Mark looks at the affordable end of HP's OfficeJet spectrum
I've covered a number of multi-function printers recently that defied my expectations, but the HP OfficeJet 3830 turns out to be a more traditional device.
It's a typical personal printer/scanner/copier/fax, and at just a little over £50 it's within most budgets.
Along with that low cost, on the plus side of the equation I'd also note that this isn't a huge desk-space-sucking box. It measures just 450 x 364 x 224.4mm, and even with its output tray extended, this isn't an awkward peripheral to place.
Print quality is also respectable, delivering 1200dpi mono output and 2800 x 1200dpi colour, using HP's latest thermal inkjet technology.
HP quotes 8.5 ppm black and 6ppm colour, though that assumes 5% limited coverage. With a duty cycle of 1,000 pages a month, the OfficeJet 3830 isn't meant to print large volumes, and in that respect the print speed probably isn't critical.
What makes me think that this design is more focused on the home user, and not offices, is that HP gave it a borderless printing capability and a wide range of media types that even includes iron-on transfers.
There isn't a wired networking option, but the wireless one does both direct and access point connected printing, and it's also Apple Airprint compliant. And by definition, once connected to the internet, you can cloud print from tablets and phones.
Within the limited budget, HP also allowed a tiny 5.5cm touch display for selecting copying and other functions, like scanning to an inserted USB key.
That’s a fine collection of features, and it mostly works as advertised, but in saying that you also need to accept some limitations of this design. One of these is having only a single paper source, and it takes just 60 pages of paper and 20 sheets of card. But that's oversized for the output capacity of just 20 sheets, before they start falling on the floor.
The only duplex option is of the manual variety, though the scanner does have a 35-page sheet feeder fortunately.
But the bit that usually makes me foam at the mouth is that HP put all the coloured ink in a single tri-colour cartridge, which leads inevitably to ditching expensive ink unnecessarily.
However, this printer is one of the new designs from HP that users can use with their HP Instant Ink. This is a system where you pay a monthly fee, from £1.99, and your printer orders replacement carts when it needs them over the internet. That's an important option, because a standard black cart is £12, and a colour is £14, and the XL versions are both £23 from HP or in a dual pack for roughly £40.
The high-yield versions are only rated to 480 and 330 pages respectively, so on a per page basis it's about 4p a page for mono and 6p a page for colour. Using HP Instant Ink, those running costs can be reduced by up to 70%, depending how heavily you use the printer.
That option makes the HP OfficeJet 3830 more affordable to run than it otherwise would be, and it's worth considering for those who regularly print. Mark Pickavance
A cheap multi-function printer now with HP Instant Ink.