What counts as 'easy to set up' clearly is quite person-specific. Knowing that I don't find printer set-up easy or intuitive--I truly am a Newtonian person trying to get by in this digital world--I asked a tech-savvy engineer friend to help me set the thing up. He has set up a lot of printers, done a lot of complicated hardware modification, etc. Yet it took quite a while to get the printer set up and working. My friend thought that some of the directions, and some of the choices, were less than straightforward. Me, I found it pretty frustrating.
The good news is that the printer DOES work. It does a good job copying and printing monochrome documents, which I principally what I need it to do. It is easy enough to print photos with this printer, but the results are less than fabulous. I take lots of pictures of vegetation, more specifically various cactus and succulents in situ in my garden, in friends' gardens, in botanical gardens, etc. The photos that this printer produced were a bit washed out; prints tended to look over-exposed, though I know that the photos themselves are not. And the prints are not as crisp as the ones produced by our old Canon. It is also clear that this thing is something of an ink monster.
This is a fairly inexpensive printer. It's thus probably unrealistic to hope it to be able to produce high (or even medium-high) quality prints. Still....
I would rate this as a low 4/high 3.
TL;DR: Overall this is a solid printer. It's easy to set up, the print quality is good (nothing special, though), and the features it has available are plentiful and fairly user friendly. My only gripes are the photo paper tray gliding too freely, no rear paper guide, slow print speed and the low page prints yield of the tri-color cartridge.
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I've been using HP Photosmart printers at home for a fairly long time. So, when my C6280 gave out after 10 years I didn't really have any issues going with another HP. The big things that I needed was a printer that was connected to the home network so I could print from all the family devices since the C6280 was a shared printer, an auto document feeder for large scans/copies and had a dedicated photo paper tray to support small scale photo printing without having to reconfigure the main try. This printer does all of this and way more.
This printer gets a big thumbs up for connectivity.
My experience setting it up was really easy. Plugged it into the wall, went to the website from my phone and it was up and running in about 10-15 minutes. Connected all my other devices just as easily in about 3-5 minutes each. The only device I had an issue with was an older Lumia 2520 on Windows RT. This device could not run the installer from the website, which was no surprise to me, due to the ARM based OS. However, I got the printer to talk to the Lumia by installing a generic HP Photosmart PCL3 Class driver which was found on the device already. There are some really neat connected and cloud features that his printer has that I'm pretty excited to try out in the coming weeks.
Print quality is pretty good for an at home printer. Some of the photos I've printed left a little to be desired in quality. Some of the darker photos looked a little magenta saturated, and some of the lighter ones looked a little washed out. But, I work in a print shop with equipment magnitudes more expensive, so I figure I'm probably being a little picky.
The scans/copies I've made so far look pretty good, and getting them from what ever device you want is really easy using the HP app. I really like being able to plop a stack of papers into the ADF (like I can at work) and letting them go. Haven't had a jam yet.
Input trays are located just under the output tray. There's a tray dedicated for photo paper (4x5, 4x6, and 5x7) just above the main tray for paper and envelopes up to legal size (8.5"x14"). Easy to get to and load. Loading papers larger than A4 requires you to drop down the front of the paper tray, which is done by releasing a lever. The first of two complaints here is that there is no rear guide for either tray. Paper just sits loosely in the tray. I've had the printer tell my a few times that paper wasn't loaded because the paper had shifted when I reset the tray. Especially in the photo paper tray. Which leads me to complaint number two, I sometimes have to go fishing for the photo paper tray. It glides easily, but so freely that it sometimes doesn't come out with the main tray. It's a minor annoyance.
Print speed was about the same as the C6280 that I am replacing. To be honest, that's a little disappointing considering the difference in age of the two printers. It's by no means "too slow", but not really fast either. The big difference here for me was that the cure time of the ink on this machine was much better. Glossy photos are dry when they come off the machine. The C6280 had a tendency to leave some wet ink on glossy photos with heavy coverage.
