Friday, September 11, 2009

HP Officejet Wireless Printer


Here's something we almost never, ever get to say in printer reviews: The USB cable you'll need is in the box. Here's something ironic: After the first half hour or so, you won't need it.
That's because the HP Officejet 6000 Wireless, as its name implies, supports 802.11b/g Wi-Fi as well as USB 2.0 and Ethernet connectivity -- if your home office or small office has a wireless network and router , you use the cable only temporarily during initial setup. It would be nice if a cable came with the plain Officejet 6000 base model of the inkjet printer, which uses USB and Ethernet only, but of course one doesn't.
The 6000 Wireless also differs from its sibling by including an automatic duplexer that pulls pages back and forth, pausing between sides to let the ink dry, for double-sided output. It naturally slows printing -- our 10-page Microsoft Word document took 1 minute and 11 seconds in normal mode on 10 sheets versus 3 minutes and 34 seconds on five sheets -- but works perfectly as a paper-saving convenience.
If you don't need wireless and duplex printing, the Officejet 6000 costs $90, compared to $120 for the deluxe model tested here. If you're reading this during August 2009, you can trim those prices to $70 and $100, respectively, thanks to an instant rebate in the small and medium business area of HP's Web site.
Perhaps best of all is the HP's low cost per page: Like its multifunction Officejet 6500 Wireless cousin reviewed here in April, the 6000 Wireless takes the company's 920XL black, magenta, cyan, and yellow ink cartridges, priced at $32 for the black (rated for approximately 1,200 pages) and $15 apiece for the color trio (rated for approximately 700).
Once you use up the smaller starter cartridges in the box and start buying and using 920XLs, you'll be paying about 2.67 cents per black-and-white and 9.1 cents per color page -- the former's not bad even by laser printer standards, while the latter is a measurable saving over most desktop color lasers' 12- to 15-cent color pages. It's enough to let you spring for the print-quality boost of coated inkjet stock instead of plain paper and still come out ahead.

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