Poor AirPrint printing quality with M140we

[RustyCrab]

Hi,

I bought a brand-new M140we laser printer and was quite surprised by the poor printing quality over AirPrint. Surprisingly, the results get noticeably better when instead using the HP Smart app on my phone [1] - so it's definitely not a hardware problem.

So for iOS, the HP Smart app is a fair alternative to AirPrint, but to my knowledge there's no alternative to AirPrint on macOS - at least I didn't find any manually installable HP drivers on the support page. Is there anything else I can do? I mean, the AirPrint results look really really bad, and it's nothing you would only notice in direct comparison. Frankly I'm quite surprised that nobody seemed to notice this yet.

Thank you!

[1] Image compression has smoothed both pictures a bit, but in reality, I could definitely count single pixels on the right (e.g. at the "x"):

 

[ShlomiL]

Hi,

let's update the printer firmware and check if you may see any difference then:

https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib/software13/FW_CPE_Consumer/LJ_M102/HP_LaserJet_M102_M103_M104_M106fw-...

If the same persists with no change, try installing and using an HP driver rather than using AirPrint to print, to install a such follow below version of HP Easy Start, as soon as it launches open the top HP Easy Start menu and select Uninstall HP Software.

Follow the steps on screen and then click on Set Up New Device and follow the steps to reinstall the printer:

https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib/software12/HP_Quick_Start/osx/Applications/HP_Easy_Start.app.zip

As soon as HP Easy start prompts to install HP Smart, close HP Easy Start and press the Skip to Software Download button, then follow the steps on screen to complete the installation and check for any difference.

Shlomi

[RustyCrab]

Hi ShlomiL,

Thanks a lot for replying! My firmware is already up to date (version 20220428), I did the update yesterday.

When using HP Easy Start, I get the following message without any option to continue after selecting the printer:

"We have a better software option available for you. Install HP Smart to complete setup and access all the features and benefits available for your printer."

When I close the window and click "Proceed with Software Download", it takes a while and then prompts the following:

"We were not able to automatically locate any software options for this product. Please go to the HP Website and search for product solutions there."

I already tried setting up the printer with HP Smart for Mac, but unfortunately, the only thing it does is setting it up with AirPrint exactly as I would do it via the Mac settings. So no special drivers are used.

[RustyCrab]

This driver thing really drives me crazy... I've set up the printer with CUPS on Linux (hplip) yesterday, and everything's perfect there. I guess the same goes for Windows.

So it's really a Mac-specific driver problem that only affects the print quality on macOS and iOS. Not allowing to print from Mac with full resolution but advertising macOS support comes really close to fraud in my opinion. Even the M140we manual refers to a Mac driver that's just not available - at least I couldn't find one even after days of research.

I'm really thinking about returning the printer and saying goodbye to HP. I can only warn any Apple user from buying this half-baked product.