At a Glance
Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Attractive price
- Fast printing speeds
- 2-sided printing
- Good text and photo quality
Cons
- No ADF
- Can’t print on A4 glossy paper
Our Verdict
The HP Envy Inspire 7220e is a fast and versatile all-in-one colour printer/scanner/copier for home office users that’s on for a low price, and can be cheap to run, with the right subscription. If you can live without printing on glossy A4 paper and an automatic document feeder, it’s a steal.
Best Prices Today: HP Envy Inspire 7220e
The Envy Inspire 7220e is a budget home office all-in-one colour inkjet printer, scanner, and copier from HP, capable of printing on both plain and glossy photo paper.
With support for Windows, MacOS, Chrome OS, iOS and Android devices, the HP Envy Inspire 7220e can fit into practically any home office set up, and thanks to Wi-Fi and USB support, there are wireless and wired connectivity options.
Design & Build
- Compact plastic chassis
- Two colours
- Built-in touchscreen
The HP Envy Inspire 7220e is a compact all-in-one with a low profile. Predominantly made of white plastic, there are coloured accents on the scanner lid and paper tray, which can either be Surf Blue or Portobello Beige – I was sent a beige one.
It might look bulky, but the HP Envy Inspire 7220e is reasonably light, weighing roughly 7kg. It features recesses on the sides, making it easy to pick up and move around.
All of the HP Envy Inspire 7220e’s discrete sections, from the scanner lid to the paper tray to the printer hood are clearly demarcated either by differently coloured plastic, or indentations that show you exactly where to grasp and pull things. It is quite literally easy to get to grips with.
While you can control the printer remotely with the HP Smart mobile and desktop apps, there’s also a built-in 2.7in adjustable touchscreen control panel. The touchscreen itself is pretty responsive, and the Android-style user interface is easy to navigate.
The scanner bed is lightweight and opens easily, but there’s no slow-close mechanism, so you need to push it all the way back. The main hood, however, features a slow-close, making setting up and changing ink cartridges no problem.
The paper in-tray features two tiers, with the top section reserved for glossy photo paper, and the bottom section for plain. It can hold up to 15 sheets of photo paper (max size 13 x 18 cm) and up to 125 sheets of regular paper (max size: A4).
While the HP Envy Inspire 7220e can function as a photocopier, there’s no ADF (automatic document feeder) here, so you’ll have to scan and print anything you want multiple copies of manually. This is common for affordable printers.
Set-up, Apps & Wireless Printing
- Wide OS support
- HP Smart apps
- Wi-Fi and USB
You can set up the HP Envy Inspire 7220e either from a Windows, Mac OS, or Chrome OS device, or an iOS or Android mobile device via the HP Smart apps – whichever way you do it, it’s simplicity itself. The only thing you’ll need to have to hand is your home network’s Wi-Fi password.
As the HP Envy Inspire 7220e is Apple AirPrint compatible, there’s no need for any drivers to be installed – Windows users may have to download and install these from HP’s site , and Chromebook owners may need to install this extension .
The HP Smart apps are good at guiding you through the set-up process and make things easy for anyone who hasn’t set up a printer before. The cartridges slot into the cradle easily, and the printer arm feels reassuringly robust.
Of the two, the mobile HP Smart apps are more convenient, and probably what you’ll be using most of the time. You can print from Google Drive, Google Photos, Dropbox and Facebook via both apps, but the iOS version adds Box, Evernote, and, naturally, Apple iCloud support as well.
Finally, the Mopira app for Android devices is also supported, which allows for quick printing of files and photos stored on your phone’s gallery. Handy, if you don’t want to have to use the HP Smart app.
If you want to run any maintenance cycles, you’ll need to use the desktop apps, or better still, just use the HP Envy Inspire 7220e’s control panel.
The HP Envy Inspire 7220e features HP’s ‘self-healing’ Wi-Fi technology, which helps to establish the best Wi-Fi connections, and automatically reconnect if there are any interruptions. It has a dual-band Wi-Fi antenna, and via the HP Smart mobile app, you can set it to make use of the less-congested 5GHz band.
If you’re setting the printer up in the same room as a router or access point, it’s a good idea to do this. If you can’t get on the 5GHz band, or you’re still having connection issues, consider investing in a mesh Wi-Fi networking solution.
