Nope. In the merger, the HP printer group stayed very much the same as they were a golden child group. I'd lay the blame more directly at Carly's feet, probably trying to milk the consumables for all the profit she could, to the point of making the printers go downhill. Pre merger Compaq mostly relied on Lexmark printers, rebranding some as Compaq units.

I've been generally pleased with my HP Color Laserjet 2600n I bought ages back though. I have no clue about their Windows software, but printing from a Mac has always been pretty painless with HP. Just find the printer advertising via Bonjour, and let the OS find drivers automatically. No manual download, no crapware, and more recently, much better integration with OS X tools for the multifunction printers. So far my upkeep costs have only been a little bit of paper, though thats due to my former roommate also being an HP work from home employee. That allowed him to get a free set of toner cartridges for it, along with free paper from time to time. My print volume is so low, the initial cartridges and the one set of replacements have lasted 8 years now.