HP OfficeJet Pro (Wide-Array Ink) Printers: a super boring review by me

[sonofsanta]

I promised @newpersn in an earlier thread that I'd post thoughts on the HP OfficeJet Pro x451dw / x585z printers, and I figure they'd be useful to a few people as on the face of it, they seem ideal for education, and almost too good to be true.

 

Some background on why I'm writing this: our current printer contract is up in November, and one supplier (Landscape) proposed these HP printers where everyone else offered the usual mix of laser devices. I'd not heard about the technology, nor seen any of them in action, so we've had two demo units out.

TL;DR: we liked these printers, and especially their pricing, enough to select them as our new printer fleet for the next 5 years. They are cheap to run, easy to maintain, and good enough quality for education purposes. You should be looking into them.

 

The Technology

The OfficeJet Pro X printers use HP's PageWide technology (PDF) (further reading). In brief: they're inkjets, but instead of a print head moving across the paper, a series of modules are lined up across the width of the page and the paper moves underneath them. In that regard they're similar to a laser printer.

 

The advantage is that, unlike laser, the consumables situation is incredibly easy. Instead of toner + drum + belt + fuser, with toner powder ending up everywhere and degrading print quality (which has been a particular problem for us with Oki ES4140s), there's an ink cartridge. It clicks in and out like an SD card. It's laughably simple, and should take up a lot less space on our shelves than all the current nonsense.

 

Seriously. Watch:

OfficeJet Pro X451DW

 

The X451DW will be our entry-level printer in the majority of classrooms. It prints at 55 pages per minute in General Office (effectively draft) in full colour, though duplex obviously slows things down. I have tested that speed, albeit only by using my phone as a stopwatch, but it does hold up. These things are fast.

 

The printer is quite sizeable. The X451DW is around 20% wider than our current A4 mono devices, and due to the paper path the multi-purpose tray is on the left-hand side, not the front. Bear it in mind if your space is limited. It's also a pretty hefty device: I could just about manage to carry it about on my own.

 

OfficeJet Pro X585Z Flow

 

The X585Z is the top-of-the-line A4 multi-function device, that will be going into select offices for copy/scan/fax. It's based on the X555DN printer, which we'll also have in a few high-volume areas (e.g. IT suites). This monster is even faster @ 70ppm in General Office -- again, I've checked that -- and is similar in size & layout to the X451DW, about 4 inches deeper and a bit higher for the MFD gubbins.

 

The MFD accoutrements of this device are actually quite cool, sad as it is to admit. Not only does it have an 8" colour touchscreen on a hinge (it lays flat and can be raised through 90 degrees to vertical), it has a little pull out keyboard to type on.

 

Print Quality

 

In summary, before I get to specific test print samples, it's Good Enough. Yes, you can tell it's inkjet: the edges of the text aren't as straight and crisp as laser, even on ColorLok paper; you can only really see this under magnification but you can tell at a glance. The blacks aren't as black as a laser, either. Pictures have got a slight dithering pattern to them, and don't have as much contrast as a laser print (more on this later, though - it's arguably more accurate). However, all of this is only really noticeable when you hold it side-by-side with a laser print. Taken on its own merits, it is absolutely fine. I know for a fact that we, as IT Support, are being fussy (it's our job to notice these details); when I show prints to non-technical staff, they've had absolutely no complaints. These printers will largely be for student work, so quality only needs to be good enough anyway.

 

General Office is the renamed version of Draft quality, and the quality used for all the page-per-minute figures. Text is ever so slightly lighter in tone, but the main difference is that images are downsampled to 300dpi. Personally I can see the pixellation and aliasing caused by this, but again it seems that we are being fussy -- teaching staff don't notice until it's pointed out with comparison to a higher quality setting.