Alternatively, you can connect directly to the HP Envy Inspire 7220e from a desktop or laptop if you have a Type-B USB cable, and send print jobs the old fashioned way.
Performance
- Up to 14.63ppm
- 300dpi scanning
- Glossy doesn’t support A4
The HP Envy Inspire 7220e prints pages of black text quickly, and pages with text and colour graphics are produced pretty quickly as well.
Printing a 20-page test document took 1 minute and 22 seconds, giving me a pages-per-minute score of 14.63ppm. As expected, printing a test document with a mixture of text and colour pie charts and bar graphs took a bit longer – 2 minutes and 4 seconds, which works out at 9.6ppm.
That’s lower than the 15ppm and 10ppm speeds HP claims that the Envy Inspire 7220e is capable of, but only slightly, and these are good speeds for a home office inkjet in this price range.
That’s faster than last year’s Canon Pixma TS7450 , and HP’s own Envy Pro 6420 . It’s not as fast as a laserjet, like the Brother DCP-L3510cdw , but then again, you shouldn’t expect it to be. If you need to print off lots of reports, letters, or essays in a hurry, then the Envy Inspire 7220e might be the printer you’re looking for.
Print quality on the Normal setting is also very high, with text looking rich and well-defined, and blocks of colour looking solid. Grain is only really noticeable if you peer at pie charts, and so you’ll only really need to kick things up to Best quality for important documents.
The only snag I ran into is that black ink needs a few seconds to dry, if you grab sheets the moment they’re ejected from the HP Envy Inspire 7220e, you’ll end up with very inky fingers.
Photos printed on plain A4 took on average 31 seconds, while photos printed on 10 x 15 cm glossy paper took only slightly longer, 34 seconds on average.
Print quality, especially on glossy paper, is good, with skin tones looking natural, and artificial colours looking rich. Blues perhaps look a little too rich, but not in a way that’ll make your holiday snaps look unnatural. Thanks to the guides in the paper tray snapping everything into place, alignment issues were few and far between in testing – I only had to reprint photos a couple of times end even then, they weren’t horribly misaligned, just not quite dead on.
It’s, therefore, a shame that the HP Envy Inspire 7220e can’t print on A4 photo paper as well, as I expect that the results would be just as good.
While there’s no automatic document feeder, it doesn’t take long to scan, with both plain text documents and colour photos taking roughly 12-15 seconds to scan at 300dpi.
Running Costs
- As cheap as 5p per page
- Choice of cartridges
- Optional HP Instant Ink
Like many HP colour inkjets, the Envy Inspire 7220e uses a two cartridge system, one black ink cartridge, and one tri-colour (cyan, magenta, yellow). It takes the regular-sized HP 303’s and the larger HP 303XL’s.
The standard RRP for the HP 303 black and HP 303 tri-colour cartridges is £16.99 and £20.99 each, and these give you around 200 and 165 pages’ worth of ink. That’s a respective cost-per-page of 8p and 12p.
The larger HP 303XLs are better value for money; a HP 303XL black costs £35.99, and promises 600 pages’ worth of ink – or 5p per page – while a HP 303XL colour cartridge costs £40.99, and gives you 415 pages’ worth – or 9p per page.
These prices are about par for the course for inkjet printers in this price range. The bigger cartridges are worth picking up, especially if you’re able to find them as part of a bundle deal somewhere.
If you print documents infrequently, then replacing cartridges when you need them is probably the best option. Busier households have the option of getting one of HP’s Instant Ink subscriptions , which automatically send out new cartridges to you in the post, whenever the printer detects that you’re getting low on ink. Price plans are worked out based on how many sheets you get through in a month, and are currently priced as follows:
15 pages: 99p/month 50 pages: £2.99/month 100 pages: £4.49/month 300 pages: £9.99/month 700 pages: £22.49/month
The middle option and the 300-page option compare well with the HP 303 prices, and you can see already why if you are printing hundreds of pages a month, a subscription might be a good shout.
Price & Availability
The Envy Inspire 7220e was not available from the HP Store in the United States at the time of writing, but a similar model, the HP Envy Inspire 7255e, is available now, for $219.99 .
