The HP Envy 7855 is a complete all-in-one inkjet printer with a good set of features, solid performance, and excellent print quality at the price of INR 16,499. The Envy 7855 handles most home and office tasks easily, thanks to fax capability, a dedicated photo paper tray, a duplexer, and an automatic document feeder (ADF), and is aided by a colour touch screen with swipeable menus. It’s one of the best home printers available, particularly if photo printing is important to you.
Design
With its output tray extended, the Envy 7855 is nearly 19 inches wide and more than 19 inches deep. The control panel has a smooth plastic face with only one button (the power button) with a touch screen. Therefore, it has a clean and uncluttered appearance. The 2.7-inch colour touch screen is mounted on an angled upward fixed control panel. Since there are no physical buttons for printer functions, you must rely on the touch screen when using the printer alone. Swiping is possible on the screen, which is useful for navigating menus.
The 35-page ADF is located on top of the chassis and is ideal for making multipage copies. Move the lid and ADF to reveal the scanner glass to make single copies or scan a photo. The lid’s hinges, on the other hand, offer no resistance, so you must lift the lid the full 90 degrees or support it while placing your document.
The photo-paper tray is located above the main input tray; to load paper into the standard drawer, slide it out of the way. It can accommodate paper up to 5 x 7 inches in size. This drawer is located beneath an output tray and features a catch that springs outward during printing if it is pushed into the tray.
Printing Speed
Our five-page text document was printed in 33 seconds at 9.1 pages per minute (ppm) by the Envy 7855. This was higher than the category average of 8.1 ppm. (For comparison, the HP Envy 5540 took 36.9 seconds to print the same document.) However, the Envy 7855 took 4 minutes and 15 seconds (or 1.4 ppm) to print our colour PDF document with text and graphics. The average for the category is 2.4 ppm, or 2 minutes and 31 seconds. Our PDF was printed at 5.1 ppm (in 1 minute and 11 seconds) by the Epson XP-640, the fastest model tested to date.
The HP Envy 7855 prints and copies two-sided using its automatic duplexer. It printed two-sided text documents at 3.7 ppm, a rate that’s faster than the industry standard of 3.3 ppm. The Envy 7855 was comparatively slow when printing single-sided colour PDFs, printing at 1.2 ppm versus the average of 1.7 ppm.
The speed of photo printing was average. Our letter-size test photo was printed on glossy paper in 3 minutes and 1 second by the Envy 7855. In comparison, the Canon Pixma TS6020 printed exactly the same photo in less than 2 minutes (1:54), while the clumsy Brother MFC-J985DW took an hour and 47 seconds.
Scanning and Copying Speed
Copies of a one-page text document took about 15.7 seconds on average. The use of the ADF, on the other hand, distinguishes the Envy 7855 from other models. It copied single-sided text at 7.2 ppm, compared to 4.4 ppm for the Brother MFC-J985DW and 3.4 ppm for the Epson WF-2760. The addition of the duplexer did not significantly improve the Envy 7855’s performance. While the HP OfficeJet 4650 and Epson WF-2760 both produced the same two-sided copy of a five-page text document at 2.7 ppm, the Envy 7855 did so at 4.3 ppm.
Print Quality
Text documents printed in high resolution. The letterforms were sharply defined and sufficiently dark. Graphics printed on plain paper with rich colours, deep, dark shades, and smooth textures. Some dark areas, particularly flat areas in graphics, displayed banding. Photo prints on glossy paper appeared well saturated, with accurate colours and fine details. It’s good enough that we rank it among the top photo printers we’ve tested.
The Envy 7855 produced visually appealing copies of documents. Grayscale copies of graphics, on the other hand, lost some of the subtleties in midtone transitions, whereas text retained the majority of the original’s sharpness.
Photo scans had very natural colour and retained a lot of detail in shadow areas. However, the text was less appealing. Letterform edges appeared lumpy and less sharp than in the original document.
Ink Cost and Yield
If you buy ink the traditional way, ink costs slightly more than the average. Text documents cost an estimated 9 cents to print, compared to an average of 8.1 cents per page. Using high-yield cartridges reduces the cost per page to 7 cents, compared to the average of 6.1 cents. Colour pages are estimated to cost 24 cents per page, compared to the average of 22.4 cents (or 18 cents versus 15.2 cents when using high-yield cartridges).
HP, on the other hand, claims that you can print photos for less than 5 cents each. This is based on the best-case scenario of paying a monthly fee for an ink subscription and excludes the cost of paper. The subscription limits the number of pages per month, regardless of size. This appears to be a fantastic deal; in theory, you could print all 8 x 10-inch photos for 5 cents each.
Software
For printing and scanning, HP provides its Smart software suite. If you want, you can install the fax driver. All of these functions, including copying, are also available through the touch screen. Cloud storage, sharing, and tracking your print history are all features of the HP Connected platform. You can print documents and photos from your smartphone or tablet using the HP Smart app for iOS or Android. The app is simple to install. On the main screen, you can print photos, scan to email, print documents, and print Facebook photos.
Verdict
The full-featured HP Envy 7855 provides high print quality, many features and sufficient speed to handle a wide range of home and home office tasks. This all-in-one printer performs most tasks successfully, with fast text printing, quick photo printing, and a quick document feeder for making copies of multipage documents. If you have a subscription, ink costs for this printer can be low, but they are otherwise above average.
