It’s an ongoing debate: do you really need a printer in the house. With so much of our documents, photos and spreadsheets online, printers usefulness might be questionable. Even so, there’s no doubt a printer can be handy. So when I needed one for my home office I decided to try out the HP DeskJet 4155e All-in-One Printer. In this review I’ll tell you what you get, what the set up process is like, how the print quality is and if I can recommend it for you.
HP DeskJet 4155e
Summary
Once you finally it set up, the HP DeskJet 4155e is a dream for the home office.
Pros
- Wireless
- Prints fast
- Prints, copies, scans
- Prints photos
- Decent size
- Document feeder
Cons
- No two-sided printing
- Set up was difficult
- Photos sometimes print with odd borders
HP DeskJet 4155e All-in-One Printer review
Let’s see what you get with this printer. This printer is multi-purpose: you can do wireless basic printing from a computer or phone, plus you can copy and scan in black or color. There’s an automatic document feeder, and there’s a way to fax too… if you still know people that use fax machines.
This printer, unlike some other HP home printers, will not print two sided.
The printer itself is what I would call “average” size for home printers like this. And it’s definitely not heavy. It would certainly be easy for one person to move without problem.
Set up: not easy for this Mac user
Moving on to the set up… You’ll need to get the printer online and connected to Wi-Fi. This was a hurdle. I’ve set up a few HP printers with my MacBook Pro and in almost every case, it will not connect on its own. I eventually had to contact HP customer service for some help. Fortunately that was quick and I was ready to go after about 20 minutes on the phone. Mac Users, be aware. I can say the last time a reviewed an Epson printer I had similar but resolvable compatibility issues.
With everything set up on Wi-Fi I was then able to print from my phone, laptop, and hubby’s computer wirelessly.
How fast does HP Deskjet 4155e print?
I printed documents, and I can conform it prints fast! From time to hitting print to it activating was less than 5 seconds. A full page of black takes about 6-8 seconds, while shorter pages take far less time. HP’s website says it’ll print about 8 and a half pagers per minute.
Colour takes a bit longer, spitting out a simple colour text page in about 15 seconds. The print quality has been really good; clear, legible and no smudging or blurring. You can use 8.5×11 paper or go up to 8×14-inch.
HP DeskJet 4155e: HP Smart app
HP DeskJet 4155e: HP Smart appIf you want a little tech help with your printing, you can use HP’s Smart app. It givess you access to most of the same features as on the device itself, or on your phone, but you can also set up the HP Instant Ink program which will deliver ink to your door when your device runs low.
Photo printing
Though the website doesn’t really say this printer is for printing photos, you sure can. I bought some HP photo printer paper and tested it…
You need to manually load the paper in the back, and you can load multiple sheets at once and it will only take what it needs.
Photo printing probably understandably take a while longer than a standard page; here it’s about two full minutes per photo, which does feel soo long. Even so, the photo quality is actually pretty good. The colours seem accurate and to match the original photo well.
I did have a few photos print with oddly sized and defined weird borders and white edges. I didn’t have a change to spend a lot of time troubleshooting this, but I was able to fix some of this by making sure the photo paper is seated and aligned correctly, and that the photo is properly sized. The app does give you a bit more tweaking room on this but it wasn’t a guaranteed fit for the white edges.
I was able to print photos straight from my photos app on my iPhone and using the HP smart app.
When it came to copying and scanning, the HP 4155e worked well; documents feed in easily for copies, or you can scan them to your phone or computer with the HP app. Conversely, you can take a photo of a document on the phone and then print it on the 4155e too.
Overall review of HP DeskJet 4155e
Once I finally got help setting this printer up, the HP DeskJet 4155e works like a dream. This is a great printer, and can match speed with other printers of the same size and type. The printer itself is light, easy to move, and the flexibility of having ink tanks which can store years of ink shouldn’t be underestimated. I also like that you can see the ink levels in the tank at a glance.
I’d recommend this printer particularly for an office where the bulk of printing will be done from dedicated computers, and are mostly document in black and white. Even so it’s capable at colour and multi-page document management too.
The HP DeskJet 4155e sells for about $109US/$139CAD.
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