HP Envy 5530 e-All-in-One review: Home printer has print quality and cheaper inks in its favor

The $130 HP Envy 5530 e-All-in-One color inkjet multifunction (copy/print/scan), will cover a low volume of home use nicely. It's exceptionally easy to use, surprisingly capable, and produces impressive output. On the downside are its lack of speed and pricey inks, but HP’s new Instant Ink program might help that somewhat.

The HP Envy 5530 is rather compact for a multifunction printer. The scanner lid is so thin that at first glance, you might not recognize it as such. However, there’s an A4/letter-sized scanner on-board, and it produces good-looking copies and scans. You can even push-scan to a PC across the network—not a feature you see in every printer at this price point.

The Envy 5530 offers automatic duplexing, which isn’t a guarantee in this price range. Everything else about the paper handling is pretty modest: just 100 sheets (input) and 30 sheets (output)—if having printed pages fall right on top of blank pages counts as an output area. If you print any more than 200 pages per month, you should be looking at a more robust machine.

Setting up the HP Envy 5530 is easy whether you use USB or Wi-Fi, and thanks to a 2.65-inch touchscreen and exceptionally well thought out menus, so is operation. The display and all the controls are on the top left of the unit, and intuitively arranged. The only other feature worth mentioning is the SD card slot for direct printing and off-loading scans.

HP doesn't bundle a lot of software with the Envy 5530, but what's there is easy and capable. The driver and scanning utilities are nicely rendered and offer all the features most users need. There's also the now usual suite of remote printing options, including HP ePrint via email and Apple AirPrint.

While the assumption is that this printer isn’t going to be used much, it still bears mentioning that the Envy 5530 is pretty slow. It managed an anemic 5.9 pages per minute (ppm) printing plain text and a few simple, monochrome graphics on both the PC and Mac platforms. Snapshot-sized, 4-by-6-inch photos printed at about 2.5 ppm to plain paper, but to glossy paper that slowed to 0.8 ppm. Full-sized photos printed at about 0.4 ppm on glossy paper, while copies exited at about 3 ppm. Scan times are bearable, albeit two to three times longer than what you'll see from top-shelf units.

Along with minimal paper capacity and slow performance, the Envy 5530 suffers (as most low-cost printers do) from expensive ink. At least if you buy on your own: The standard 61 series black and tri-color cartridges cost $15 and $21 respectively, yet last for only 199 and 165 pages. That's 7.5 cents per page for the black and 12.75 cent per page for the colors, or a daunting 20.15 cents per four-color page. You can reduce those costs considerably with the $30 black and $32 tri-color 61XL cartridges, to about 16 cents per four-color page, but black still comprises a high 6.25 cents of that amount.

As to that "buy on your own" comment, the Envy 5530 is eligible for HP's new Instant Ink service. With Instant Ink, HP sells you massively capacious ink cartridges, then doles the ink out on a monthly basis. You can print 50 pages of anything—a bit of text, or a heavy-coverage photo for a flat fee of $3 a month (6 cents per page), while 100 pages costs $5 a month (5 cents per page), and 300 pages are $10 (3.3 cents per page). That's a whole lot cheaper than manual user replacement, but only if you print fairly close to the number of pages in the plan. If you barely print 100 pages a year, then just buying the cartridges on your own might be a better deal. Also, the whole Instant Ink deal depends on your printer having an Internet connection, and your being comfortable with HP’s managing your printer in the background.

Along with ease of use, the Envy 5530's other major strength is its output quality. Text is clear and sharp, even in draft mode, and color graphics are also surprisingly accurate. You might want to tweak the photo settings a bit for a warmer color temperature on glossy photos, but other than that it's all good.

The HP Envy 5530 is in many ways a typical home printer: It’s somewhat slow, with adequate features, and its low purchase price is balanced out by higher-priced inks. However, its Instant Ink program is intriguing for its savings potential, and its output quality and ease of use are distinctly better than usual for this price class. It’s well worth considering for a home user.

