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HP Photosmart 5510 e-All-in-One Printer review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £49.99
inc VAT

A competent, cheap and attractive MFP that's let down by over-simplified print and scan software

If you ever needed a reminder of how cheap inkjet printers have become, HP’s Photosmart 5510 MFP provides it. While it doesn’t sit particularly high in HP’s product line up, it has a reasonably well-specified scanner and printer combination, a colour touchscreen, a memory card reader and a wireless network interface for less money than a single tank of petrol. As with other cheap products, we’re always inclined to ask where the hitch is.

HP Photosmart 5510 e-All-in-One printer

Fortunately, there doesn’t initially seem to be one. This is a smart little device that’s perfectly suited to a home office or a student’s bedroom. While it may not look as flash as some of HP’s more expensive MFPs, it has a smaller, more simple touchscreen that doesn’t try to mimic a smartphone’s gesture-based inputs, and is all the better for it.

This is an easy printer to set up, and we found it simple to print directly to it from a smartphone using HP’s Android application and its ePrint service. We’re not particularly keen, however, on HP’s PC setup program, or that its default installation includes Microsoft’s Bing search bar.

While this can be de-selected in the custom setup option, we’re still not very enthusiastic about either the print driver or the scan interface, both of which are essential for using the product.

HP Photosmart 5510 driver

The print driver appears very basic and, at first glance, should be easy to use, but in practice it’s over-simplified; with common options such as borderless printing hidden away in the unfriendly Advanced Options dialogue. The standard interface lets you select one of three print quality presets, or opt for custom settings – once we’d selected Custom, however, the other three were greyed out, preventing us from changing our mind without quitting the print dialogue altogether.

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Basic Specifications

Rating***
Maximum native print resolution4,800×1,200dpi
Max optical resolution1,200dpi
Output bit depth24-bit

Quoted Speeds

Quoted speed, mono A411ppm
Quoted speed, colour A48ppm

Tested Print Speeds

Time for two 10x8in photos 1.07m 30s
Time for six 6x4in photos 1.09m 21s

Physical and Environmental

Standard printer interfacesUSB, 802.11b/g/n wireless
Optional printer interfacesnone
Size146x436x325mm
Weight5.1kg
Duty cycle1,000 pages

Paper Handling

Maximum paper sizeA4/legal
Maximum paper weight300gsm
Standard paper inputs1
Standard paper input capacity80
Maximum paper inputs1
Maximum paper input capacity80
Duplex (code, cost if option)No

General

Printer technologythermal inkjet
Supported operating systemsWindows XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Other inkjet features6cm colour touchscreen
Other inkjet optionsnone

Buying Information

Price£50
Consumable parts and prices£11 each
Price per colour A4 page4.3p
Quoted life of supplied black cartridge250 pages (ISO/IEC 24712)
Quoted life of supplied colour cartridge(s)Cyan, magenta and yellow 300 pages each (ISO/IEC 24712)
Quoted life of supplied photo cartridge(s)N/A
Warrantyone year
Supplierhttp://www.amazon.co.uk
Detailswww.hp.co.uk

Print Quality

Number of ink colours4
Number of ink cartridges4
Maximum number of ink colours4
Maximum number of cartridges4
Quoted photo durability108 years
Quoted photo durability sourceWilhelm Imaging Research

Tested Scan Speeds

Full scan area preview25s
A4 document at 150dpiN/A
A4 document at 300dpi40s
6x4in photo at 600dpi43s
6x4in photo at 1200dpi2m 49s

Tested Copy Speeds

Time for single A4 mono copy 1.019s
Time for single A4 colour copy 1.018s
Time for 10 A4 copies using feeder 2.0N/A

Photo Features

PictBridge supportNo
Borderless printingA4
Direct (PC-less) printingYes
Supported memory cardsMemory Stick Duo, SD, MMC
CD printingNo

Copy Features

Maximum number of copies30
Max mono copy resolution600dpi
Max colour copy resolution600dpi

Fax Features

Max mono fax resolutionN/A
Fax memory (maximum mono pages)N/A