 

Above that, you have Professional ("Normal") and Presentation ("High Quality"). Blacks are slightly blacker, pictures are printed at 600dpi, and print speed drops by a third -- so about 36ppm for the x451dw and 47ppm on the x555dn/x585z. Beyond that, I can't actually tell the difference between these two settings. There's a series of detailed adjustments you can make to ink density and drying time etc. and all these really do is slow things down without any significant improvement in quality.

 

Practically speaking, then, we're defaulting all devices to General Office. It's good enough for everyone we've shown, and Professional is there for when the image quality is important.

 

The ink dries immediately: I have tried, and it is all but impossible to smudge it. The only time I have ever managed to smudge any ink was to print a full sheet of pure black, take it straight off the output tray and rub my fist over it hard enough to rip the paper. Normal printing is absolutely fine. The paper does wrinkle slightly when printing images, but on the other hand, it never curls from going through a hot fuser.

 

Print Samples

 

I ran through a fairly thorough set of test prints with the X451DW and compared to our existing fleet of Oki printers (ES4140 for mono, ES6410 for colour). These samples were all scanned in @ 600dpi on our Oki ES8460. It's not an ideal way for you to see the print quality, so if you can get a demo device for yourselves, do.

 

Open all these images in a new tab - they're about 5000 x 7000 pixels each.

 

X451DW CUPS test file:

This shows the dithering in the colour wheel, and the resolution in the radial lines wheel (ignore the smudging, that's the scanner; the size of the black blob is what's relevant).

 

Oki ES6410 CUPS test file:

Against a comparable colour laser, the X451DW holds up well; the size of the black blob in that radial lines wheel is similar. In draft quality on the x451dw, that blob is much larger as a result of the downsampling to 300dpi, but for Normal quality it's easily the equal.

 

X451DW DataColor test file:

This is the test sheet used for display calibration with DataColor Spyders, which is what we use for our monitor calibrations. Again, the scanner quality doesn't help here, but what is useful to note is the Gamma chart at the top right; the bottom 2-3 squares are difficult to tell apart, whereas...

 

ES6410 DataColor test file:

...the bottom 4-5 on the laser are indistinguishable. This is why, at a glance, the laser prints are more impressive: they have more contrast because they're crushing the blacks. It's a false impression, based on inaccuracy. The colour balance of the laser is more accurate though (when compared to the same image on a calibrated LG IPS monitor). The x451dw's prints have a shift towards the green out of the box. Potentially it's something that can be fixed with a colour profile for Photoshop, as the X585Z at least doesn't seem to have menu options to try and correct this.

 

General Office vs. Professional quality

General Office:

 

Professional:

 

Not as straightforward to tell with these scans as it is in real life, but if you look at the pyramid pie chart, you can see the pixellation around the outside of the circle and on the diagonals of the pyramid for General Office. The cheesy stock photo is noticeably pixellated in the former as well. Text is just as crisp in both, although at this scan resolution you can see the dithering in General Office that makes it appear a little lighter in tone.

 

HP Flow technology

 

The X585Z is the top end multi-function device, implementing the HP Flow platform.

 

This stuff is brilliant.

 

Apart from the advantage of the 8" colour touchscreen and the physical keyboard (I cannot overstate how useful this is), the range of options is bewildering. You can set up your own custom shortcuts, to appear either on the home screen or in a Quick Sets folder, and set them either to be one-push actions (e.g. tap button, scan is emailed to configured recipient) or to open the relevant application with presets tweaked (to allow changes to be made). The document feeder can handle 100 sheets. It's a truly duplex scanner, with two scan heads, so it scans both sides in one pass. It can detect and automatically remove blank pages, so you can just duplex scan all the time. It can do OCR to produce Searchable PDFs (or RTF or HTML...) and it does so surprisingly well. Once a document has gone through the scanner (which it does very quickly, without pauses - 66 images per minute even in duplex) you can queue up the next job while it continues to process the first. It can scan to network, email, USB and SharePoint.

 

It's an MFD that's got me excited about MFDs. If that's not a recommendation, I don't know what is.

