HP Officejet 6600 e-All-in-One Printer: No Duplexing, No Dice

12.06.2012
The HP Officejet 6600 e-All-in-One Printer (copy/scan/print/fax) is a puzzler, and a huge disappointment. Priced at $150 (as of June 11, 2012), it's handsome, it has an easy-to-use LCD control panel, and it offers excellent performance as well as decent output. However, for some bizarre reason HP has removed manual duplexing support--a simple software feature that allows relatively easy two-sided printing on printers that lack an automatic duplexer--from the printer driver.

HP has also removed multi-up (thumbnail pages) and every other kind of layout from the print driver. Such features are so commonplace that many consumers just assume that they are available. Put simply: $150 for a multifunction that won't help you ? I think not. For the same amount, you can buy a unit with automatic duplexing.

Still reading? The Officejet 6600 would be a nice midvolume office unit if not for the stunted driver. It has a 250-sheet input tray, a 75-sheet output tray, and a 35-sheet automatic document feeder for the A4/letter-size scanner. Despite the ADF, though, I found no option in the control panel to scan or copy in duplex.

The Officejet 6600's LCD is an odd duck, but ultimately it is satisfying. It's not a touchscreen, but a press-screen (resistive): You must depress the covering lightly, as you would with a membrane keyboard, to register selections. Once you get used to it, the tactile feedback is pleasing.

Other than the hobbled driver, the HP-provided software is quite good. It supports push-scanning (scanning from the control panel to a PC), as well as printing across the Internet via the company's ePrint service.

In our tests, text output from the Officejet 6600 was very nice--black and sharp. Photos printed to plain paper had a washed-out appearance. Glossy-paper photos exhibited a high level of contrast, which applied a slightly unrealistic cast to human faces; however, at least for nonhuman subjects, the high contrast evoked a sense of impact.