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Review: HP's Envy 120 e-All-in-One is a motorized luxury inkjet multifunction printer

Connoisseurs of cool tools will appreciate HP's $250 Envy 120 e-All-in-one inkjet MFP not only for its style, but its gadgetry: its motorized control panel that automatically raises and lowers, its see-through scanner platen. However, it is not about economy or efficiency. Capacity is limited, ink prices are rather hefty, and there's no automatic document feeder for the scanner. That said, it handles the basics well and is a conversation-starter for sure.

The Envy 120 installs easily via either its Wi-Fi or USB 2.0 interface. The software bundle, which includes photo manipulation, scanning tools, and remote printing, is more than competent. The driver dialog, while basic, does have the important options, and it's exceptionally easy to use. The well thought-out control panel is completely touch-based, right down to the power switch. There are no physical buttons of any kind to break up the clean lines.

Paper handling features include an 80-sheet input tray. The 25-sheet output device is no typical tray, but rather an arm that rotates out automatically from underneath the control panel whenever you print. The Envy 120 automatically duplexes—that is, it prints on both sides of the paper by pulling it back in and flipping it over without user intervention.

There's no automatic document feeder, however, the Envy 120's flatbed scanner is still notable for operating upside-down from the norm. Instead of laying a document face-down, you lay it face-up, and the scanning element passes over it. And because the top of the unit is made of transparent glass (replacing the mirrored and opaque surfaces of prior models), you can actually watch the scanner head glide across your document.

Nearly everything on the Envy 120 is motorized: the control panel swings up automatically to get out of the way when you print, the output catch swings out automatically, and even the paper cassette injection is motorized. That last one's a rarity, and overenthusiastic users could come close to breaking it before they realize that they don't need to physically push in the cassette. The only thing not motorized besides the scanner lid is the small, innocuous panel on the right front of the unit, which rotates forward 45 degrees to expose PictBridge/USB and Secure Digital/Memory Stick Duo slots.

The HP Envy 120's output is easy on the eye. The color palette of photos is on the cool side, but that matches the overall air of the machine nicely. Black pages are dark and sharp, and even draft mode documents look decent--a tad blurry, but quite legible. Speed is so-so, but who cares with a printer that's so fun to watch? Monochrome pages (text and mono graphics) print at about 5 per minute (ppm) on both the Mac and PC; 4-by-6-inch photos print at 4 ppm to plain paper and 1 ppm to glossy stock. Full-page glossy photos take about three minutes at best quality.

Alas, pages printed on the Envy 120 are expensive, no matter which size cartridge you choose. In addition to the typical standard-size and high-capacity cartridges, an “economy” cartridge set comes with slightly lower capacities and lower costs per page, and dowdier packaging. For black ink, the standard 60 cartridge costs almost 7.5 cents per page (cpp); the economy cartridge is 6.7 cpp; and the high-capacity 60XL works out to 6.2 cpp. The cyan, magenta, and yellow inks reside in a single tri-color cartridge which costs 12.7 cpp in standard size, 11 cpp in the economy size, and 9.8 cpp with the 60XL.

By the numbers, the Envy 120 seems like a non-starter. But in terms of user experience and style, it leaves the competition in the dust. It's a perfectly viable option for low-volume printing, and it will turn more than a few heads while it’s working—and blend in nicely when it’s not.

Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them. He studied music at Juilliard, and now he power-mods his car for kicks.
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HP Photosmart 6520 e-All-in-One Printer Review: Midpriced MFP for Home or Student Use

The HP Photosmart 6520 e-All-in-One Printer is a midpriced ($150 as of 08/13/2012) consumer-level color inkjet multifunction printer with a good set of features for light-volume home or student use. If you’re trying to decide between this model and its slightly lower-priced cousin, the HP Photosmart 5520, note that the Photosmart 6520 has a bigger touchscreen control panel and a dedicated photo tray.

The Photosmart 6520 connects via USB or Wi-Fi and has media-card slots for MMC, MS, and SD cards. It comes with an 80-sheet, bottom-mounted, slide-out main input tray. Duplexing is automatic for prints and copies from this tray. The tray takes both letter- and legal-size media. Piggybacked onto the main tray is a 20-sheet feeder for 4-by-6-inch or 5-by-7-inch photo paper. Up to 20 printed or copied pages may come to rest on the lid over these trays. A fairly flimsy extension pivots and flips out from the lid to finish the output area.