 

Pricing

 

The devices are not the cheapest to purchase, especially with the 5 year CarePack. We're buying the fleet outright as a capital purchase, as it works out cheaper than leasing.

 

What is cheap, though, are the running costs. We were quoted a representative cost of 0.6p mono and 3.5p colour on the x451dw, and only 0.44p mono and 2.9p colour on the x555dn/x585z.

 

I ran the figures against our 2014 usage. Our current contract cost us £19,677 including lease & usage. The HP Managed Print Solution would have only cost us £12,178. That's 40% cheaper, despite the higher lease cost per quarter (dividing the capital purchase by 20). The more we print -- and print volumes have risen steadily over the last five years, despite all our best efforts to the contrary -- the cheaper it gets relative to other proposals.

Summary

 

So these printers are cheaper to run, faster to print, easier to maintain with only inks to change (and they last as long as toners, I should point out - 9.2k black, 6.6k colour), supposedly more reliable with all sorts of fancy paper-jam detection (I've never had one), allow for colour devices everywhere (which we'll restrict in software with PCounter) and a match for lasers in quality.

 

I'm convinced.

Edited April 28, 2015 by sonofsanta

[DCUK6]

Thanks SonOfSanta,

 

Weve just got a x476 in and it seems brilliant so far.

 

I did a bit of secret testing between professional and general office quality modes and didn't notice pixelation although i wasn't looking for it. I was looking to compare the difference with the brightness of colours.

The colours are definatly better in professional mode but that not to say they are bad in general office. General office is a bit fainter and comparing the two prints side by side, you can see.

 

Our ICT teacher is impressed with it, a full page photo she showed me looked faint to me but i think thats just because i know.

 

I've installed it onto the server and defaulted everything to general office, will see what happens.

 

 

The only thing our ICT teacher has said about is how it doesnt stack printed pages neatly. It fires them out so fast and the ink must be slightly damp that the pages dont stack properly. I've turned on quiet mode now as its supposed to slow it down so will have to try it out.

 

I want to get a hair dryer on it to see how it copes with heat. The problem with old inkjets is that they used to dry up.

 

 

 

Update: Just had a email from the ICT teacher

"It is so much better now it's slower. Thanks."

Edited May 18, 2015 by DCUK6

[sonofsanta]

You're very welcome

 

The colours are definatly better in professional mode but that not to say they are bad in general office. General office is a bit fainter and comparing the two prints side by side, you can see.

 

The blacks aren't as black either - compare text side by side and you can tell. Taken on its own merits, though, General Office looks absolutely fine to me, especially if it's only for student work. And when quality does matter, you've got professional.

 

The only thing our ICT teacher has said about is how it doesnt stack printed pages neatly. It fires them out so fast and the ink must be slightly damp that the pages dont stack properly.

 

"My printer is too fast!" #firstworldproblems

[PotNoodleTech]

Verrrrrry interesting MR Bond!!

[DCUK6]

You're very welcome

 

 

 

The blacks aren't as black either - compare text side by side and you can tell. Taken on its own merits, though, General Office looks absolutely fine to me, especially if it's only for student work. And when quality does matter, you've got professional.

 

 

 

"My printer is too fast!" #firstworldproblems

 

Yeah, i think its one of those things, if you compare them together then you will notice but if you are always used that then it looks perfect

 

, We are supposed to be getting a free trial of a x5** soon. Much faster, wonder how that's going to do. I think the x4 series is perfect though. Not tried presentation mode. Bet that looks stunning if professional looks good.

 

Have you seen the borderless counter? Didnt think this could do it.

Edited May 18, 2015 by DCUK6

[sonofsanta]

I've got an x585z on my desk right now (just had the email to send it back booo) and to be honest, 55ppm is already ludicrous enough that 70ppm isn't any more ludicrous. Side by side you could tell, of course, but both are equally daft. I suspect if HP pushed themselves, they could get these devices to 88ppm and they'd be able to print work from the future. Who knows, maybe then kids would get coursework done to the deadline they'd been given. I tell you what, though, because I've not been picking apart the print quality on this one but only printing to it normally, I have forgotten it's inkjet. It's print quality is good enough to be indistinguishable from laser on a day to day basis. And the Flow MFP stuff is still amazing. You've never seen scans so fast.

