HP’s Envy Inspire 7220e is a low-cost home office all-in-one color inkjet printer, scanner, and copier that can print on plain and glossy picture paper. It’s brand new and available to buy today for a little over £100, and it provides a lot for that low price. It has rapid printing times for both text documents and color photographs, as well as fast scanning times, and it’s covered by HP’s Instant Ink subscription plans, which may work out to be good long-term value for money for families, busy homes, or anybody who needs to print a lot.
With compatibility for Windows, macOS, Chrome OS, iOS, and Android devices, the HP Envy Inspire 7220e can fit into almost any home office setup, and there are wireless and wired connectivity choices owing to Wi-Fi and USB support.
What will you see here?
Design & Build: HP Envy Inspire 7220e
The HP Envy Inspire 7220e is a small, low-profile all-in-one computer. The scanner lid and paper tray are mostly constructed of white plastic, with colored highlights in Surf Blue or Portobello Beige; It was issued a beige one.
The HP Envy Inspire 7220e may appear big, but it is really rather light, weighing just 7kg. It has recesses on the sides that make it simple to pick up and transport.
From the scanner lid to the paper tray to the printer hood, the HP Envy Inspire 7220e’s separate portions are well delineated, either by different colored plastic or indentations that show you just where to grip and pull items. It is very literally simple to grasp.
While the HP Smart mobile and PC applications allow you to operate the printer remotely, there is also a built-in 2.7 customizable touchscreen control panel. The touchscreen is fairly snappy, and the Android-style user interface is simple to use. The scanner bed is light and simple to open, but there is no slow-close function, so you must push it all the way back. The primary hood, on the other hand, has a slow-close function that makes setting up and replacing ink cartridges a breeze.
The paper in-tray is divided into two sections, the top for glossy picture paper and the bottom for ordinary paper. It has a capacity of 15 sheets of picture paper (maximum size 13 x 18 cm) and 125 sheets of normal paper (max size: A4). While the HP Envy Inspire 7220e may be used as a photocopier, it lacks an ADF (automatic document feeder), so you’ll have to manually scan and print anything you want multiple copies of. This is common with low-cost printers.
Set-up, Apps, and Wireless Printing
You may configure the HP Envy Inspire 7220e from a Windows, Mac OS, or Chrome OS device, or from an iOS or Android mobile device using the HP Smart applications — either way, it’s simple. The only thing you’ll need is the Wi-Fi password for your home network.
Because the HP Envy Inspire 7220e is Apple AirPrint compatible, no drivers are required; however, Windows users may need to download and install them from HP’s website, and Chromebook owners may need to install this extension. The HP Smart applications are excellent at taking you through the setup process and making things simple for those who have never set up a printer before. The cartridges fit effortlessly into the cradle, and the printer arm is sturdy.
The mobile HP Smart applications are handier and will most likely be what you use the most. Both applications enable printing from Google Drive, Google Photos, Dropbox, and Facebook, but the iOS edition includes Box, Evernote, and, of course, Apple iCloud compatibility.
Finally, the Moira app for Android smartphones is supported. It also allows you to quickly print files and photographs from your phone’s gallery. If you don’t want to utilize the HP Smart app, this is a good alternative.
If you wish to conduct any maintenance cycles, you’ll need to utilize the desktop programs. Also even better, the control panel on the HP Envy Inspire 7220e.
The HP Envy Inspire 7220e includes HP’s self-healing Wi-Fi technology. Which aids in the establishment of the finest Wi-Fi connections and immediately reconnects if any disruptions occur. It features a dual-band Wi-Fi antenna and may be configured to use the less-congested 5GHz frequency using the HP Smart mobile app.
Performance: HP Envy Inspire 7220e
The HP Envy Inspire 7220e produces pages of black text swiftly, as well as sheets with text and color graphics.
A 20-page test document took 1 minute and 22 seconds to print, giving me a page-per-minute rate of 14.63ppm. Printing a test document containing a combination of text and color bar graphs and pie charts took a little longer than expected—2 minutes and 4 seconds, or 9.6ppm. That’s a little slower than the 15ppm and 10ppm rates claimed by HP for the Envy Inspire 7220e. But it’s still fast for a home office printer in this price bracket.
That’s speedier than the Canon Pixma TS7450 from last year and HP’s own Envy Pro 6420. It isn’t as rapid as a laserjet, like the Brother DCP-L3510cdw, but you shouldn’t expect it to be. If you need to print a lot of reports, letters, or essays quickly, the Envy Inspire 7220e may be the printer for you.
Print quality is likewise extremely good in the normal setting. Also, the text is rich and well-defined, and the color blocks look solid. Grain is only particularly evident when looking at pie charts, thus you’ll only need to set the quality to “Best” for crucial papers.
HP Envy Inspire 7220e
The Envy Inspire 7220e, like many HP color inkjets, uses a two-cartridge system, with one black ink cartridge and one tri-color cartridge (cyan, magenta, yellow). It accepts both regular-sized HP 303s and bigger HP 303XLs. The HP 303 black and HP 303 tri-color cartridges have typical RRPs of £16.99 and £20.99, respectively, and provide about 200 and 165 pages of ink. That equates to a cost-per-page of 8p and 12p, respectively.
The bigger HP 303XLs provide greater value; an HP 303XL black cartridge costs £35.99 and guarantees 600 pages of ink – or 5p per page. While an HP 303XL color cartridge costs £40.99 and promises 415 pages – or 9p per page. These costs are standard for inkjet printers in this price range. The larger cartridges are worthwhile to purchase, especially if you can locate them as part of a package offer someplace.
Price & Availability
The HP Envy Inspire 7220e is currently available for purchase. This is available straight from HP in the United Kingdom for £130. Amazon, Argos, Ryman, and John Lewis also sell it. The Envy Inspire 7220e was not accessible from the HP Store in the US at the time of writing. But a comparable model, the HP Envy Inspire 7255e, is now available for $219.99.
The 7220e is also available through HP in Australia, where it costs AU149. In the United States, the HP Envy Inspire 7255e model is also available from Best Buy for $219.99; it’s listed on Amazon but is presently unavailable.
Conclusion
The HP Envy Inspire 7220e is a flexible home office all-in-one printer that lacks a few capabilities. Also, most notably an ADF and the ability to print on A4-sized glossy paper. However, if you can deal with this and only want anything to print papers on, the HP Envy Inspire 7220e is a wonderful pick because of its low RRP, high speeds, and great quality outcomes.
