Its prints weren’t on the pro level that Canon and Epson printers can deliver, but they weren’t the worst prints we’ve seen, either. When it comes to photo printing, HP wasn’t overly vibrant and delivered a more middle-of-the-road print. The ink was also dry, which is to be expected, once the print was complete. Heck, it was even on par with more expensive HP units. There were no noticeable quality differences between this unit and ones from Brother, Canon or Epson. With black and white prints, the HP Envy Pro 6455 could toss punches back and forth with much higher-priced units. As we did with all printers, we gave each model some time to warm up and ran the alignment tests to ensure proper calibration and setup. There is an option for a quiet mode, but that extends the printing time by five to 10 seconds with only a very slight reduction in noise as the payoff.Īs for print quality, printed text arrived clear and crisp with deep blacks and no smudging around the letters. You’ll hear the two cartridges inside move back and forth.
The HP Envy Pro 6455 makes its presence known, but not to the noisy degree of a laser printer or some of the massive units we tested. That falls behind duplex units like the Brother and Canon all-in-one, which can start a job in less than 10 seconds, but is on par with other units at this price. On average, it takes about 15 seconds after you hit print for the first page to shoot out, and we could easily crank through 20 pages double-sided in just under three minutes. Most importantly, though, it succeeds with printing text-heavy documents, large keynotes and even the occasional one or two photo prints. It’s also an absolute champ at printing and was one of the easiest to set up of all we tested. HP’s Envy Pro 6455 features a compact build that can fit into the smallest workspace, even though it is a multifunction device with the ability to print, copy and scan. It also features fax capabilities (should you need that), but you’re paying a premium for those added capabilities - $349.99 - though you’ll save a bit on ink, as you won’t need to replace it nearly as often as the HP Envy.īest printer overall: HP Envy Pro 6455 ($159.99 hp.com or $149.99 ) But it delivered better quality photos and has a larger capacity for prints. It lacks the seamless and easy setup of the HP Envy Pro 6455 and has a control panel that looks old in 2021. If your needs go beyond the everyday features of our top pick, we’d recommend the Canon Pixma G7020. Meanwhile, the higher-priced units offered more capacity and faster prints, but nothing that was extraordinary enough to justify their price for the average user.Īfter countless hours of print, scan and copy testing we wound up with a modest-sized, sub-$200 printer that delivered a formidable experience. Lower-cost units often had more clunky builds and didn’t deliver satisfactory performance with printing. Our testing pool included several units at the top of the budget scale ($300-plus) and bottom (less than $100), but we found that units at either end failed to deliver an incredible experience across the board. A single family printer will need to tackle essays and emails, but also extend to visually heavy documents and photos of family memories. If you’re paying more than $100, your printer should be able to do a little more than just print out a single sheet, especially now that we’re doing so much more from home. We spent months with a bevy of printers from leading brands like Brother, Canon, Epson and HP.