HP has sent me an HP Envy Inspire 7900e, an all-in-one printer that allows you to print, copy and scan documents and photos from anywhere.
This printer’s a bit larger than the previous HP Envy 6000 model I had here, measuring 460 x 511 x 233 mm. Even though this is a consumer-type printer, the design is very much an office type. The size is perhaps justified because it brings some features that are quite welcome.
To start this thermal inkjet printer has a 7cm (2.7 inches) touch-capable colour control panel that quickly gives you access to most of the features in the printer, including quick access to settings so that you can use some features (copy, scan) without having to change those through your computer.
Next is the automatic document feeder, handy when you want to scan or copy a stack of documents (up to 35 at a time) and don’t want to place each one on the flatbed. The scanner will go through 8 pages per minute (PPM) for black and white documents and around 3 PPM for colour sources.
And then we have the paper trays – plural as this printer has an input tray for standard paper (up to 125 sheets) and another one for photo paper (up to 15 sheets). This is handy because you can switch between printing documents and photos without having to physically swap the paper on the printer.
These are the things that just make it a lot easier to use the HP Envy Inspire 7900e.
This printer is also fast. It can print black and white documents in draft mode with speeds of up to 22 PPM, while draft colour prints can be up to 20 PPM. Change the settings to quality mode and we are talking up to 10 PPM for colour and 15 PPM for black and white prints. The best print resolution you will get is a pretty good 1200 x 1200 DPI.
It is also good to note that the printer supports double sided-print as well as copy.
There’s a Quiet Mode setting too, that makes the printer just a bit quieter, without changing the speed much.
If you are printing photos, you will have the option of borderless print, which really comes down to personal preference (I like the white borders around photos).
The print quality is really good for a consumer-grade printer, and the photo quality is satisfying too - I particularly liked the results of printing on matte photo paper over glossy photo paper.
The HP Envy Inspire 7900e uses two ink cartridges, one black and one for colour ink. The ink cartridges supplied with the printer are smaller than the retail versions, giving the printer about 200 black and white pages or 165 colour pages. Retail cartridges go up to 600 pages for black and white or 415 pages for colour.
This printer is also eligible for the HP Instant Ink subscription option. An alternative to buying the ink cartridges via retail, with HP Instant Ink you pay a monthly fee based on the number of pages you think you will print. This can be adjusted once you start using the printer and have a better idea of your needs.
With HP Instant Ink, whenever the printer detects it is getting low on ink, replacement cartridges are sent out to you, automatically and with free shipping. If you print less than the subscribed number of pages per month your page balance accumulates to the next month.
The beauty is that you will receive ink cartridges as you need them, regardless of how many pages you print (within your plan). If you use a lot of colour ink month you will receive as many ink cartridges you need to go through and still pay the subscription price based on pages.
The HP Envy Inspire 7900e can also benefit from the HP+ Printing system, which basically adds some cloud-based features to your printer and includes six months of free HP Instant Ink.
Printer installation is very easy and you are guided all the way through the process. Once the printer is connected to your network the easiest way to get it ready to print on additional computers is to just install the HP Smart app from the Windows Store. It will automatically install drivers and configure your printer for local use.
The HP Smart app will show your printer including paper levels and ink levels. The app also allows you to scan from your computer or print photos – here is interesting to note that HP has introduced a 10 x 10 cm photo format in addition to the standard 10 x 6 photo format, so you can print images downloaded from Instagram and other services.
The HP Envy Inspire 7900e connects to WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac on both 2.4 and 5 GHz. It uses Bluetooth Low Energy for set up so I do recommend using the mobile app as it makes it a lot easier to connect and configure the printer on first use.
The printer is made of 45% post-consumer recycled plastic. HP works with partners including WWF and Arbor Day Foundation to manage, restore, and protect forests in many countries around the world. If you are enrolled in HP+, every print - regardless of paper brand – is counted through HP’s Forest Positive Framework to counteract risks of deforestation.
