HP Colour LaserJet Enterprise MFP M480F Printer Review

By Simon Williams - 30th Oct 2023

In the world of technology, so many items can be out of date as soon as they are purchased. It's possibly the most frustrating thing in the world to fall in love with your new gadget only to wake up the next day and realise there is a new and improved model. Not only does the next model include new processes which force some users to always change equipment just so they can keep up with their competition, but the performance of your current model is also redundant once a new version arrives. That is just wasteful - and expensive!

In printing, this is very common, however, HP has come up with a solution to help combat the wastefulness of technology. Introducing HP FutureSmart firmware and more importantly, the HP Colour LaserJet Enterprise MFP M480F. The HP M480F remains up to date with the inclusion of HP FutureSmart firmware which can be updated with the latest features making this multifunction printer continuously current. Now you get the most out of your investment for many years to come.

With printing, scanning, copying and fax functions as standard, the HP Colour LaserJet Enterprise MFP M480F is a complete communications hub for an ethernet connected network. Add the optional HP JetDirect 3100w BLE/NFC/Wireless printer accessory and the HP M480F has full WiFi and Mobile printing capability as well.

Today, we are going to delve deep into the functionality of this simply brilliant printing unit as we bring to you our experts extensive HP Colour LaserJet Enterprise MFP M480F printer review. From printing speeds and replacement cartridges to connectivity options and energy efficiency, our M480F review is covering everything you will need to make an informed decision. Now, let's get into it.

Printing Functionality & Print Speed

With a continuous print speed of up to 27 pages per minute (ppm) in both colour and black and white, the HP M480F enterprise is very well suited for the busy office environment. Inclusive of this, the HP M480F comes with a guaranteed first page out time of 9.5 seconds in black and 11.5 seconds when printing in colour. This makes the HP Colour LaserJet MFP M480F perfect for completing workloads of user groups of up to 10 people. To reduce paper usage, when printing multi-page documents, the HP Colour LaserJet MFP M480F also features automatic duplex printing as standard. At a print speed of 4 ppm in both colour and black and white, printing both sides of a sheet barely reduces the print speed at all which is actually more common of an issue with some printers than you might think.

Printing with a resolution of 600 x 600 dots per inch (dpi), in both colour and black and white, the print quality is of a high standard too. While most businesses will print using black and white, you can also get away with fairly low-resolution photo printing with this printer. Although that is not recommended, for any proposal documents that have some colour, the HP M480F MFP will not let you down here.

Page Yields & Printer Cartridges

To keep up with the bustling workforce that this printer has been made to support, the HP Colour LaserJet Enterprise MFP M480F uses four HP 416 toner cartridges. While toner cartridges can be expensive, the page yields you receive from them are far greater than inkjet cartridges. In fact, the HP 416 toner cartridge range can print up to 7,500 pages in black when you purchase the extra-large versions. Users of the HP MFP M480F can expect the following page yields:

Okay, so the HP 416 toner cartridge range does not deliver the highest number of page yields when compared to competitive models, however, the quality is second to none. If you are in the market for a printer that will print much more, for less, then you should take a look at our range of continuous ink printers. Alternatively, you should explore purchasing a bundle pack such as our HP 416A Toner Bundle Pack which generates cost savings across each toner cartridge within the bundle.

Paper Tray & Media Handling

Versatility is key to the HP Colour LaserJet Enterprise MFP M480F. It is not only versatile in its functions to meet the communication needs of a busy organisation, but it is versatile in the types, and quantities, of media that it can print on as well. A wide range of media types and weights including bond, brochure, coloured, glossy, letterhead, photo, plain, preprinted, pre-punched, recycled, and rough papers are all compatible with the HP M480F Enterprise Colour Laser Printer. This also includes postcards, labels and envelopes to match each paper type.

The smaller tray is a multi-purpose tray with a capacity of 50 sheets and is ideal for short print runs with specialised print media. This tray is fully adjustable to take sheets sizes ranging from 76 x 127 up to 216 x 356 mm. This includes standard sheet sizes such as the following:

A4
RA4
A5
B5 (JIS)
B6 (JIS)
10 x 15 cm
A6
16K

On top of this, users can also expect the ability to print envelope sizes such as B5, C5 ISO, C6, DL and ISO. The second standard paper tray with its 250 sheet capacity is adjustable between the sizes of 98 x 148 to 216 x 356 mm. This covers just the most common standard paper sizes such as A4, RA4, A5, B5 (JIS), B6 (JIS), 10 x 15 cm, A6 and 16K. There is an optional third paper tray available that can accept the same sheet sizes as the standard second tray with a capacity of up to 550 sheets. This gives the M480F a total of 850 sheets to handle heavy workloads.

