HP Envy 6155e review: a stylish printer made for Instant Ink

The HP Envy 6155e is simply a sleek all-in-one printer designed specifically for low-volume location use. The value is right, and HP includes 3 months of Instant Ink to adhd much worth to nan Envy 6155e.

I went hands-on to trial nan Envy 6155e’s performance, quality, and easiness of use. I besides delve into nan people costs of this cartridge-based printer and comparison nan semipermanent worth of an HP Instant Ink subscription to thief you determine whether this is the champion printer for you.

Specs

Design

The HP Envy 6155e has a sleek, charismatic creation that blends good pinch location decor. Photo by Tracey Truly / Digital Trends

The HP Envy 6155e boasts an attractive, gradual creation pinch rounded corners and a debased profile. The beige and off-white colors blend seamlessly pinch location decor.

The unsocial creation allows it to person a very debased profile. The 5.4-inch tallness makes it moreover shorter than Canon’s mini Pixma TR7020a. With a compact footprint of 17.1 by 14.2 inches and a weight of 11.3 pounds, nan Envy 6155e is easy to negociate and doesn’t return up excessively overmuch room.

A 2.4-inch colour touchscreen connected nan little tier provides easy entree to printer functions. The perspective isn’t adjustable, but it’s debased capable to beryllium visible erstwhile seated.

A azygous 100-sheet insubstantial tray supports modular paper, envelopes, and photograph cards. Since there’s nary media tray, each insubstantial should beryllium removed erstwhile changing size aliases type. A clever swing-out support limb catches prints erstwhile successful use.

The flatbed scanner serves for some scans and copies since nan Envy 6155e lacks an automatic archive feeder (ADF). That intends multi-page copies require manual swapping.

Printing performance

The Envy 6155e has bully people value pinch meticulous colors and crisp text. Photo by Tracey Truly / Digital Trends

The HP Envy 6155e has bully people value and one-page documents are amazingly quick, rolling retired successful astir 11 seconds. Longer documents consciousness slow by comparison, printing astatine a maximum of 10 pages per infinitesimal (ppm) for achromatic matter and 7 ppm for color.

HP’s OfficeJet Pro 8135e is overmuch faster, managing 20 ppm successful monochrome and 10 ppm for colour documents. However, you’ll salary much for that other speed.

Print solution reaches up to 1200 x 1200 dpi for achromatic matter and 4800 x 1200 dpi for colour photos pinch high-quality paper. That intends it’s easy to publication good people and photos look crisp.

This isn’t nan champion prime for a photograph printer, but nan image value is bully overall, pinch meticulous colors moreover connected plain paper. However, shadows are a small excessively acheronian truthful immoderate item is lost. The Envy 6155e tin people borderless photos connected photograph cards and afloat letter-size sheets.

A adjuvant ink-level chart appears aft each Envy 6155e print. Alan Truly / Digital Trends

HP gave nan Envy 6155e a characteristic that helps greatly pinch a printer pinch reasonably mini cartridges — nan surface shows estimated ink levels near aft each print.

Special features

The Envy 6155e has a 1200 dpi flatbed scanner. Photo by Tracey Truly / Digital Trends

The Envy 6155e’s flatbed scanner offers high-resolution (1200 dpi) archive and photograph scans. It’s reasonably accelerated for a compact location printer. Copy speeds are up to 8 copies per infinitesimal (cpm) for black-and-white and 3.5 cpm for colour documents.

I had to switch pages manually to transcript longer documents. HP’s much costly Envy 6555e is fundamentally nan aforesaid printer pinch an ADF added that tin grip up to 35 pages automatically.

For a engaged location office, you mightiness want to cheque retired the champion all-in-one printers that make copies faster and connection different important business-oriented features.

Software and compatibility

HP Envy 6155e setup was elemental pinch nan mobile app guiding maine done nan process. Photo by Tracey Truly / Digital Trends

Installation is rather simple. The colour touchscreen showed a QR codification for nan HP Smart app, which guided maine to instal nan achromatic and tricolor cartridges, insert paper, and commencement nan printhead alignment process.

HP’s alignment strategy is speedy and easy. After printing nan trial page, I was instructed to spot it successful nan flatbed scanner. Still, nan setup was accelerated and almost effortless. The HP Smart app moreover connected to Wi-Fi for maine without entering my password.

The only interruption successful nan travel was getting a PIN codification from nan backmost of nan printer, which would person been easier earlier I positioned nan printer.

There’s a USB-B larboard to link straight to a machine but Wi-Fi worked good for my purposes. The Envy 6155e is compatible pinch immoderate machine aliases phone.

Everything worked good from my machine and phone. The only point lacking was high-resolution mobile scans. The HP Smart app only supports 300 dpi scanning.

Price

Priced astatine $140, nan HP Envy 6155e is an affordable action if you don’t request to people often, but do want nan convenience of printing a image and shipping labels astatine a moment’s announcement aliases making copies from clip to time.

Replacement ink cartridges for nan HP Envy 6155e are inexpensive but don’t clasp overmuch ink. The modular HP 68 Black Original Ink Cartridge costs $23 for astir 160 pages (14 cents per page) and nan HP 68 Tri-Color Original Ink Cartridge is $23 for astir 120 pages (19 cents per page).

However, HP’s Instant Ink subscription work dramatically reduces printing costs. With HP Instant Ink, you salary for nan pages you print, not nan ink. HP has respective tiers.

The $5-per-month scheme that supports up t0 50 pages drops ink costs to arsenic debased arsenic 10 cents per page. The highest tier is $28 monthly for 700 pages, which mightiness sound expensive, but that equates to 4 cents per page. The pricing of nan higher monthly plans is rather competitory pinch different cartridge-based inkjet printers and moreover colour laser printers.

Is this nan printer for you?

The HP Envy 6155e is simply a coagulated prime for location usage acknowledgment to its sleek design, bully quality, and elemental operation. It’s an inexpensive, low-volume printer that tin prevention you a travel to nan agency store, making a hectic time a spot easier. HP recommends printing of up to 400 pages monthly but nan Envy 6155e tin grip arsenic overmuch arsenic 1,000 pages connected a uncommon engaged month.

If you effort to usage nan Envy 6155e for sustained dense workloads, it will costs more, return longer, and accent nan people mechanism. For a large family, a location office, aliases a mini business, location are amended printers pinch amended capacity and little semipermanent value.

While replacement ink cartridges whitethorn look expensive, an HP Instant Ink subscription makes people costs competitory pinch much costly cartridge-based printers and laser printers.

You tin find plenty of awesome printer deals, immoderate moreover cheaper, faster, aliases pinch much features. For example, Brother’s MFC-J1205W provides a beardown challenge pinch a akin value and overmuch larger ink tanks.

However, pinch HP Instant Ink, this printer offers an charismatic solution for occasional printing needs. While it isn’t designed for high-volume printing, nan HP Envy 6155e is simply a bully action for a sleek and stylish location printer.