HP Envy 5530 Wireless All-in-One Color Photo Printer
CUSTOMER REVIEW
Vine Customer Review of Free Product (What's this?) Every time I've bought a computer printer in years past, I've agonized about whether to go with Epson or HP (I never really considered Brother, Canon or Lexmark, for reasons shrouded in the mists of time). Both Epson and HP have pretty good reputations for performance and reliability. In my experience, both brands' printers make good-quality prints. Both companies have printers with comparable features for similar prices. Ink usage and replacement cartridge prices are pretty much a wash. Having said that, I've been looking to replace two old printers recently. One is an HP LaserJet 4 with a damaged drum. It would cost far more to fix than it's worth (plus the toner cartridges are obscenely expensive). The other is an HP DeskJet 1120C. It still works, but I don't need its 11"-x-17" paper size capability, and it is glacially, unbearably slow.
Thanks to Amazon's Vine program, I have now not only replaced my old printers, but I've done so in a way that I hope potential buyers will find useful. I chose BOTH an Epson Expression XP-610 and an HP Envy 5530 to review. Thus I can compare their features and performance, which hopefully will be of interest to anyone looking at buying a new all-in-one. I think these units offer similar performance and features at a similar price point, and probably attract the same type of user. So here goes...
SETUP
There's not really much difference between setting up the two. Both come packaged in sturdy, colorful, tight-fitting boxes with lots of blue tape holding things in place and pieces of cardboard, foam or plastic wedged here and there in their innards to prevent the moving parts from moving during transport. Both come with: a software CD, a pictorial setup poster (but no users manual--you have to download those from the respective websites), a power cord and a starter set of ink cartridges. The HP uses two cartridges (Black and Tri-Color), the Epson uses five (Black, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Photo Black). The HP comes with a sample pack of 4"-x-6" Advanced Photo Paper, which I haven't tried yet. Anyway, both sets of cartridges are very small. I wonder how many pages of printout they're good for. Not many, I'd wager.
Both units set up the same way, and it's a breeze. Remove all the packing material, plug them in, turn them on, load the ink cartridges and run the software CD. What could be easier? The setup processes ran very smoothly. Hooking them up to my WiFi network was also straightforward. Once I did that, the printers showed up in the Printers & Faxes folder of my ancient Windows XP system, from which I could designate the default choice for my applications. Piece o' cake. The only setup problem I had is that, for some reason that I haven't troubleshot yet, the Epson scan function doesn't work because it doesn't seem to be compatible with my computer. I have no idea why, but, since I have very little use for the scan function, I'm willing to let this slide for the moment. Advantage: I'd call this a draw.
WIRELESS PRINTING
Printing from my Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 was also easy, after I installed the appropriate free e-print apps downloaded from the Google Play Store. Epson's app is superior because it provides much more visibility into the printer's status and lets you control many more functions than HP's app does. Advantage: Epson, clearly.
SPEED
I haven't timed them with a stopwatch, but the Epson seems noticeably faster than the HP. On the other hand, it takes a little longer to spool the job to the printer. I'd call this a draw.
PRINT QUALITY
Plain text and mixed documents print out fine from both units, with vivid colors and sharp, crisp text. The Epson might be just a hair better, but it's not by much.
I also tested the photo printing function with both printers. To make the test valid, I printed the same image to both printers (one at a time, of course) on the same kind of 4"-by-6" glossy photo-quality paper, using the same software package (Corel PhotoPaint X5). Both printers took a minute or so to start printing, but they eventually kicked out results. The difference was greater than I expected. The HP print was far less brilliant and contrasty. It almost seemed to have a dulling film over it, like shooting through a thin but noticeable layer of gray smog. The Epson print was much bolder and had better contrast, with darker darks and lighter lights. Neither print looked a lot like what was on the screen, of course, which is to be expected. Both were extremely sharp. I would consider either one acceptable. The differences became apparent only when I compared them side-by-side. The differences may also depend on the scene content, lighting and other things, so I hesitate to make a hard-and-fast pronunciamento. However, based on this test, I liked the Epson's image quality considerably better than the HP's.
OTHER FEATURES
Both units print, scan and copy. The Epson also prints on CDs and DVDs, a capability missing from the HP (or at least I haven't found it yet). That's a key difference. On the other hand, the Epson uses multiple input and output trays, including one just for CDs and one just for photo paper, that seem a little fussy and fragile to me. I prefer the Epson's bright full-color display to the HP's, and it seems more appropriately touch-sensitive. Advantage: Epson.
The Epson has a smaller footprint but is taller than the HP, but either should fit into a typical user's desktop workspace. As best I can tell, neither one will scan slides or negatives. Again, perhaps such features are buried in the user's manuals that I downloaded, but they're not obvious at first glance. Advantage: Another draw.
THE BOTTOM LINE
So, after all that, what's my bottom line? Well, all things considered, and after a relatively short time using these all-in-ones and exploring their capabilities, I prefer the Epson XP-610 to the HP Envy 5530. My ratings reflect that preference: I rate the Envy 5530 with three stars ("It's OK"), and I'm posting this same review for the XP-610 with a four-star rating ("I like it"). If you are in the market for a wireless all-in-one, I hope you found this comparative review useful. Happy printing.
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