 

EDIT: not tested borderless yet, actually. Might have to give that a go before I give this one up until October.

Edited May 18, 2015 by sonofsanta

[newpersn]

What are they like on a full page photo? (high res)

[Ian_Cooper_Printware]

Excellent review!

 

The fact most of these also have either £100 cashback (up to 5 units, I believe) or a 90 day money back guarantee should you want to try one makes them a very good choice. Additionally they can be had at a very good price between now and July down to HP throwing additional resource at them.

[sonofsanta]

What are they like on a full page photo? (high res)

 

Dunno, sorry, and just had to box up the x585z to send back colour accuracy isn't great, though contrast accuracy is, and you can print to inkjet photo paper so you can get some decent results, but it is still only an office printer and won't ever replace a proper photography printer.

[DCUK6]

What are they like on a full page photo? (high res)

 

Original

 

Draft (General Office)

 

 

Professional

presentation

 

The scans look a tiny bit fainter than they actually are but not far of. Lasers are alot better on pictures.

 

Not a printer to be doing your newsletters etc on, more just detention letters with a school logo.

 

 

 

As you can see, its a nightmare trying to get it to scan straight on individual sheets, and weve had one jam in 746 pages.

[DCUK6]

Heres a laser print scanned using the same scanner.

[sonofsanta]

Super boring update time!

 

Photography have decided the proper calibrated Epson XP-750 photography printer is too expensive to print to all the time (and they're right) and they want a cheaper option for internal work and draft printing.

 

So I got some photo paper to check how the X451dw was.

 

And you know what, it's not bad. Prints are a little dark, losing detail in the shadow, and a little over-saturated and purple (particularly on skin tones), but for the most part it's pretty decent going. Photography are happy with it for draft printing, anyway, and it's certainly a country mile better than printing photos to the laser printer. Honest question: why do they even bother making laser photo paper? It's all just horrible.

 

I need to see if I can calibrate the printer at all, or find an ICC profile for it (or a way of creating one, even if only subjectively), but stick any old glossy photo paper in and it's pretty good going for an economical office printer.

 

Do put the photo paper in the manual feed tray face down though... makes a right mess inside if you put it face up, and all the ink goes on the non-printing side and doesn't soak in and spreads itself all over the print heads. Intense boredom can set in whilst waiting for the ten minute cleaning cycle to complete.

[sonofsanta]

Further further update:

 

Photo printing on the inkjets is surprisingly competent, and Adobe RGB is the colour setting you want for best accuracy. Still not up to the specialist printers, but a pleasant bonus.

 

General printing for art... wasn't good enough. Specifically in the art room, we've put an HP M651 laser in instead, for the contrast and black levels. Again, using Adobe RGB in the print driver, you actually get surprisingly colour accurate results.

 

Everywhere else is still fine with the inkjets, and I've not regretted the choice at all in the 6 months since swapping the fleet over. I tell you what though--it's all well and good HP claiming these things are jam free, but they clearly didn't test with secondary school students

[DCUK6]

Had one jam in it but ours is still going strong.

 

Its been moved from the ict suite to the admin office so gets heavy printing all day.

 

Had it running in draft mode in the ict and they only noticed the difference when i said, its now running in normal in the office as the stuff they print goes to parents etc.

 

Never managed to stop it scanning wonky though.

[lmgtfy]

Further further update:

 

Photo printing on the inkjets is surprisingly competent, and Adobe RGB is the colour setting you want for best accuracy. Still not up to the specialist printers, but a pleasant bonus.

