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HP Photosmart 5510 e-All-in-One printer

AN ALL-IN-ONE printer is often a good choice for your home or small office if you want to save space and cost. HP’s PhotoSmart 5510 e-All-in-One is a budget model (Dhs 499.95) that may not deliver the print quality or feature set of some of its more expensive competitors but it does deliver on value.

Although it’s a multifunction (MFP) printer that should fit the office as well as the home, I doubt HP meant the 5510 to be used much in offices. You can only place 60 sheets of paper in the tray, rather pathetic for any kind of printer, and there is a distinct lack of business- or workgroup-oriented features. For example, there is no automatic duplexer, which would let you print on both sides of a sheet of paper without having to turn them around yourself.

That said, output quality is surprisingly good, especially for photos. Something else that surprises in a good way is that the 5510 has a touch display, albeit a small one, which is rare at this price point. It’s compact enough to fit in almost anywhere and it can print, copy and scan.

HP’s ePrint is something the company is rolling out to all its printers. As long as the printer is connected to the Internet, you can email files to its unique email address and the printer prints for you. For all you iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users it also supports AirPrint, allowing for wireless printing from your mobile i-device. In terms of connectivity the PhotoSmart 5510 supports USB and Wi-Fi but not Ethernet, another sign that this printer is not meant for an office. I had no problems connecting with Mac and PC and configuration for Wi-Fi was a breeze. You can also print from and scan to a memory card (SD/MMC and Memory Stick Duo).

For a printer that cost only Dh500 the 5510 delivers surprisingly good output quality, especially for photos. Although 4.4 pages per minute of simple pages of text is not something to brag about, for the price-point it’s actually not bad. Black text comes out looking rather sharp without much bleed (where the ink seeps out on the paper). If you regularly print small text, however, the 5510 can’t really deliver on the quality needed.

In terms of graphics the 5510 actually did better than with text. A typical 4x6 photo finished at just over a minute and looks really good. Putting the printed photo side by side with one from a specialised photo printer reveals the shortcomings of the 5510, like detail and vibrancy of colours, but it’s perfectly respectable for most home users. If you need to print business documents for reports or presentations you should look at another printer however.

Summing up, the HP Photosmart 5510 e-All-in-One is a good choice for home users looking for an affordable MFP that delivers good printing quality. But be aware that it’s not meant for high-volume printing.

Magnus Nystedt @mnystedt

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