've also never had any paper jams or refusals to print like others have. I guess I just got a good unit. All I can suggest is that if you get a unit that has problems, return it within the return window, but if you get a good unit then you should be good to go. UPDATE (4/5/25): This printer is still going strong. I will say that the HP Instant Ink subscription has gotten more expensive over the years. When I first signed up it was $2.99/month for 50 pages. HP has since raised the price to $3.99 and then again to $4.99. If they raise the price again I will probably cancel the Instant Ink service and go back to buying cartridges, as the value of the Instant Ink service will no longer be there for me compared to just buying the cartridges. I will say that the Instant Ink cartridges are much better than the ones you can buy, as they contain a lot more ink.