This printer even has fax capability. A bonus for sure, but one I probably will never use.
Finally, I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of the tri-color cartridge since you have to replace it once you run out of one of the three colors HP managed to magically cram in that tiny cartridge since the yield seems fairly small (~165 sheets color for the regular, and ~415 for the XL). I'm finding that dedicated CMYK cartridges in smaller printers with the features this one has is becoming harder to find out side of more expensive printers like the Epson Ecotanks. HP, I'd love to see an ENVY Photo/Photosmart printer with separate color cartridges if it meant getting more prints per cartridge and good quality. But, considering how much we actually print in our house, it shouldn't be a huge deal for us. Time will tell.
I absolutely love this machine and the Instant Ink is such a great deal! I have a 3 month free trial with the 9.99 a month plan and so far I've been sent 3 shipments of ink, all before I ran out so I had the cartridges when I needed them. It prints clear photos, slightly dark so I edit on my phone before printing. The app is super helpful and easy to use, such a great buy!! It's a little bigger than I thought it would be, but not by much. Sits right on my table in the living room. Easy to fill paper and change out the ink cartridges. The only problem I have is sometimes I can't connect to the printer but I think that's because my wifi sucks and constantly goes in and out. But other than that I'm super happy with this product.
I upgraded to this printer, very easy setup and very nice prints. Printing photos from our phones is a very nice option.
HP's instant ink is a very nice feature and not breaking the bank. The printer communicates with HP and lets HP know when ink is running low. Ink is automatically sent. I have received my 1st shipment of ink already. VERY NICE
If you consider buying this printing and signing up for Instant Ink I highly suggest not buying additional ink at time of purchase. I did and now have extra ink no biggie but I could have saved money.
All in all very good product and great ink service.
I expected set up to be somewhat difficult, but it was very easy. I used the HP Smart app for Wi-Fi set up and it was flawless. Printer set-up was also easy; instructions were clear. Print and photo quality are excellent . I love the ADF and two paper trays- one for letter and one for photo paper. An extender automatically pops out when printing! I thought the price was fair when compared to other printers. Only criticism is that set up cartridges are included; not full size.
Feature Product
- STUNNING PHOTOS FOR LESS THAN 5 CENTS - Features of this photo printer include print, scan, copy, fax, borderless & wireless printing, SD card slot, auto document feeder, plus photo prints for less than 5 cents with HP Instant Ink (subscription required)
- THE POWER OF YOUR PRINTER IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND - Mobile printing from your device such as iPhone with AirPrint, or print without a network using Wireless Direct printing
- WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY YOU CAN COUNT ON - Reliable wireless connectivity and lightning-fast setup with dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Smart, plus Ethernet capability for wired networking
- OUR MOST POWERFUL PRINTING APP EVER - The HP Smart app allows you to easily set up this wireless printer, scan documents with your camera, and print from social media or the cloud, such as iCloud, Google Drive, and Dropbox
- Choose an ink replenishment service - Save up to 50% with HP Instant Ink or Save 10% on all reorders with Amazon Dash Replenishment. With Dash Replenishment, your printer detects when you are low and places a smart reorder. No subscription fees.
- PRINT DIRECTLY FROM SD CARD OR USB - Insert your SD card or USB to view, edit, and print directly from the 2.7-inch color touchscreen using dedicated paper trays that automatically adjust to match print settings and paper type
- WIDE RANGE OF PAPER SIZE SUPPORT - Supports letter, legal, 4x5 in, 4x6 in, 5x7 in, 8x10 in, No. 10 envelopes
- ONE-YEAR LIMITED HARDWARE WARRANTY - 24-hour, 7 days a week Web support; this HP ENVY Photo 7855 All-in-One replaces the HP ENVY 7640 All-in-One
Description
Designed for those that love to share photos, the HP ENVY Photo line allows you to print stunning, true-to life photos for less than 5 cents each with HP Instant Ink (subscription required). With a dedicated photo tray, borderless printing, USB and SD card slots, the ENVY Photo 7855 has all your photo printing needs covered. Pair it with the HP Smart app and you have the power to easily set up your printer, scan documents on the go with your camera, and print from social media or the cloud, such as iCloud, Google Drive, and Dropbox.
