At a Glance
Expert’s Rating
Our Verdict
The Envy 5540 is good value for people who need to produce a lot of colour documents or photo prints, and provides good quality for such a low-cost printer. However, simple mono text documents remain relatively expensive and there are cheaper options available if you need to print a lot of mono documents on a regular basis.
Best Prices Today: HP Envy 5540
Costing less than £80, the Envy 5540 provides a printer, scanner and copier in a compact unit that measures just 156mm high, 454mm wide and 410mm deep. The black plastic box doesn’t look particularly exciting, but HP has managed to squeeze in two paper trays – the main tray holds 125 sheets of A4, and there’s a second tray that can accept 15 sheets of 10x15cm postcard paper, so you can switch between photos and conventional documents without having to remove and replace the paper.
Also see: Best Black Friday Printer Deals
There’s a USB port, but we imagine most people will prefer the convenience of the built-in Wi-Fi, which supports Apple’s AirPrint for iOS devices. There are mobile printing apps available for Android, Windows and Chromebook devices, too.
It even manages to include automatic double-sided printing, which is relatively unusual for a printer in this price range.
HP Envy 5540 review: Performance
Print quality is very good, with smooth, sharp text and graphics that will meet the needs of people who work from home, or students who need smart presentation for reports or essays. It’s not all that fast though. The Envy 5540 manages a respectable 10 pages per minute for text documents, but text and graphics pages were more sluggish at around 4ppm.
Photo prints also came out very well when using glossy photo paper, and took a reasonable 65 seconds for a postcard print. However, the Envy only prints with four coloured inks – cyan, magenta, yellow and black – so serious photographers may prefer to opt for a dedicated photo printer that uses additional inks.
Low cost printers such as this often come with a sting in the tail, in the form of very expensive replacement ink cartridges, However, calculating running costs for the Envy 5540 is complicated by the fact that the printer offers both standard and high-yield XL-size cartridges, as well as three different subscription options for HP’s Instant Ink scheme.
The standard-size black ink cartridge costs £10 and lasts for just 200 pages of mono text, while the three-colour ink cartridge costs £15 and manages only 165 pages. That works out at a hefty 5p per page for mono and 9.1p for colour. The XL cartridges are a little better – both cartridges cost £20, and you’ll get 600 pages from the black cartridge and 415 from the colour cartridge. That brings the cost of mono printing down to 3.3p per page – which is still fairly high – while colour printing comes down to a quite reasonable 4.8p.
The Instant Ink scheme is a bit of a mixed bag. The three subscription levels that are available start at £1.99 per month for 50 pages – which works out at a flat rate of 4p per page, for both colour and mono printing (and the Envy 5540 will automatically order new ink to be sent in the post when it starts to run out). There are also subscriptions available for £3.49 (100 pages per month), and £7.99 (300 pages per month), which give you costs of 3.5p per page and 2.7p per page respectively. If you’re printing a lot of colour documents or photos then those prices are great, but they’re still relatively high if you mainly print lots of simple text documents.
Specs
HP Envy 5540: Specs
- 4-colour (CMYK) inkjet printer
- print resolution – 1200x1200dpi
- scanner resolution – 1200dpi
- connectivity – wifi, USB, Apple AirPrint
- primary paper trays – 125 sheets A4
- secondary paper tray – 15 sheets 10x15cm
- dimensions – 156x454x410mm
- weight – 6.8kg
Best Prices Today: HP Envy 5540
Home printers are working overtime for many people, with more of us than ever working from home. That means stock is hard to find along with decent deals but we’ve searched high and low for the best discounts nevertheless.
If your printer can’t cope or you’re sick of high ink costs, buying a new printer can solve the problem. We’ve rounded up the biggest bargains, and we also explain what to look for when buying a new printer.
With more demand than usual, printer deals are hard to find but here are the best ones in the US and UK.
What to look for in printer deals
It’s important to keep in mind that the price of the printer is just the beginning. You’ll also need to consider ink costs. Often what looks like a great value printer can turn out to be expensive in the long run because of expensive ink. Some manufacturers, including HP, now offer ink subscriptions which give you a fixed price for a certain number of prints per month, which makes it easy to know how much you’ll be spending.
Most modern printers are multifunction all-in-one devices that can scan and copy documents in addition to your standard printing capabilities. Some include a fax machine, too.
You can find printer reviews by category – choose from budget, laser, laser colour, inkjet and all-in-one models
Look out for Wi-Fi-enabled printers, as these are incredibly useful for when you need to print from your phone or a laptop. Also, consider whether they have USB ports or memory card slots for easier photo printing.
There are lots of different types of printers available, which can make it really tricky to decide which is right for you. It’s worth first noting that the printer market moves very slowly, so don’t be afraid of buying last year’s model.
Inkjet vs Laser
These are the two main printing technologies. An inkjet printer sprays tiny dots of ink onto paper and are generally cheaper than laser printers (though you may pay more in cartridges in the long run).
Laser printers, on the other hand, use a powdered ink called toner. The paper gets electronically charged to attract the ink into position. It’s then fused with heat onto the page. Laser printers work best for text and generally for printing quickly at high volume.
In terms of colour printing, inkjet printers can produce high-quality images but are usually slower. Colour laser printers, while faster than inkjets are more expensive to buy.
Ink cartridges might look cheaper than toner cartridges, but consider the cost per page: toner can often print 1000 pages or more, but ink might last only 100-200 pages. You can also use third-party toner which is much cheaper than genuine toner from Xerox, Samsung and others. Just make sure using it doesn’t void your warranty.
For more advice on which printer to buy, visit our best printer round-up .
Where to find printer deals
We’re bringing you our carefully curated list of the best printer deals right here, but here are a few retailers you can check out for yourself for printer deals:
US
- Amazon
- BestBuy
- Walmart
- Target
- Newegg
UK
- Amazon
- Argos
- Cartridge People
- Ebuyer
- HP Store
- John Lewis
- Ryman
- Currys
- AO
- Best Buy
- Box
- Scan
- Littlewoods
Where to find ink cartridge deals
Groupon often has discounts popular brands such as HP, Canon and Epson. See Groupon cartridge deals .
eBay is another place to check, though ensure you buy from an authorised reseller or a trustworthy source with a strong track record of positive reviews and ratings. See cartridge deals on eBay .
Author: Jim Martin, Executive Editor, Tech Advisor
Jim has been testing and reviewing products for over 20 years. His main beats include VPN services and antivirus. He also covers smart home tech, mesh Wi-Fi and electric bikes.
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