Printing used to be so easy. Pull up a document on your PC, hit control-“P” and you’re done. But these days printing isn’t so clear cut. Sometimes the document you want to print is on your smartphone, or in the cloud.
HP’s new Laser Jet printer aims to make printing easy, no matter where your document is located. The M476 Series is the first industry printer to be certified by the Mopria alliance. That means its print function can be accessed natively on Android smartphones – no app required for that.
For Android phones with NFC, you can even just tap your phone to the printer in order to send your document. If you’re out of the office, you will need HP’s ePrint app to send the document over the Internet to the printer. If you use iOS, you can print with HP’s AirPrint app.
This multi-function printer comes with a LCD screen that lets you access your loud storage accounts.
“As an example we have several very popular cloud accounts like Google Drive, Box, and HP Professional. So you can log on directly from the control panel touch screen to your cloud accounts and then print directly from the cloud accounts to your printer,” says Kyo-Sup Um, Product Manager, LaserJet and Enterprise Solutions. “Or you can scan documents directly from your printer to the cloud accounts you have.”
There’s also network access for offices using Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). IT Administrators can also lock down certain features of the printer with a pass code.
Made for between 3 and 10 users, this printer can print 21 pages per minute and hold 250 sheets at once. The scanner can scan both sides of a sheet of paper at once, and you can load 50 sheets of paper through the automatic feeder at a time.
HP says the LaserJet Pro MFP M476 Series will be available worldwide starting April 1. Its price will range from $529 to $679.