You can also get the the 7220e from HP in Australia, where it’s priced at $AU149 .
Check out our chart of the best printers to see what other options you have.
Verdict
The HP Envy Inspire 7220e is a great value versatile home office all-in-one that’s got a couple of missing features, notably ADF and the ability to print on A4-sized glossy paper.
But if you can live with this, and primarily want something to print documents on, then the low RRP, high speeds, and high quality results make the HP Envy Inspire 7220e a good choice.
Specs
HP Envy Inspire 7220e: Specs
- Colour inkjet all-in-one printer, copier, scanner
- Ink type: Cartridges
- Print resolution: 4800 x 1200 dpi (colour), 1200 x 1200 dpi (black)
- Scan resolution: 1200 x 1200 dpi
- Maximum paper size: A4 (plain), 13 x 18 cm (glossy)
- Dimensions: 191 x 460 x 383 mm (H x W x D)
- Weight: 6.91kg
Best Prices Today: HP Envy Inspire 7220e
Printers might not be as exciting as a new smartphone but it’s likely we all need one at some point in our lives, even if it’s just occasionally. Whether you’re working from home or need an office printer for many people to use, we have reviewed and ranked ten of the best you can buy from tank system inkjets to large laser printers.
You might want to print a calendar, gig tickets, a boarding pass or some photos you’ve taken on your phone. Many printers are multi-function and therefore also handy for scanning and copying, too.
Whatever your needs, buying a new printer can be a confusing process. Not only do you have to worry about the upfront cost and whether it can print a good photo, but you’ve also got to consider print speeds, ongoing costs and a host of potential features.
It’s worth bearing in mind that the printer market moves slowly, and the latest printers aren’t always the best. Printer tech moves slowly so reviews might not be from this year or even the year before that but they stay on sale for a long time unlike phones or laptops .
Read on below our chart for more in-depth printer buying advice on things like whether to choose inkjet or laser.
Best printers 2023
1. Canon Pixma TS7450/1 – Best Overall
Pros
- Prints quickly
- Excellent quality
- Inexpensive to buy and run
Cons
- Mobile apps aren’t always intuitive
- Bulky design
- Photos need glossy paper
Printers are hard to even find in stock right now so a great value all-rounder from Canon at under £100 is worth snapping up, even though it is quite heavy.
This is a great value all-in-one printer that’s easy to set up and use. It’s also no slough with lots of features and versatile printing including documents and photos. Cheaper printers can be expensive to run but the TS7450 doesn’t even fall into this category.
The mobile apps are a little frustrating at times but print quality is good, although you’ll want to stick to proper glossy paper for photos. Note that the TS7451 is the same printer, only in white.
Read our full Canon Pixma TS7450 review
2. HP Envy Inspire 7220e – Best Compact Family Printer
Pros
- Attractive price
- Fast printing speeds
- 2-sided printing
- Good text and photo quality
Cons
- No ADF
- Can’t print on A4 glossy paper
Those looking for a compact and easy-to-use printer for the whole family might have just found it.
The Envy Inspire 7220e is an excellent all-rounder for those needing to regularly print text and photos at good speeds and affordable costs. The printer looks nice, has wide support for different wireless printing services and offers high-quality results.
It doesn’t have an automatic document feeder but that’s normal, so as long as you don’t need to print on A4 glossy paper, it’s a bit of a steal.
Read our full HP Envy Inspire 7220e review
3. Canon Pixma TS3350 MkII – Best Budget Printer
Pros
- Cheap
- High quality printing
- Connectivity
Cons
- Slow printing
- Expensive ink
If you’re looking for a cheap printer to handle day-to-day tasks then the TS3350 MkII (or TS3320 in the US) is an excellent choice.
This is not only affordable but offers great quality printing for a range of jobs, including colour images. This is even a copier and scanner too so you’re getting a lot for your money.
It’s quite slow so isn’t a workhorse and you’ll want to get XL cartridges to keep running costs down. For printing the occasional letter, boarding pass or family photo without breaking the bank it’s perfect.
