OK, I would actually go for more of a 3 1/2 star rather than a 3 or 4. (UPDATE: I would go with more of a 4 1/2 after a week of use and getting used to how this works and figuring in how it fits into the home.)
First off this is a home device. This is not something that you want for an office. That being said, if you have it in your mind that this is a device for the home, then your perceptions of this will change.
Also this a hybrid device, so as such, you really have to look at each part and see if they are worth it.
The printer sans touchscreen. The printer itself can be used to Scan, Copy and Print, all wirelessly, and with a built in double sided printing module. The prints seem to look good and it prints fast. Photo prints looked fairly good as well. Replacement ink cartridges run around $10 for the regular capacity (bout 300 prints) to around $27 for the XL (about 750 prints). I do like that each color has its own cartridge so you only need to replace what you run out of. I can even use the HP iPrint app on my iPod touch and print PDFs, and photos from there. I can also scan directly to the iPod using the App. When Apple does the Airprint in the new iOS 4.2 it should also support printing from many more apps. What was especially neat was that when I used Docs to Go and choose to open a PDF from there in the iPrint app, I could print it. The printer also has the ability to use the ePrint feature without the tablet, which enables just about anything sent to a specific email address for your printer to print. Say you were at a local hotspot reading an article that lets you email it to somebody . . you need to go and want a copy of the article for some reason . . just email it to your printer and when you get home it will be there in the paper tray waiting when you get home. Overall, I would compare this to other $200 to $250 dollar printers out there for this functionality. However while I'm doing all this, somebody could be using the tablet to browse the web.
Which leads to a brief review of the tablet itself. Now I've used an iPad and let me tell you this is no iPad. That being said, a better comparison would be other $150 android based tablets out there that are this size. (UPDATE: I would compare this more with a NOOK with some extra bells and whistles - I talked to a manager at the local staples about it. He stated that he was just at a conference where the HP rep indicated it would have more android capabilities towards the first part of 2011).
It has the standard Android buttons, headphone jack, volume up and down, power, a mini USB port, and SD card slot. The screen is like that of an iPod or iPad in that it is based on the touch receptive glass (not sure of the fancy technical name for this). Yahoo and Barns & Noble must have paid a bundle as it is very centric to them, which is a annoying at first, but you can actually remove or at least hide some of this by customizing your home screens and favorite apps. Also if you start thinking of it as a 7" Nook with some extras then you'll be happier. Fortunately there is a generic email client under the hood so that you can set it up with something other than Yahoo Mail (almost returned it right there). I have it set up for both my wife's and my Gmail accounts and we can switch accounts easily to see our mail. There are a handful of apps built in that are nice such as QuickOffice for viewing MS Office files (no editing tho) and PDFs. There's also a calculator, web browser, RSS News feader (limited though),and a Facebook app that I like better than the one on my iPod Touch. There are also a number of other apps that are not the Print Apps. I Would like to see a Twitter App, and a YouTube App as well as some simple games like Sudoku, or even a (cough cough) a Kindle App.
HP has it's own custom Android skin and you can only download apps that it has listed. Most of which are the ePrint Apps as they call them. There are lots of these for all the different holidays, kids activities, recipes, etc. When you consider this a home device, these apps can be nice to quickly print off an activity for the kids to do if they are driving you nuts and none of the coloring books you have are good enough for them as . . oh sorry . . .let me get back on focus. I've never been a big facebook user, mostly as I don't care enough to take the time to turn on my computer and I don't care for the app on the iPod. I've actually check my facebook a couple of times this weekend and even replied to my sister for once. Anyway. the device can be a bit sluggish when using the web browser or news headline apps, but seems fairly responsive in the email, facebook, reading ebooks, and eprint apps. You can also print from the device when it's not docked, and control scanning as well. By the way, YES you can scan photos directly to an inserted SD card slot. This can be handy when grandma comes by with photos she's taken and didn't think about getting you a copy or getting you the digital file. Just pop'em in and scan them to the SD card. No need to turn on the computer.
When the tablet is connect you can then do eFax as well. No remember this is a HOME device and not an office device. Because you can send/receive 20 faxed pages per month for free. After that you can still do more, but there is a charge for it. That being said, in the past 2 years I've rarely sent or received and faxes. Only when we were taking advantage of the lower rates and decided to refinance our house. I probably went over, but there is no phone line where we have our printers set up and with the previous print/scan/copy/fax, I would have to pull a very taut phone line to it, make sure the kids weren't anywhere around to run it to the line and knock it all over, and pray that it would work. For me the 20 page monthly limit of efax is a non issue and is actually a plus. (UPDATE: I was also looking at Windows 7 and there is a built in fax application there. I can plug my laptop into a phone line and scan wireless the documents as a PDF and attach them to the fax. I little bit more fuss than using a doc feeder as you scan each page separately BUT that's all I really need.)
Would I buy this for an office? Absolutely NO.
Would I buy this again for the home? Probably. Mind you, I've only had this two days. I like what I've seen so far, but I still feel guilty about spending this much money. It is really cool tho. (UPDATE: Yes I would buy it again, provided I like the idea of getting a bundle of the Printer with essentially a powered up Nook with some extra capabilities.)
(UPDATE: After using the printer several days I was having a problem with ePrint from HP saying that the printer wasn't connected for email printing even though everything worked in my house. After reading the forums, I ended up disabling the power saver using the IP address for the printer in my home network. Then turning the printer itself (not the Zeen) off then back on and it has been up and running since. Seems like this is a problem with the printer going to sleep and HP's servers not being able to wake it up to print remotely. But I have it working now so that's a relief. Seems this a problem that effects ALL the HP printers capable of ePrinting and is not specifically a problem with this printer.) HP Photosmart eStation All-in-One (CQ140A#B1H) - All In One Printer - Scanner - Multifunction Printer - All-in-one'
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