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HP Envy100 e-All-in-One MFP

01.12.2010
HP's Envy100 e-All-in-One (for printing, copying, and scanning) makes being decorative a higher priority than being useful. Created with the same stylistic flair as HP's like-named laptops, such as the , the Envy100 gets green points for being free of PVC plastic and for having ink cartridges made with recycled materials. Unfortunately, the $250 price (as of November 30, 2010) does not buy you decent speed or cheap inks. Aesthetically pleasing rivals include the and the .

Predominantly shiny black with silvery accents, and low-slung (just 4 inches high), the Envy100 e-All-in-One will blend easily into any modern décor. Turn it on, and you'll see its 3.45-inch color touchscreen LCD and touch-sensitive controls gleaming at you from the front panel. The panel is supposed to tilt up and down automatically during operation, but on our unit, this feature sometimes stalled. HP is working on a firmware fix for the inconsistency.

Looks aside, the Envy100 is suitable for light use. An 80-sheet, letter/A4-size input drawer pulls out from the front. A narrow plastic output arm swings out to catch printed pages (up to 25 sheets) and retracts after you remove them. Automatic duplexing (printing on both sides of the page) is standard for both the PC and Mac. The letter/A4-size flatbed scanner has a glass cover with an eye-catching finish that graduates from pure black to mirror. A discreet door covers a USB/PictBridge port and a media-card slot that takes MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, and SD Card media. HP's numerous Web apps are available through this machine, if you give it access to the Internet.

The Envy100's minimalist approach went a bit too far with the documentation: The lack of printed setup help invites confusion, though detailed instructions are available from HP's Website. The HTML-based user guide leans heavily on animated how-to's, which might explain why the written instructions can be vague.

No one is likely to buy the Envy100 for its speed. Plain-text pages plodded out at rates of about 4.8 pages per minute on the PC and 4.6 ppm on the Mac. Photos struggled, too: snapshot-size images appeared at a rate of 1.6 ppm on the PC, and our 22MB professional photo took just over 3 minutes to print on the Mac. Normal scans and copies posted middling times.

Print quality is generally good. Text on plain paper looked crisp, though dark gray rather than black. Photos printed on plain paper looked a little faded and grainy; HP's own glossy stock smoothed out most of the problems. Our full-color copy test on plain paper yielded a fairly accurate, albeit grainy, reproduction. Color scans looked somewhat yellowish and hazy.