HP’s new style of documentation is heavy on pictures and animations, and sometimes lacking in useful details such as paper capacities. And though legal-size media isn't commonly used, I was surprised that HP would support it but not tell you how to load it. (Hint: Flip down the front panel of the tray; the sheets will hang out the front a bit.)

Above the printer sits the scanner, which has basic specs: a letter/A4-size platen, a lid that doesn't telescope to accommodate thicker materials, and no automatic document feeder for scanning multipage documents. (In this price range, look for an ADF on small-office models such as the Canon Pixma MX512. A thicker lid beneath the slender scanner lid provides access to the ink cartridges and to the internal paper path.

A 3.45-inch color touchscreen and peripheral controls that light when needed dominate the easy-to-use control panel. I especially liked being able to preview a scan on the screen. Note that the touchscreen requires slight pressure to register a touch--a bit surprising at first, if you’re used to more-sensitive touchscreens, but not difficult to adjust to.

The Photosmart 6520’s print, copy, and scan speeds hover above and below the average. Text and monochrome graphics exit at a peppy 8.5 pages per minute on the PC and 8 ppm on the Mac. The printing speed for snapshot-size photo prints is about 3 ppm on plain paper at default settings (a little faster than average) or just of 1 ppm on glossy photo paper (slightly below average). Single-page copies come out slightly slower than average at 2.9 ppm. Full-page photos printed on the Mac arrive at about 0.4 ppm--slightly slower than average.

The output quality of pages from the Photosmart 6520 is quite good. At standard settings, text is nice, though it falls short of perfectly black and crisp. Color graphics tend to be slightly yellow, with an evenly grainy look on plain paper and a smoother effect on glossy photo paper.

The Photosmart 6520’s ink costs are average. The standard black cartridge costs $12 and lasts for 250 pages (4.8 cents per page), while the standard cyan, magenta, and yellow color cartridges cost $10 each and last for 300 pages (3.3 cents per page). That works out to about 15 cents for a four-color page. You can reduce your color ink costs appreciably by using the high-yield XL cartridges, priced at $18 for a 750-page cartridge, yielding a figure of 2.4 cents per page per color--almost a cent per page cheaper for each color. However, the $23 XL black lasts for only 550 pages (4.2 cents per page), making it only slightly more economcal than the standard black. A four-color page would cost 14.8 cents with the standard inks and 11.4 cents with the high-yield inks.

Offering better-than-basic features and speed, the Photosmart 6520 e-All-in-One would be a reasonable choice for a home or student user who prints nomore than a few dozen pages per week. For the same price, you can get more paper handling and a few other bonuses in the Canon Pixma MG5320.

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HP Officejet 6600 e-All-in-One Printer Review: No Duplexing, No Dice

The HP Officejet 6600 e-All-in-One Printer color inkjet multifunction (copy/scan/print/fax) is a puzzler, and a huge disappointment. Priced at $150 (as of June 11, 2012), it's handsome, it has an easy-to-use LCD control panel, and it offers excellent performance as well as decent output. However, for some bizarre reason HP has removed manual duplexing support--a simple software feature that allows relatively easy two-sided printing on printers that lack an automatic duplexer--from the printer driver.

HP has also removed multi-up (thumbnail pages) and every other kind of layout from the print driver. Such features are so commonplace that many consumers just assume that they are available. Put simply: $150 for a multifunction that won't help you print two-sided to save paper? I think not. For the same amount, you can buy a unit with automatic duplexing.

Still reading? The Officejet 6600 would be a nice midvolume office unit if not for the stunted driver. It has a 250-sheet input tray, a 75-sheet output tray, and a 35-sheet automatic document feeder for the A4/letter-size scanner. Despite the ADF, though, I found no option in the control panel to scan or copy in duplex.

