HP Envy 6055e Review

The excellent photo printing quality is what sets apart the HP Envy 6055e from the rest of the lower-cost printers in our lineup. All things considered, the 6055e is not a bad choice for those looking for a very compact, low initial cost, high-quality photo printer. If you don't mind the HP ink plans, or print photos very rarely (but when you do you want those photos to be great), the 6055e is a good option.

Performance Comparison

Text Quality

The HP Envy 6055e did pretty well for its price point here. The text quality was generally decent, with some apparent faintness for lighter shades in the grayscale. Otherwise, the resolution was quite clear, and the characters were legible. The performance of the 6055e is nothing stellar, but is better than you'd expect from a small, inexpensive machine.

Operating Cost

This is the biggest detractor of the 6055e. Its price per monochrome ream is about $49.98, and color reams will cost about $62.48. That's about $25 for every 200 photos that you print. Compared to the best home printers in our lineup, that's very high upkeep costs. The 6055e's edge is that it has a low initial purchase price; however, it becomes more expensive the longer you own and use it.

Ease of Use

The 6055e started strong in our testing but had some interface issues that led to a reduced score. Setup is super straightforward. During WiFi setup, we hit a snag when we clicked the "Finish Setup" button in the app. The printer kept appearing to finish but then reverted to the "Finish Setup" screen repeatedly. Eventually, it connected, but it took the longest out of all the HP models we tested.

Once connected, the rest of the setup was very easy, and their website was simple and intuitive. The 6055e does not have a display screen that hinders the navigability of its settings. Instead, the printer communicates what's happening via sounds that it plays for different functions. Otherwise, a couple of lights indicate activity and change hue depending on what's happening. The light and sound indicators that the 6055e uses are a little confusing, but the lack of screen and buttons may appeal to those looking for a more streamlined, sleek, low-profile printer.

Graphics/Photos

The 6055e performs surprisingly well for its low initial purchase price. It does a great job with the textural display. The various aspects of the different images, despite the subject, all have visibly different appearances. Business graphics have vibrant colors and sharp text, which is impressive because even more expensive printers in our lineup struggle with presenting business graphics well. The overall resolution of the images is sharp, and the color display is awesome. The entire range of color in the image shows up in print, even subtle colors. However, there is some striping and color banding in the black parts of images and inconsistency with color quality across multiple print jobs, which docked the 6055e's score slightly. We were impressed with what this little printer was able to do in this metric, and if it weren't for its high ink costs, this printer would've scored well against the rest of the lineup.

Printing Speed

The 6055e had a strong performance here and would've scored better, but it had some unusually slow speeds when printing mixed text and photo documents. During our 9-page mixed text and color image document test, the 6055e struggled. It would stop and start abruptly repeatedly, eventually finishing the job after about 3 minutes and 15 seconds. Otherwise, the rest of the tests went well enough, and it was able to pump out 10-page duplex documents in about 1 minute and 22 seconds and simplex documents in about 2 minutes–not great, but not bad either relative to the rest of our lineup.

Should You Buy the HP Envy 6055e?

The 6055e has a low upfront cost, which will attract buyers whose priority is budget. However, its value-over-time is quite low due to its high operating costs — the longer you own the 6055e, the more expensive it becomes. Although this compact, low-cost printer can produce high-quality photos, its high operating costs make it a poor option for anyone who needs to print frequently.

What Other Printers Should You Consider?