I recently got offered the opportunity to review the HP Desk Jet Ink Advantage 5575 All-In-One Smartphone and Tablet Printer. It’s a mouthful. Try say it fast ten times. I no longer have a printer at home. If I’m brutally honest I haven’t had need for one. The world has gone online and, the few times I’ve needed a document printed, I’ve used a work printer or sent it to a friend with a printer.
The cost of the printer, the ink and the paper never seems to really justify the spend. The HP offering costs just under R2000 and, while it operates on HP’s lowest cost cartridges, it will likely still hit your pocket hard. However there are some handy selling points. According to the marketing blurb you can print directly from your smartphone or tablet. I liked this idea.
I’ve recently decorated my new place and had a few funky photo frames that needed filling. I wanted vintage images of my horses and decided that using the HP would be the perfect opportunity to get these done.
Setting up the printer physically was easy. I first decided to try it out by plugging the USB cable directly in to my laptop. Setting up the HP on my laptop took roughly around 5 minutes. I’ll be honest, it always frustrates me when I have to submit email addies during the set up process as I know this means I’m going to be hit with sales mails regularly. Once the set up was done I laid out my photos and got printing. I used low res images off Facebook and resized them to A4. Despite this, the printer really delivered fantastic quality and I was over the moon.
Take a look at the process documented in photos below and then read on for a bit about printing off your smartphone.
Based on the super printing job for my frames I decided to try out printing from my smartphone. This is the whole selling point behind the HP Desk Jet Ink Advantage 5575 All-In-One Smartphone and Tablet Printer… I mean, it is in the name. In order to print via your phone you need to download an app. Which I did. I was then prompted to download ANOTHER app. Which I did. No matter the amount of tweaking and fiddling I could not get the printer to print my smartphone photos. Instead it kept spitting blank paper out at me. Eventually I gave up and returned to my laptop. I’m still happy with the results, as photographed below.
The final verdict? If you’re a huge fan of printing millions of polaroids and decorating your house then this printer is most definitely for you. The print quality really is fabulous and it is simple to set up. I think, if you spend some time fiddling with the app, you’ll soon be able to print wirelessly from your smartphone as well. While I’m really glad I now have fun photos for my home I’m not too bothered about printing more. So I’m not sure I’d run out and buy it. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.
Disclaimer: We were sent a review unit of the HP printer. It goes back now.