 

General printing for art... wasn't good enough. Specifically in the art room, we've put an HP M651 laser in instead, for the contrast and black levels. Again, using Adobe RGB in the print driver, you actually get surprisingly colour accurate results.

 

Everywhere else is still fine with the inkjets, and I've not regretted the choice at all in the 6 months since swapping the fleet over. I tell you what though--it's all well and good HP claiming these things are jam free, but they clearly didn't test with secondary school students

 

Hi @sonofsanta now that we are almost a year in to your printer replacement projector I was wondering how it is going , any gotchas etc of this project?

 

Cheers

[sonofsanta]

Hi @sonofsanta now that we are almost a year in to your printer replacement projector I was wondering how it is going , any gotchas etc of this project?

 

Cheers

 

Sorry @lmgtfy, only just spotted the mention! (I wish the site emailed you for them...)

 

Apart from the Art printer mentioned above--nope. There's been the odd technical glitch requiring engineers/replacement parts (phantom jams etc.) but no more so than with the lasers we've had in the past. The ink cartridge stock is much easier to manage and replace, and I've not destroyed any work shirts by getting them covered in toner

 

The savings really have panned out though. I've just been adding up the costs for budget forecasting, so I have figures to hand, as it happens. As a real example of the cost savings you get with these printers, based on a school of 1200 students, 550 computers:

 

2014: Oki Laser printers

Mono pages: 586,263

Colour pages: 155,747

Total pages: 742,010

Total cost (excluding lease): £15,912.34

 

2016: HP PageWide printers

Mono pages: 653,859 (11.5% increase)

Colour pages: 224,024 (43.8% increase)

Total pages: 877,883 (18.3% increase)

Total cost (excluding lease): £10,320.75 (35.2% decrease)

I'll take a third less cost for a sixth more printing. Scaling the cost down to compare the same total pages (I can't be faffed scaling it for mono/colour given different pricing across printer models), i.e. the 2015 volume of pages at the 2016 mix of mono/colour (aprox 75/25 split rather than 80/20 split), the equivalent cost was £8,724.21, a 45.2% reduction.

 

Honestly: you'd be daft not to consider them. Epson also have a similar proposition now, so talk to them as well--can't vouch for them directly, but in general I'm completely converted to this class of printers over lasers.

 

Hope that helps y'all in these dark days of budgeting!

[DCUK6]

Have just replaced our desktop printers in offices with the 477dw models.

 

Very good so far.

 

Had the x451 in the old school brought instead of leased and up until i left i dont think i had a single issue with it. Admin team loved it.

[PotNoodleTech]

Good work on the cost savings son of santa.

 

You do a LOT of colour!

 

It's worth looking at traditional MFDs too, based on your 2016 usage figures my Ricoh MFDs would have cost:

Total cost (excluding lease): £8010.21

 

I guess it depends on what are the actual lease costs and what is included in that (servicing, ink, etc)

[sonofsanta]

Good work on the cost savings son of santa.

 

You do a LOT of colour!

 

It's worth looking at traditional MFDs too, based on your 2016 usage figures my Ricoh MFDs would have cost:

Total cost (excluding lease): £8010.21

 

I guess it depends on what are the actual lease costs and what is included in that (servicing, ink, etc)

 

Old school buildings = narrow corridors = no space for big devices & follow me printing, sadly!

 

Cutting down on colour is going to be an ongoing project now I've seen the stats. They surely don't need that much. I've just run the figures and if we'd been 100% mono it would have cost only 43% as much... (100% mono is impossible, but shows how much difference it makes.)

[PotNoodleTech]

Yes I think it should be a priority - we run at 9% colour usage at the moment and that's expensive enough.

[newpersn]

Bit of bump. Just brought one to play with.

 

HP PageWide Pro 452DW.

 

Ink is same as a Brother HL-L8250 costs but get more to a cart. Brother was 4000 black and 3500 CMY.

 

HP XL 10000 black and 7000 CMY. For the same price.

 

It's quicker. Better looking.

 

I like it.