HP Photosmart 5520 e-All-in-One

Designed primarily for home use, without office-centric features like faxing or an automatic document feeder, the HP Photosmart 5520 e-All-in-One ($129.99 direct) is a different kind of multifunction printer. On the one hand it offers a low-end set of features in many ways. Its paper capacity is a meager 80 sheets for example. On the other hand, it offers a slew of features? from Wi-Fi to direct printing from iOS and Android devices? that are anything but low end. The result is a printer that's basic in some ways, highly sophisticated in others, and well worth considering for home use or for the dual role of home and light-duty home office printer.

The 5520 seems inspired by the same underlying design philosophy as the office-centric HP Officejet 6600 e-All-in-One ($149.99 direct, 3.5 stars) that I recently reviewed. This is certainly true to the extent that both take a pass on a lot of common extras like an Ethernet connector while offering lots of less common extras. For example, both use touch screens for their front panel controls, with well designed menus that make them easy to use. More significantly, both offer a collection of features that earn them HP's designation of e-All-in-One.

For the 5520, being an e-All-in-One means that it supports HP ePrint (HP's approach to printing through the cloud), HP Web apps (a collection of apps available through the Web), Apple AirPrint (for printing from iOS devices), and the HP ePrint Home & Biz print app (for printing from both Android and iOS devices).

Note that to take advantage of ePrint, AirPrint, or HP's Web apps, it's not enough for the printer to be connected by a USB cable to a computer that's on a network. The printer itself has to be connected to a network by WiFi. And for ePrint and Web apps, the network has to be connected to the internet. However, the HP ePrint Home & Biz print app can connect to the printer directly, whether you have a WiFi network or not.

Basics
The 5520's basic MFP features are limited to printing, scanning, and copying. It can also print from or scan to memory cards, but it lacks a USB type A port for printing from PictBridge cameras or for printing from and scanning to USB keys. Like many home-oriented printers, however, it includes built-in templates you can print from commands in the front-panel menu system, including choices for notebook paper, graph paper, music paper, and games, with unlimited variations on mazes and Sudoku puzzles generated by built-in algorithms.

The paper capacity is limited to just 80 sheets, but the printer also includes automatic duplexing (for printing on both sides of the page), which is a welcome option for saving paper. One benefit of a low paper capacity is that the printer doesn't have to be very large. With the trays fully extended, the 5520 measures 16.3 by 17.5 by 22.6 inches (HWD), but the printer body is only about 12 inches deep. You shouldn't have any trouble finding room for it on your desk.

Setup, Speed and Output Quality

Setting up the 5520 is standard fare. For my tests, I connected it by USB cable and installed the drivers and software on a system running Windows Vista.

On our business applications suite, (timed with QualityLogic's hardware and software), the printer came in at a reasonably fast 3.7 pages per minute (ppm). That's a bit slower than the less expensive Brother MFC-J430w ($100 street, 4 stars), but MFC-J430w's fast speed is one of the reasons why it's an Editors' Choice. To put both speeds in context, note that the somewhat more expensive Editors' Choice Brother MFC-J825DW ($150 street, 4 stars) scored 4 ppm. Also, note that the 5520 scored well on photo speed, averaging 1 minute 3 seconds for a 4-by-6 photo.

Much like its speed, the 5520's output quality overall is reasonably good, but not impressive. Text quality is a step above par for an inkjet, but it's balanced by graphics quality that's a step below par. Photo quality is dead on par.

Text is easily good enough for home use or most business use. I wouldn't use it for a resume or other output that needs to look fully professional, but some fonts qualify as highly readable even at sizes as small as 4 points. Graphics are also high enough quality for most business needs, but I saw subtle banding and occasional streaks of white in solid areas in my tests. Color photos are a match for what you can expect from drugstore prints. However, images with dark areas aren't as contrasty as they should be, and a black and white photo in my test showed different color tints at different shades of gray.

I'd like this printer better if it included an Ethernet connector, so you wouldn't be forced to have Wi-Fi to use most of the features that make it an e-All-in-One. If you already have a Wi-Fi network, however, don't mind setting one up to take full advantage of the printer, or don't have any need of the Internet or Wi-Fi based features, that's not an issue. In any of these scenarios, if you need a printer at home with reasonably fast speed and suitably high-quality output, the HP Photosmart 5520 e-All-in-One is a more than reasonable choice.

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