Scanning & Copying

The scanning function on the HP LaserJet Enterprise MFP M480F can be accessed from a top mounter. There is a 50 sheet capacity Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) which feeds directly to the flatbed located immediately below the top mounter. The ADF accepts original sheets up to 216 x 356 mm in size. By lifting it up, it can also accomodate bulkier documents, such as books and paper up to 216 x 297 mm can be scanned. The scan speed from the ADF is up to 29 ppm in black and white and 20 ppm in colour. When the original is double-sided both sides can be scanned simultaneously at scan speeds of 46 images per minute (ipm) in black and white and 35 ipm in colour. All of this is scanned at a scan resolution of up to 600 dpi which is fairly impressive.

For scanning documents, the HP Colour LaserJet Enterprise MFP M489F supports formats such as:

JPG
TIFF
PDF
PDF/A
TIF
XPS.

Scanned documents can be sent in digital format as an email, saved as a network folder, saved to a memory stick or sent to File Transfer Protocol (FTP) applications. When scanning multi-page documents blank pages are skipped and the original is cropped to just the content. This is quite a cool functionality that not many printers include and will save you a lot of time editing the scanned file to remove any blank pages.

As for copying functionality, originals are copied from the ADF or the platen and up to 9.999 copies of the original made. The HP Colour LaserJet Enterprise MFP M480F prints A4 copies at a speed of up to 27 copies per minute in both colour and black and white. Once again, all of this comes at a resolution of up to 600 dpi. With two-sided scanning of the original and automatic double-sided printing available for each job, copying time is not only reduced but your paper usage too. This makes for extremely high levels of productivity while also reducing your ongoing printing costs. Copies of originals can be enlarged or reduced in size from the original between 25 and 400% and the quality of copies from low-quality originals can be improved by making a dark original lighter, improving the contrast, cleaning up the background or sharpening the images.

Faxing Capabilities

Completing the inbuilt communications suite of the HP Colour LaserJet Enterprise MFP M480f is the fax modem. This provides a completely secure communication method that is always virus free and cannot be read by anyone other than the recipient. The transmission speed of the modem is a maximum of 33.6 kbps and the default speed is 14.4 kbps. The resolution on incoming faxes is 300 x 300 dpi but with the installation of Fax PC interface software any incoming fax can be automatically redirected to a PC or network file for storage rather than printing and filing. Up to 1000 fax speed dial contacts can be stored with auto redial available if the line receiver’s line is busy.

Control Panel & Connectivity

The 4.3 inches, colour and touch-sensitive control panel can be found mounted on the left-hand side of the output tray. All instructions for all functions of the printing unit are entered from this panel. While some printers are completely controlled via a mobile app, it is nice to have a touchscreen panel that is highly functional on the printer.

As for connectivity, the HP Colour LaserJet Enterprise MFP480F is a networked MFP printing unit to meet the needs of a small workgroup. The primary connection is by way of a 1 Gigabyte Ethernet 10/100/1000T network connection. Additionally, there are two Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Host ports and one Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Device port to support non-networked devices. There is also a fax line port. However, there is an increasing tendency for networks to be either partially or exclusively connected by wireless. To meet this need, the HP LaserJet Enterprise MFP M480F can be fitted with the optional HP Jetdirect 3100w BLE/NFC/Wireless Accessory. This option gives dual-band Wi-Fi (802.11n on 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) which helps to ensure the wireless connectivity of the MFP. Now laptops, notebooks, tablets and smartphones can be networked to the MFP as well as hardwired devices.

Physical Size & Energy Efficiency

With a physical footprint of just 472 mm deep 415.4 mm wide, the HP LaserJet Enterprise MFP M480F, despite being larger than some other printers, does not take up a huge amount of shelf space when in use. The height of the unit is 399.8 mm when the top is closed which means this unit could also fit nicely on top of a shelving rack when not operational. By opening the paper trays for refilling, the depth increases to 1124.5 mm and of course, lifting up the ADF to gain access to the flatbed scanner increases the overall height to 656 mm.

When it comes to the economy, the HP M480F is quite impressive. Automatic duplex printing and a reasonable print speed with time-saving operations are matched by the economy in energy usage with the HP Colour LaserJet Enterprise MFP M480F. The printer is both Blue Angel rated at 1.051 kWh per week and Energy Star Certified at 0.425 kWh with power consumption figures of 581 Watts during active printing and 31.9 watts in the react state, In sleep mode, it consumes 1 watt and when switched off it is just 0.08 watts. The power supply is fitted internally and is solely 220/240V and 50/60 Hz.