HP Officejet Pro X576dw review

HP’s Officejet Pro X576dw is an inkjet multifunction peripheral for businesses. Like Lomond’s Evojet Office it uses stationary print heads, albeit HP’s own PageWide system rather than Memjet’s technology. This device is lighter than it looks, uses far less power than a laser and generates much less heat.

Unlike a normal inkjet, which needs to wait for small heads to traverse the page, the wide head in the X576dw covers the entire page width while the paper flows underneath without pause. The speed boost is remarkable, and HP claims a 70ppm print speed at draft settings, which is fast enough to embarrass a departmental laser printer.

The Officejet Pro X576dw’s 792Mhz processor is pretty powerful, and it’s possible to use other functions, such as scanning to a USB stick, while the X576dw is printing; we didn’t spot any sluggishness when we tried.

Having experienced the ultra-fast Lomond Evojet, we were ready for astonishing print speeds, but we didn’t get them on our first try. The default Professional quality setting prioritises quality over speed, but the X576dw still completed our 25-page text test at 32ppm. Set to General Office, it managed the same test at 45.5ppm, including the time taken to spool the print job, which is an exact match for the Evojet. Timed over 100 pages, it printed at more than a page per second.

This printer uses unique print quality terms; what’s wrong with Draft, Normal and High?

The X576dw delivered our colour test at an impressive 22.5ppm, but at General Office quality it flew along at 34.3ppm – the fastest colour result we’ve ever seen. It also delivered one of the fastest duplex (double-sided) prints we’ve seen, printing 10 colour sides on 5 sheets in 33 seconds.

HP has paired the Officejet Pro X576dw with a quick scanner, too. A single mono or colour photocopy took just nine seconds. 10-page monochrome copies print in only 37 seconds, and colour in 45 seconds. This is astonishingly quick. Regular scans were fast, even over Wi-Fi, with a 300dpi A4 scan needing just 10 seconds. A 1,200dpi 6x4in photo scan completed in 46 seconds.

We’re not great fans of HP’s oversimplified scan interface, but it’s good enough for general office work

Copy quality was high, as was print quality, although there was a subtle pixilation visible at the General Office setting. Photographs lacked impact on plain paper, however, and HP didn’t supply any of its recommended ColorLok paper for us to test. Scans were sharp, with accurate colours and good dynamic range, although there were some visible artefacts.

Using HP’s 970XL black and 971XL colour cartridges, colour prints cost 3.3per page and black prints cost just 0.8p per page. The X576dw isn’t cheap to buy, but it’s extremely cheap to run. The X576dw might not quite match the print quality of a similarly expensive colour laser MFP, but its speed and low running costs are much better, winning it a Business Buy award.