The Officejet 6600's LCD is an odd duck, but ultimately it is satisfying. It's not a touchscreen, but a press-screen (resistive): You must depress the covering lightly, as you would with a membrane keyboard, to register selections. Once you get used to it, the tactile feedback is pleasing.

Other than the hobbled driver, the HP-provided software is quite good. It supports push-scanning (scanning from the control panel to a PC), as well as printing across the Internet via the company's ePrint service.

In our tests, text output from the Officejet 6600 was very nice--black and sharp. Photos printed to plain paper had a washed-out appearance. Glossy-paper photos exhibited a high level of contrast, which applied a slightly unrealistic cast to human faces; however, at least for nonhuman subjects, the high contrast evoked a sense of impact.

The Officejet 6600 is a good performer. In our tests, monochrome pages printed at 10 pages per minute on the PC and 9.6 ppm on the Mac. Snapshot-size (4-by-6-inch) photos printed to plain paper at 3.4 ppm and to glossy paper at about 1 ppm. Full page photos printed at 0.4 ppm, and copies exited quickly at 5.1 ppm.

As for consumables, the Officejet 6600 uses a four-cartridge ink system (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) that's basically average in cost with the regular-capacity supplies, but cheaper than most printers in this class when using the high-capacity cartridges. The regular, $20 black cartridge lasts for 400 pages, for a slightly below-average cost of 5 cents per page. The $11 cyan, magenta, and yellow cartridges each last for 330 pages, working out to 3.3 cents per page, per color. Add all of that up, and you get a slightly pricey 15 cents for a four-color page. The $32 XL black, on the other hand, lasts for 1000 pages (3.2 cents per page), and the $16 XL color cartridges each last for 825 pages (1.9 cents per page, per color). Nine cents for a four-color page is quite inexpensive. The unit ships with starter-size cartridges, which are the regular-size cartridges with some extra ink slated for use during the initialization process.

Despite good performance and cheap high-capacity supplies, a $150 multifunction without any sort of duplexing support should be avoided (unless you actually want to double your paper usage, mailing costs, storage space, and such). Instead, choose a like-priced competitor, such as the Canon Pixma MX512 or the Brother MFC-J825DW.

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HP Officejet 6700 Premium e-All-in-one Printer Review: Fast, Affordable Color

The HP Officejet 6700 Premium e-All-in-One color inkjet multifunction (print/scan/copy/fax) offers many impressive capabilities, especially considering its affordable price of just $170 (as of March 28, 2012). Geared toward the needs of a midvolume home or small office (printing dozens, not hundreds, of pages per week), the Officejet 6700 Premium performs quickly and produces decent text and photos. Its inks, especially colors, are affordable in their high-yield versions.

The OfficeJet 6700 Premium is a triple treat, interface-wise: USB, ethernet, and Wi-Fi are all present. Setup is easy, and the software is the usual competent but easy-to-use HP suite, including optical character recognition.

The control panel is a 2.65-inch touchscreen color LCD with additional touch controls to each side. The only nontouch control is the power button. A USB port on the OfficeJet 6700 Premium's front allows you to offload scans or perform direct printing.

Highlights in paper handling include a roomy 250-sheet bottom-mounted paper tray (most of its competitors have 100- or 150-sheet trays) and a 75-sheet output tray, plus automatic duplexing. The flatbed scanner platen is your typical letter/A4-size offering, but the 35-sheet automatic document feeder above it can scan legal-size media and capture both sides of a two-sided document (one side at a time). Telescoping hinges for the scanner cover/ADF are the only things we missed.

The OfficeJet 6700 Premium's speed is peppy for the price range: In our tests the OfficeJet 6700 Premium reached a medium-fast rate of 10 pages per minute printing plain text on the PC and Mac platforms, and it posted average or faster speeds printing photos and color graphics. Only its scanning was significantly more sluggish than average.

Though the scans are slow, at least they look good: fairly accurate in color, not too choppy or dark. Print quality disappoints at default settings on plain paper, as text appears dark charcoal rather than black and slightly soft around the edges, while color images look orangey and fuzzy. Switching to a finer quality mode for text and photo paper for color improves matters considerably (and uses more ink). The draft mode is both faster and more readable than most.

