The business has moved part of this concept to its entry-level machines and produced the Envy 4500, still geared towards mobile devices and leisure printing, but at a substantially lower price.
HP Envy 4500 — Layout and Features
It does this with a comparable, two-cartridge print engine, with black and tri-color cartridges. This makes the machine easier to maintain, but can lead to ink wastage, if you print a great deal of one color.
HP Envy 4500
The 1,200ppi flatbed scanner doesn’t have Automatic Document Feed (ADF), which you would not expect on this type of machine, but the lid is substantial and avoids the fingerprint-hungry, high-gloss end of earlier versions.
The control panel, on a steeply raked facia in the front, has a 50mm LCD screen set into it. This is not as restricting as it may seem. Even though you can not see thumbnails of photos, the printer doesn’t have any card or USB slots, so there is very little call for any.
Front panel folds down and becomes both feed and output, with a swing-out and fold-up support in the front edge of the tray — a very similar concept to Canon’s FastFront. Here, however, the tray pulls out for easier paper loading.
Hinging up the top scanner segment gives great access to the twin cartridges, which slide forward in their holder and are held in place by 2 flip-over levers.
In the back is one USB socket, but the majority of people will connect via wireless, as this provides access to Wireless Direct print from mobile devices, such as both Android and iOS through AirPrint. You could even download HP’s Printable pages, most of which are coloring and join-the-dots-style amusements for you or your children.
He printer functions fine, but I sure went through a workout to get it attached to my Wi-Fi. Be aware that I am a former computer coach and I certainly can read and follow instructions. What I eventually discovered, after so much frustration, is that HP Driver has made the installation procedure to make you register for the instantaneous ink. I went through the installation about 10 times and every time I tried to diminish the instantaneous ink, my home Wi-Fi has been disconnected. I don’t print much, so I finally signed up to the 1-15 pages per month, which was liberated. Once I place my credit card information in, I got a message they were sending me new cartridges in about ten days. I didn’t want new cartridges that immediately, so I named the instantaneous ink amount and the rep said that I wouldn’t have to pay for the cartridges. He said they had to find the brand new cartridges to me so that they could detect if my printer was low on ink. So, there must be some digital device in the new cartridges. If they had made this more clear on the site, I’d have signed up . I am still a bit skeptical about getting free ink for life in case you simply publish 1-15 pages per month. I will return and edit that if a”but” come up.