HP Officejet Pro 8500

Full Review

Inkjets aren't known for their low running costs, but the HP Officejet Pro 8500's highest-capacity cartridges are bursting with ink. In fact, it destroys every other inkjet we've seen on running costs. And with black cartridges capable of turning out as many as 2,200 pages, it's on a par with lasers as well.

Inkjets always struggle to beat laser printers on speed and text quality, but the HP Officejet Pro 8500 fares better than most. At its fastest, pages arrived at 15.8 pages per minute. Few color lasers are significantly faster than this. And while the HP Officejet Pro 8500's text is quite serviceable in fast mode (almost at the level of many a cheap inkjet at highest quality), it's certainly nowhere near to laser-level.

It destroys every other inkjet we've seen on running costs. And with black cartridges capable of turning out as many as 2,200 pages, it's on a par with lasers as well.

Standard mode sees a marked improvement in quality, although the rate then drops to 12.2ppm. And really, for important documents, you'll need to be aiming for the Best mode, at which point speed falls to just 3.7ppm. Even here, the text is slightly fuzzy when examined closely. On the upside, characters are very dark. The HP Officejet Pro 8500 is kitted out with an automatic duplexer for printing to both sides of the page. This isn't terribly fast, though, with normal mode plummeting from 12.2ppm to 3.5ppm. In color mode, the HP's palette is bright and easy on the eye, although even in the Standard mode (where prints appear at 5.6ppm), there's evidence of banding. This disappears completely only at the highest quality mode, at which point speed falls to a pedestrian 1.8ppm.

We also heard complaints about loud running noises and, while this is hardly a quiet printer, we didn't find it much louder when printing than a typical inkjet or laser. When not in action, the HP Officejet Pro 8500 is mostly completely silent.

Bottom Line

As an all-round inkjet the HP Officejet Pro 8500 works very well. Its low running costs will make it far cheaper than other inkjets - even lasers will find it hard to keep toner costs this low. We just wish it had produced cleaner color prints on the middle quality setting.