Customer Review: HP Laserjet Pro MFP M28a

Verdict: Good (4/5 stars)

The HP Laserjet Pro MFP M28 is a printer, scanner & copier in one.

As far as what was advertised this device can print clear black only prints, copy and scan (with issues configuring it).

Printing — it’s fairly straightforward with no issues, it does the job well: printing fine crisp output of black/white text and images.

Copying — it can function as a copier as advertised. Just put your source document on the scanner, make sure you have paper on the feed, press copy and you have your copy.

Scanning for saving to computer — this works but I encountered an issue with configuring it to work. It does not work on a Mac straight out of the box. It took me a few weeks of searching for the right software to make it work until finally one support guy from the HP forums provided us a new firmware which worked. It seems to be an unofficial software because I cannot find it in the official HP website does and the one who gave it to me who calls himself HP employee specifically mentioned not to share the software. This was in February 2019. As of today, July 2019, it is now listed in the website of HP. This printer now works for MacOS.

Scanning works fine on Windows straight out of the box. (Although I did not try it on all versions).

Ink capacity is better than expected. It is understood that the initial cartridge shipped with the printer has an advertised ~500 pages capacity. I am surprised that at 267 pages yield, I am already getting a “Very Low” supply level warning. I ignored that warning and continued to use the cartridge (even with the warning constantly bugging me to buy a new cartridge) until the print-out starts to deteriorate. It went on to print up to 675 pages, beyond what I expected. That is a good yield.

Note on paper size handling – the HP Laserjet Pro MFP M28a does not support Legal sized papers. You may be able to feed the paper but the printed copy will be cropped – in my test, the top part. According to HP, these are the official supported media sizes:

  • Media sizes supported: A4; A5; A6; envelopes (C5, DL); custom
  • Media sizes, custom: 105 x 148 to 216 to 297 mm

Summary: The HP Laserjet Pro MFP M28a works as advertised – it prints and is capable of scanning but it had configuration issues on the scanning functionality for macOS computers, you may have to get in touch with HP support if the scanning does not work for you. As of 2023, HP seems to have updated their software so this printer works out of the box on at least the macOS Catalina.