HP Photosmart With Wireless (B110)

The new HP range puts the accent on printing internet content without the need for your computer. This multifunction has its own e-mail address and prints whatever document you like sent from any connected device. What's more, a series of applications allow you to print colourings, calendars, music scores, games and so on in the same way as connected printers.

Compared to higher end models, this B110 has:
- a smaller, non-touch screen, but with touch sensitive keys either side;
- a the lack of connected functionality on offer. Here you just get a taste that can't be developed, while more expensive models allow you to choose the features to present or not.

Hardware

This all-in-one Wi-Fi, prints, scans and copies. Following the example of the Photosmart Wireless it has touch sensitive controls and four separated cartridges. Its 6.1 cm screen is piloted with two left and right arrows. If you're going to do touch though, why not a capacitive screen? It's small and navigation, especially when using the keyboard, isn't always the easiest.


You pilot the screen with the help of left and right arrows

No double-sided either on this printer, which is deplorable as this is a very useful and practical feature for anyone looking to optimise paper consumption.

Windows 7, Vista and Mac OS are all supported. For Linux, you'll need to go to the HP Open Source site site and download HPLIP.

Speeds

In standard mode, HP says that you get 9 and 8 pages per minute for black & white and colour respectively. With our test document, we scored it at even better: 12 ppm colour and 15 ppm black & white.


Remember, max speeds are only indicative. They correspond to the maximum speed of the printer motor, what you get when you print just a tiny "o" in draft mode.

Quality

Better for photos than office documents, quality is good. You can see the drops a bit in the test graph. Characters are a little blurred but remain visible. The text in the yellow box runs a bit, more than on the old model (B109).


Photo quality is good however, better than on the old model. The colours are more accurate, the contrast and sharpness better, giving nice results.

Scanner and copier

There were however a few surprises with the scanner. While HP has a track record of modifying the colours, too much for our taste, and putting too much accent on the edges of objects, highlighting them, here the colours on the images and scanned colour patterns were accurate and not too sharp. What's more, the scanner works fast: 6 seconds for preview, 12 seconds for a 10 x 15 cm photo scan at 300 ppp.

Copy mode benefits from this rapidity. A black & white copy only takes 9 seconds! Colour copies are twice as long to print: 22 seconds for our test document. No miracles however: combining a scanner that's better than average with a printer, which, however, strongly disappointed us produces pages of acceptable, but not remarkable quality...

Energy consumption and noise

This printer consumes 3 watts on standby, 13 watts when printing. Standby energy consumption (over 1 W) is a bit disappointing, although identical to the previous model. As standby is without any doubt, the most common mode for any printer, standby mode consumption is particularly important.

In terms of noise levels, it does better than the HP Photosmart Wireless (B109a) rising only to 43.5 dB (against 53 dB).

Cost per page

Strangely HP printers are now delivered with "Setup" cartridges, which are supposed to be indispensable for automatic calibration of the printer when you first use it. We asked HP how special cartridges can contribute to such an operation - we haven't received any response as yet. The only certainty, and a frankly disturbing one, is that the "Setup" cartridges don't last as long as the standard and XL ones. We don't like this at all! By how much? Again, our question remains - for now - unanswered.

Once these cartridges are empty, you have to replace them with new 364 cartridges. Either with the standards, more expensive per page, or the XLs, with which cost per page is lower than average.

ISO text lifespan with standard cartridges

Cartridge	Price	ISO lifespan	Cost per page
364 (black)	£5.99	250	2.4 pence
364 (cyan)	£5.79	300	1.9 pence
364 (magenta)	£5.70	300	1.9 pence
364 (yellow)	£5.65	300	1.9 pence

With the standard cartridges, cost per page is around 8.1 pence. The XL cartridges allow you to reduce this:

ISO text lifespan with XL cartridges

Cartridge	Price	ISO lifespan	Cost per page
364 XL (black)	£12.49	800	1.6 pence
364 XL (cyan)	£10.89	750	1.5 pence
364 XL (magenta)	£10.29	750	1.4 pence
364 XL (yellow)	£10.29	750	1.4 pence

Cost per page with XL cartridges: 5.8 pence.