HP DeskJet 2855e Wireless All-in-One Printer

My previous printer just died after 7 years. I was looking for a cheap printer because I don’t really print much and didn’t want to spend too much. Despite some of the negative reviews I took a shot with this one.
I spent about 40m setting this thing up. I’ve set up quite a few printers in my life, for me, friends and family and this has been the most tedious and time consuming one. All the setup has to be done from the HP app. The app failed multiple times while setting up. I had to restart every time. After finally getting it connected to my network, it printed a test page and all the letters were doubled. I had to do a print head alignment, which you sort of have to dig around in the app to find. Then it had to do an update so that took a while. I swear I almost packaged this thing back up to return, but just practiced a bit of patience.
After all of that, I was able to get some quality pages to print.
It’s a bit slower then my past more expensive printers and it is a little loud but I won’t be using it too much for that to bother me.
The saying stays true, you get what you pay for. It is a budget printer after all and it gets the job done. I see some reviews where others seem to get this thing setup in a few minutes. I guess it’s a hit or miss with the one you get.
If you print once in a while then I think the price is fair, just be prepared incase you get one that doesn’t want to play nice during setup.

TLDR: good printer, works with eero wifi mesh system, set up in less than 10 minutes – great step-by-step instructions via HP Smart app. If you need a basic printer for occasional printing that’s super easy to setup, get this.

I initially bought the Canon Pixma MG3620. Downloaded their app to get things setup and what a nightmare. I have an eero wifi and the PIXMA printer would not show up on initial scan. I would select scan again after clicking a series of buttons on the printers and then it would popup only to show my wireless network listed 4 times with me being left to determine which one I connected to. I assumed it didn’t matter but it did given after selecting 1 and inputting the password, it wouldn’t connect. I would click the series of buttons on the printer again to begin the process again only to have all the wifi networks show up (mine + other networks it found) but in a totally different order. This meant I couldn’t even weed out each of my 4 networks to find which one was right. Also, the one time I did manage to get it to connect, I had to set my eero wifi in legacy mode for it to connect. As soon as I removed it from legacy mode, the printer began failing again only for me to begin attempting to get it connected again. I looked on many forums but eventually couldn’t find a solution as many other people had issues as well.

Why do I mention the printer above? Because I then bought THIS hp printer and simply downloaded the app, plugged in the printer, turned it on, and followed the step-by-step instructions (with animations) and it immediately found my network and connected. No duplicate entries, no hassle, it just worked. I was printing within minutes. I then tested printing on my mac, my downstairs PC, and my phone with AirPrint and it all just worked. I spent almost 2 hours on the canon printer troubleshooting and it was just a huge headache. As for print quality between the two, I couldn’t tell you, but if you just need a basic occasional printer, you can’t beat this for the price and simplicity. Hope this helps.

It does the job fine, but locks you in to use HP ink subscription. Now you have to pay to print additional pages ON YOUR OWN PRINTER. No, seriously, their cheapest tier is 10 pages for $1.89/mo. Everything is a subscription now, what a time to be alive.
It’s constantly connected to the internet and phoning back to HP. If you take it offline – it won’t work.
If you cancel Instant ink subscription – the cartridges are locked and wouldn’t work.
If you try to use 3rd-party cartridges – they won’t work.
If you think you’ll be able to bypass the restrictions – they’ve got hardware-level DRM protections on this thing, and I haven’t found any alternative firmwares.
People on the internet suggesting buying this thing, taking the free ink offer, and after that cartridge has run out – throwing this printer in the garbage and buying a new one, it turns out to be cheaper this way.
It also has zero resell value since anyone can buy a new one for rock-bottom price, so you’ll have no choice but to throw it out.
Seriously, don’t get fooled by the low price of this thing, it’s total garbage and almost instant e-waste, since it’s basically unusable without their ink subscription or their overpriced “original cartridges”. The fact that HP even uses sustainability in their marketing is egregious and hypocritical af, borderline dystopian even.
Never buy HP products, they aren’t worth it even when they’re dirt cheap.

It’s a great little printer and I love the option for automatic ink delivery. Set up was trickier than the 4 steps. I had to pair with Bluetooth to my phone before my pc would recognize it. After that it was easy to get it to print from all my devices.