Read our full Canon Pixma TS3350 MkII review
4. HP DeskJet Plus 4120 – Excellent Value Inkjet
Pros
- Very cheap
- Easy to use
- Good photo & graphics quality
Cons
- Average text quality
- Needs Instant Ink to keep running costs down
Those on a budget needing a printer for a mix of different tasks should consider the DeskJet Plus 4120 – known as the 4155 in the US.
It’s basic in style and design with things like a simple LCD display but keeps costs down, especially if you use HP’s Instant Ink subscription service.
Read our full HP DeskJet Plus 4120 review
5. Epson EcoTank ET-3850 – Best Ink Tank Printer
Pros
- Cost per page is very low
- Good print speed
- Excellent print quality
Cons
- Pigment black isn’t ideal for photos
- Lack duplex copying
- One year warranty
Anyone against traditional cartridges should consider this EcoTank model from Epson. The ET-3850 offers high-quality printing at decent speeds while keeping the cost down, even if you’re printing A4 colour pages on a regular basis.
It’s more expensive to buy the device itself than cartridge rivals but may well work out better value in the long run. And it has virtually the same specs as higher-end EcoTank models, including the PrecisionCore print head.
One of the main practical downsides is that it doesn’t offer duplex printing and Epson only offers a one year warranty or 50,000 pages – whichever comes first.
Read our full Epson EcoTank ET-3850 review
6. HP Smart Tank 7605 – Best Small Office Printer
Pros
- Fax function
- Dual-band WLAN
- Touch display
- Additional XL-BK ink bottle
Cons
- Limited USB host functions
- No real off switch
If you’re looking for a great all-rounder then the Smart Tank 7605 is a hot contender with its wide range of functions and large amount of ink included in the box – enough for up to 12,000 pages.
It’s highly suitable for home or small office use, even if there’s a slight overreliance on the HP Smart app. Still, it can wirelessly print, copy, scan and fax, plus has an automatic document feeder.
The compact printer looks stylish and has a 3in touchscreen, the tank system keeps costs low and print quality is good. There’s little more we could ask for at this price.
Read our full HP Smart Tank 7605 review
7. Epson EcoTank ET-18100 – Best Photo Printer
Pros
- Inexpensive photo prints
- Great print quality
- Mess-free ink refills
Cons
- No display
- No scanner / copier
- Expensive to buy
The ET-18100 has niche appeal because it’s been designed with a particular user in mind.
If you want to print a lot of photos at up to A3 sizes without breaking the bank, then you’re the target market. The printer itself is costly, but the ink tank design keeps running costs down.
The mess-free design is great and refill bottles are better for the environment, too. Print quality is excellent but as mentioned, you will need to print a lot of photos to justify this model.
With no display or copier/scanner functions, this isn’t an all-rounder.
Read our full Epson EcoTank ET-18100 review
8. HP Smart Tank 5105 – Best Value Ink Tank Printer
Pros
- Cheap running costs
- Borderless on A4, A5
- Ink tank sensors
- Affordable printer
Cons
- Flimsy
- Awkward paper path
- Only 50ml coloured inks included
- No display
It’s great to see HP taking on Epson at ink tank printers and the 5105 is a practical solution for any home or small office customer that would like to worry less about the cost of printing.
Normally there’s a high initial price for the printer with an ink tank model but HP offers good value here, even if the supplied colour bottles are only 50ml and the build quality is on the flimsy end of the scale.
There’s also no display and this isn’t the fastest printer around either, but the quality is good for a range of tasks including surprisingly vibrant photos, and you can print borderless on A4 and A5 sheets.
It’s not all singing, all dancing but if a value for money ink tank printer is what you need then the 5105 is worth a look.
Read our full HP Smart Tank 5105 review
9. Epson Ecotank ET-8500 – Best Value Photo Printer
Pros
- Very high print quality
- Top for greyscale photos
- Processes many types of material
- Very low cost per page despite 6 colours
Cons
- No real off switch
- High purchase price
If printing photos is your thing, then the EcoTank 8500 is an excellent choice as this printer is designed for the task, although it can do regular printing and scanning as well.
It’s a fairly expensive printer at first but if you’re planning to print a lot of images then it should work out as a good investment in the long term with reliability and print costs.
Importantly, print quality is excellent and you can print on a variety of materials including fine art paper. It’s also got a large 10cm screen and no less than three different paper feeds.