The Officejet 6700 Premium uses a four-cartridge ink system that's costlier than average with the standard-capacity supplies, but considerably cheaper than average with the high-capacity cartridges. The normal $20 black that lasts for 400 pages works out to a rather pricey 5 cents per page. The $11 cyan, magenta, and yellow last for 330 pages, or 3.3 cents per page. That's a slightly above-average 15 cents per four-color page.

The high-yield cartridges include a 1000-page black for $32, or 3.2 cents per page, and 825–page colors for $16 each, which works out to 1.9 cents per page. That makes for a far more affordable, 9-cent four-color page. Text pages still cost about twice what you’ll pay with fancier models such as the HP Officejet Pro 8600 Plus.

Though the HP Officejet 6700 Premium falls a bit short in scanning capabilities and ink costs, it's otherwise a capable midpriced inkjet MFP. A similarly priced competitor, the Brother MFC-J825DW, offers CD/DVD printing and a two-year warranty (compared to the HP's one), but it also has a lower paper capacity and some higher ink prices.

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HP Photosmart 5510 e-All-in-One Review: Nice Look, Nice Prints, Stunted Driver

The good news about the $100 (as of February 17, 2012) HP Photosmart 5510 e-All-in-One color inkjet multifunction printer (copy/print/scan) is that it looks great in a small or home office, produces very good output, and is exceptionally easy to set up and use. The bad news is that HP has paired it with a feature-deprived driver that doesn't even help with manual duplexing. As James Coburn said to Mel Gibson in the movie Payback, "That's just plain mean." Not to mention environmentally irresponsible.

The Photosmart 5510 is like its cousins--the Photosmart 6510 and the Photosmart 7510--in that it provides a color LCD touchscreen with contextually lit buttons that you use to control the machine's functions. The touchscreen gives the unit a very modern look and makes it very easy to use.

Paper handling is rudimentary: A flip-out front panel reveals an open bay with an 80-sheet input area. Output falls into the same space, with a cleverly designed catch that swivels outward. There's no automatic duplexing, and there's no automatic document feeder (ADF) to go with the A4/letter-size scanner. The scanner lid doesn't telescope to accommodate thicker items such as books.

HP omitted a number of software features from the Photosmart 5510's driver. You can print and scan, but you can't specify layout options such as booklet, poster, or multiple reduced-size pages on a single sheet. Worst of all, this MFP doesn't support manual duplex printing. One round of printing the odd-page sheets in a batch, turning them over, orienting them correctly, and then printing the even-number sheets--will have most users ruing the day they bought this unit. On the other hand, advanced features such as push scanning (scanning to a PC using the printer’s control panel) and printing via email using HP's ePrint are included. Go figure. You may also print photos from Secure Digital or MultiMediaCard memory cards inserted into a front slot.

The Photosmart 5510 prints normal, single-sided pages quickly. Text pages emerged at 9 pages per minute on the PC and 8.5 ppm on the Mac. Snapshot-size photos printed to plain paper at about 4 ppm and to glossy photo paper at just under 1.9 ppm. Print speeds for full-page photos printed on the Mac were a little slower than average at 0.4 ppm. The Photosmart 5510 produced very fast, and very nice-looking, draft-mode documents. Scans were reasonably fast as well.

The Photosmart 5510's looked good when it arrived, too. Though a tad on the light side, photos had a realistic color palette on both plain and glossy photo paper. Text looked dark, crisp, and sharp. Scans had a slightly cool temperature and exhibited minor banding issues, but overall they were more than acceptable.

The Photosmart 5510’s replacement ink costs are about average. The standard black cartridge costs $12 and lasts for 250 pages (which works out to 4.8 cents per page), while the standard cyan, magenta, and yellow color cartridges cost $10 each and last for 300 pages (3.33 cents per color per page). The resulting 15-cent four-color page is a tad pricier than average. You can lower the color ink costs by using XL cartridges, which cost $18 and last for 750 pages (that's 2.4 cents per color per page--almost a cent per page cheaper for each color. The $23 XL black has a less dramatic effect on expenses: It lasts for just 550 pages and costs 4.2 cents per page--only 0.6 cent cheaper per page than the standard black cartridge.

