I know that many of us get a sinking feeling when our old printer starts to wheeze and cough, and suddenly you’re the market to buy a new one. I get it, I’ve been there many times. I’ve been waiting for an affordable printer that I’ll actually be able to keep for years, and now the wait is over: The HP Smart Tank 5101 All-in-One is my new workhorse home office printer. With it you get a dependable printer with over two years of ink and a sharp print quality.
Specifications
- Ink Colors: Four (Black, Yellow, Magenta, Cyan).
- Maximum Paper Size: Standard Letter.
- Copier and Scanner: Yes.
- Paper Capacity: 100 Pages.
- Default Printing Speed: 5 pages per minute (color), 12 ppm (black ink only).
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi, HP Smart app.
- Price: $259.99.
- Ink Refills Price: $50.
HP Smart Tank 5101 All-in-One Printer
Pros
- Huge ink tank may last about two years before you need a refill.
- Simple setup, includes four bottles of ink.
- Reliable and easy to use app.
- Dependably crisp and vibrant prints.
- Compact design preserves desktop space.
- Note its ink levels at a glance.
- Relatively affordable.
- Smart AI cuts website clutter when you print a webpage.
Cons
- Designed for quality prints over the lightning-fast speed of office or enterprise printers.
- No automatic duplex printing (printing on both sides of the paper).
- You’ll never want to go back to a cartridge printer after owning one.
Setup, First Impressions, and Design
I would high-five HP’s software team if I could, because setting up the Smart Tank 5101 was a straightforward snap with the HP Smart App. Its simple step-by-step guide got my printer online in no time. (Though the guide threw me off once because it did not mention removing and discarding the neon-orange piece of plastic inside of the printer.)
My favorite part was how incredibly easy it was to load the four ink tanks. I’ll be the first to admit I was a little nervous about literally turning a bottle of ink upside-down to fill the printer, but the entire process takes about 15 seconds per bottle and it’s even cleaner than a cartridge printer.
While I was afraid it would be one of those lesser printers I would have to reconfigure every time the internet had a hiccup or I turned it off, its signature Self-healing Wi-Fi continuously kept a rock-solid connection to my home’s Wi-Fi and instantly reconnected after I unplugged the device.
The HP 5101 is relatively compact for a high-end printer, and there are two standout design elements I particularly appreciate. Getting sucker punched by “low ink” messages when I absolutely need my printer to work is the cherry on the frustration sundae, so it is nice to see clear ink reservoirs of all four colors on the front of the device so you can keep an eye on your ink levels. I also appreciate how cleanly its printer tray and paper guides fold cleanly into the core device so I could more easily tuck the 5101 away between jobs.
Pro Printing and Scanning
After testing a variety of print jobs, including printing scanned pictures, illustrations, envelopes and websites, I can safely say that this model provides a consistently crisp and vibrant print. Text is always sharp and legible at tiny sizes, and while ultra-bright tones can seem a little saturated, it’s a versatile printer that matches or exceeds what you’d get printed at your local office supply print center.
Sure enough, its onboard HP AI cuts the obnoxious clutter everyone hates when printing a webpage, such as ads, unnecessary images, and navigation bars, while organizing the information you want in a tidy manner that saves ink in the process. It is certainly more convenient that copying and pasting content into a Word document and printing from there!
Its integrated scanner and copier feature is solid and reliable as well, as it performs a pixel-perfect scan of your documents in about 60 seconds or so. The HP companion software let me save my scans as JPG, PDF, PNG, and TIFF files, and effortlessly send them to my mobile device so I can forward them to my PC or others.
Massive Ink Savings
I’ve hinted at it throughout this story, but my absolutely favorite feature of the Smart Tank 5101 its gigantic ink tank. Even if you’re not the type to print often, this high-capacity printer is worth the price of entry because it will print approximately 6,000 pages before you need to refill, should last the average user about two years before refilling its four ink tanks, and best of all, it is a surprisingly affordable over time.
Sure, you’ll need to spend about $50 to completely top off the ink when its wells get low, but replacing the low-capacity ink cartridges of cheaper printers is more expensive — even if you don’t print often. At around two or three cents per page for a colorless page, and eight or nine cents per color print, the 5101 is a top pick for anyone who hates wasting money on expensive ink.
Between its above average print quality, user-friendly software, and absolutely mammoth ink tank, the HP Smart Tank 5101 is an excellent long-term investment for the average home office, high school student planning on heading to college, and families who do their fair share of printing.
HP Smart Tank 5101 All-in-One Printer
In My Expert Opinion
The HP Smart Tank 5101 nails crisp output, painless setup, rock-solid connectivity and a scanner/copier you can trust. Its giant, easy-fill ink tanks and smart webpage clean-up keep both costs and clutter down, making it far cheaper to live with than cartridge printers. If you want a compact, long-haul home-office workhorse you won’t have to babysit, this is it.