Read our full Epson Ecotank ET-8500 review
10. Brother DCP-L3510cdw – Best Laser Printer
Pros
- 2-sided printing
- Decent performance
Cons
- Single-sheet scanning
- No colour screen
- Running costs
If you don’t need to print photos on photo paper but instead need a printer primarily for documents then a laser is a great choice.
The Brother DCP-L3510cdw uses LEDs instead of a laser, but it’s very similar and can reliably handle lots of printing with crisp quality at a decent speed.
You’ll need more room for it than a typical inkjet printer but running costs over the long term are more affordable and with Brother’s EcoPro subscription you get the printer for just £1.20!
This model has a basic LCD screen but still has useful features including 2-sided printing, a single-sheet scanner and Wi-Fi, complete with AirPrint support.
Read our full Brother DCP-L3510cdw review
How to choose a printer
There’s no single printer that will suit everyone, so while the list below is ordered it’s best not to worry too much about the number beside it. We’ve mixed together home and business printers, multifunction, colour and mono.
Inkjet vs laser
Printers come in two main forms: inkjet or laser, with colour and mono flavours of each. Lasers tend to be more expensive to buy, but provide better quality output, particularly where lots of text is involved. And they can be faster. Notice we said ‘tend’ – lasers aren’t always best.
As a basic rule, if you need to print only text, and a lot of it, a mono laser printer will offer the crispest text output and the best combination of fast page-per-minute output and low ink costs. If you need to print photos, choose an inkjet printer. A dedicated photo printer with individual cartridges for each colour will suit those who print only photos.
If you’re working from home and need to print a lot, a laser printer is likely going to be a better option.
You can also read our more in-depth comparison of the pros and cons of each type of printer .
What are printer running costs?
When buying a printer, remember that the price you pay in the store is just the beginning. Be sure to consider the cost of replenishing toner and other consumables over the lifetime of the printer. This is particularly important if you print a lot. A set of toner cartridges can easily approach the cost of a colour laser printer.
Most manufacturers quote a ‘page yield’ estimate for their ink cartridges, which is the typical number of pages you can expect to print before the cartridge runs out of ink. You can use the page yield to calculate the average cost per page and you’d be surprised to find how much this can vary from one printer to another.
Of course, if output quality matters more to you than cost, scoot over to the other end of the cost spectrum where there are more specialised printers that use five or even six inks for printing photographs. Those additional inks can produce excellent results for your photo prints, but they add to the cost, sometimes pushing the cost for photos up to 10p or more per page.
Some brands offer a cartridge subscription service, like HP’s Instant Ink , to keep costs to a minimum.
What is a multifunction printer?
Most modern printers are multifunction ‘all-in-one’ devices that include a scanner too. This allows you to scan photos and other documents and convert them into digital files that you can store on your computer or share with friends or colleagues. You can also print copies of your scanned documents, allowing the printer to stand in for a photocopier too.
Some models even include a fax machine. If you require a scanner and a photocopier as well as a printer, you’ll save money by buying in all-in-one – but if a standalone printer suits your needs, you may be able to spend less.
What about print speed and features?
Speeds quoted by manufacturers are almost never matched by real-world performance. If you often need to print in a hurry, look for independent reviews when choosing your printer.
Other useful features to look out for include additional USB ports and memory card slots that will allow you to print photos direct from a camera.
High-capacity paper trays capable of holding hundreds of sheets of paper, or an automatic document feeder that can handle scanning and copying work while you go and do something more important, might be worth looking out for.
Double-sided printing is handy for halving your paper usage.
It’s also worth thinking about the bundled software that comes with your printer. Some printers include software that provides basic editing features, such as red-eye removal or adjusting the colour balance – some even allow you to perform simple editing tasks using controls on the printer itself.
Author: Chris Martin, Managing Editor, Tech Advisor
Tech Advisor Managing Editor Chris got his break as a reporter at infamous site The Inquirer and has been with us for more than 12 years. With a BA degree in Music Technology, audio is his specialism, but over the years he has reviewed all kinds of gadgets, from smartwatches to mesh Wi-Fi to coffee machines.
Recent stories by Chris Martin:
- Canon Pixma G4510 review
