Review/Note about the HP Officejet Pro 8610 inkject multifunction printer.

This printer is currently on sale for $60 off (at Staples in Canada), which is a great deal. It's a good printer for a small home business. ... with 2 caveats:

It is not great at picking up any cardstock you put in it.
- To get the cardstock to feed properly you have to remove the regular paper from the tray and place about a quarter inch of cardstock in the tray.
I found this was the only reliable method of getting the cardstock to feed. (In other words, if you need to print a couple of sheets, you can't just place them on top of the regular paper in the tray as you could with most printers that can handle cardstock).

The other issue was in relation to installing the software/connecting the printer when Windows 8.1 was involved with connecting to the printer via a wireless network connection.
I found by trial and error, that the Windows firewall was blocking something in the setup that was necessary, even though the firewall settings showed that everything was being allowed that should have been allowed.
- To properly install the software and connect the printer and scanner I had to temporarily disable the firewall during the initial installation and connection process. Once it was done and both the scanner and printer components were tested to work, the firewall could be re-enabled and everything continued to work. This is not a normal issue when installing a network printer.

Knowing these 2 issues and their solutions in advance would have made things a lot less frustrating. HP seemed to be aware of these issues but did not offer these solutions (just solutions that did not work for these cases).

Would I recommend this printer? For this price? Yes. With knowing the above 2 solutions? Yes. Otherwise no.

HP generally makes good quality inkjet printers. But it was frustrating to have to figure out these issues. I'm glad it is finally working.

Update:
2 other things I found that I like:
Compared to my old Officejet Pro 8500A, with the 8610 the automatic duplexer is faster, and the print job is better aligned (straight) on the sheet.

Update 2:
After using it for a while, I found that I could just put a sheet or 2 of cardstock on top of the regular paper that was in the tray to print on cardstock. It was just really finicky when I first started using it.
Also, when installing the printer software in Windows 10, I didn't find I had any of the problems with the firewall settings as I did when I first set it up in Windows 8.1.