Love it so much!!!!!!!!! Color is so vivid. Scans, prints and faxes great. Took some time to set it up wirelessly but I had to call HP for the help. The book is not very informational.
I am pleased with this printer. I haven’t printed any photos yet but printed some recipes and etc. Items printed look very good so far. My only complaint is that the printer does not always give you the option of whether you want to print in color or in black and white. I definately wish HP would fix this so that option is always available each time you try to print. (There may be an advanced setting somewhere I haven’t found yet?). Also, I wish they had something to keep the printer paper pushed to the front of tray because sometimes paper slides back where it can’t be reached and printer thinks it is out of paper so I have to push it up. I’ve found it prints better if you wake it from sleep mode first.
I've had this printer for less than a month and ...so far so good! My configuration is: computer hardwired to the router; printer connected to router by Wi-Fi. Initial set up was easy. I used the printer WI-Fi wizard to connect printer to Wi-Fi. Initially the printer periodically lost the Wi-Fi connection and I used the Wi-Fi wizard to reestablish connection and it always seemed to loose the WI-FY connection when trying to download a software update. I manually entered the Wy-Fi password when reestablishing the connection and ran the HP "Print and Scan Doctor" that fixed a few problems. Not sure which of these fixed my Wy-Fi issues..but since then the Wi-Fi connection has been stable and the printer software update downloaded and installed successfully. The only of the issue I had was initially not being able to "scan to computer" The printer error message was that the computer needed additional software. However, that was not the case. I learned that you need to enable that scan function by clicking on the HP ENVY Printer assistant icon on your desktop, select "Scan" and then select "manage scan to computer" to activate this function.
After reading about problems with envelope printing on some of the newer HP printers and after returning the HP 6978 All-In-One that had the same issue, I am pleased so far with this HP Envy Photo 7855 All-In-One. It allows me to print envelopes with a .25" left margin which is best for business. It scans well and prints regular documents fast enough. I give it 4 stars because it is more of a hassle to print on an envelope involving opening the enclosed paper tray and having to take out the main paper and then inserting an envelope in the middle (says it can load 5 at a time, but I have not tried yet). It takes a couple steps more than older printers. With older printers and all-in-ones all I had to do was put the envelope on top of the regular paper and print. The other annoying feature is when you print anything this extended flap comes out from the contraption that your printed paper or envelope will rest on and it does not automatically recede that I have been able to discover, thus you have to push it back in or risk breaking it if you hit it when moving around the printer. Another annoying feature is that a box comes up on the monitor asking you what you want to do each time you turn it on or restart the computer, which I think may have something to do with the fact that it has a USB and smart card slot that you can open up to print or download photos and other. I have not researched how to disable this yet, may have to go into the config file or registry to disable. I have no intention of using it for off loading photos or printing directly from a smart card or USB. Seems to me this feature should not activate unless you have a card or USB inserted.
The best thing, however, is it takes one tri-color cartridge and 1 black cartridge like older printers! No more hassling with cyan, magenta, and yellow cartridges...so happy about this!! About time HP went retro!
Time will tell as I've only had it for 2 hours, but set-up and connecting to wi-fi was a breeze, and I was able to print and scan immediately. Basic document print quality is very good, prints quickly and not too noisy. I've used the app (installed on smartphone) only briefly but it seems to work well and makes using the printer easier. I like that it's smaller and more versatile than the old HP all-in-one it replaces. Looks nice and sleek in all-black. HP ENVY Photo 7855 All in One Photo Printer with Wireless Printing, Instant Ink ready (K7R96A)So far so good.
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