HP Envy Photo 7155 All in One Review

While this machine is marketed as a photo printer, as its name suggests, it is more of an all-in-one office printer. The machine has a scanning bed, fax and, yes, it also prints photos. However, it does not print photos well. To its credit, this model is easy to set-up and operate. Yet, the cost of that operation is quite high and the outcomes are poor.

Performance Comparison

Likes

The HP ENVY has decent resolution, particularly in the smaller print sizes. It accommodates a variety of photo formats such as 4' x 6", 5" x 7", maxing out in the 8" x 10" dimensions. It will also print on a variety of paper types ranging from plain printer paper to matte and glossy photo paper.

Additionally, we always like a printer that has an on-machine LCD touchscreen as it is easy to operate and confirms that the printer is communicating with the computer.

Dislikes

There's a lot to dislike about this machine. First off, it was hard to set-up despite the aid of the LCD screen. We also noticed a decrease in the quality of the prints as the print size increased. Specifically, colors were off, resolution tapered, tonal transitions became stepped.

While the upfront cost of this machine isn't outrageous, it's not what we'd call economical considering the questionable quality of the prints it rolls out. Moreover, the long-run operating costs of the machine — expressed in cost per 4" x 6" color print — are quite high at 94 cents per photo.

Value

Put simply, we did not find the HP Envy to be a very good value. Its cost to performance ratio is way out of balance. Add to this assessment the high long-term operating cost and we have little doubt that one can find a better performing machine at or below the cost of this printer.

Conclusion

By our reckoning, the HP ENVY is an office printer masquerading as a photo printer. The range of features — such as a fax and scanning bed — as well as the poor photo outcomes support this assessment. In an attempt to tackle all these applications, the photo outcomes were less than successful. Further hurting our assessment of the ENVY is its high operating cost.