Removing software features that already exist, cost nothing, and save time and paper is misguided--and that's by far the kindest adjective I could think of. Hopefully, HP will rethink this decision and I'll be able to recommend the Photosmart 5510 as the bargain it should be. In the meantime, I'll call it the Photodumb and recommend that you opt instead for a basic inkjet MFP that carries a more helpful, environmentally responsible driver--the Epson Stylus NX430, say, or the Brother MFC-J430w. Or check out the otherwise identical HP Photosmart 5514, which includes an auto-duplexer for only $20 more.

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HP Photosmart 6510 e-All-in-One Review: Good Looks, Good Output

The first thing you'll notice about the $150 (as of February 6, 2012) HP Photosmart 6510 e-All-in-One color inkjet multifunction printer is that it looks better than the competition. But it’s also a good printer, with first-rate output quality and better-than-average print speeds, though ink costs are just average.

The Photosmart 6510's good looks are partly due to its 3.45-inch touchscreen control panel. The screen is large enough to read and tap easily, too, making the unit as a whole very easy to use. Connectivity falls a bit short: You’ll find only SD and Memory Stick card slots behind a front panel, and the machine has no USB/PictBridge port--an unusual omission. The MFP does support USB and Wi-Fi, though, and the installation routine is concise.

HP's bundled software for the Photosmart 6510 is simple to use and supports all of the unit's capabilities, including scanning and copying. It also allows you to scan from the control panel to a PC or a Mac, even if you're using Wi-Fi; some competing models require a USB connection for this function. The Photosmart 6510 supports HP’s Web-based apps and remote Web printing, as well as local printing via Wi-Fi from Android and iOS devices.

Paper-handling features for the Photosmart 6510 are fine for low-volume printing and the occasional scan. The 80-page paper cassette has an integrated 20-sheet photo tray. The output tray holds 50 sheets, and the MFP offers automatic duplexing (two-sided printing). You don't get an automatic document feeder here, but you can find an ADF on a slightly higher-priced cousin, the Photosmart 7510. Unfortunately, HP seems to have abandoned the notion that users will ever scan anything thicker than a letter: None of the Photosmart units we’ve tested have a telescoping lid to facilitate the scanning of pages from magazines or books.

The Photosmart 6510’s ink costs are merely average. The standard black cartridge costs $12 and lasts for 250 pages (4.8 cents per page), while the standard cyan, magenta, and yellow color cartridges cost $10 each and last for 300 pages, or 3.33 cents per page. That's about 15 cents for a four-color page. You can reduce the color ink costs appreciably with the XL cartridges, which are $18 for 750 pages, or 2.4 cents per page--almost a cent per page cheaper per color. However, the $23 XL black lasts for only 550 pages, or 4.2 cents per page, only slightly less than the standard black.

In our tests, the Photosmart 6510 posted average to slightly above-average print and scan speeds. Text and monochrome graphics exited at a sprightly 7.7 pages per minute on the PC and 7.2 ppm on the Mac--nearly a page per minute faster than the median rate. A half-page photo printed at a slightly above-average rate of about 3.16 ppm, while the same image printed at a slightly below-average rate of about 1 ppm to glossy photo paper. Single-page copies came out around the norm at 3 ppm. Full-page photos printed on the Mac arrived at a rate of about 0.4 ppm--a bit slower than average.

Output from the Photosmart 6510 is very good. At standard settings, text appears sharp and black, though color graphics tend to be a little grainy on plain paper. The color palette overall has a slight lean toward yellow, giving graphics a warm and friendly, if not completely accurate, vibe. On glossy photo paper, color graphics show considerable detail in dark areas and are overall quite nice, with the same warm color scale.

There's no doubt that the HP Photosmart 6510 will look better on your desk than most competitors will. Beyond that, the output is quite good, and the MFP is easy to operate. If your scanning needs are minimal--meaning, the lack of an ADF and a telescoping scanner lid won't disturb you--the Photosmart 6510 is a good choice for the price.

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