The HP DeskJet 4155e is identical to the HP DeskJet Plus 4155 but comes with a six-month supply of free ink through HP+. It is an all-in-one colour inkjet that has both a flatbed scanner and an automatic document feeder, allowing you to scan different media types with ease. Unfortunately, it performs badly in almost every other respect, with terrible page yields, disappointingly high cost-per-print, and poor print speeds. It also has a narrow colour gamut and poor colour accuracy, and it prints mediocre-looking photos with no support for borderless printing. Fortunately, its decent connectivity options mean you can print from different devices and you can use the HP Smart Mobile app to easily use and manage the printer.
The HP DeskJet 4155e is a disappointing printer for family use. It has a flatbed scanner with excellent scan resolution and colour depth, making it easy to digitize old photos. Unfortunately, it is not suitable for photo printing, as it prints black-only and colour documents at slow speeds, photos have a lot of banding and colours look very inaccurate to the originals.The HP 4155e is poor for black and white printing. Its black page yield is poor, while its text document print speed is terrible; you can get XL and XXL high-yield cartridges, but even then they are likely to need replacing if you print large quantities. Also, duplex printing is manual, so you have to manually turn pages when the printer prompts you to do so.
The HP Deskjet 4155e is a product with mixed reviews. On the one hand, it performs quite well across the board and even surprised us with its excellent photo and graphics printing capabilities. On the other hand, it has a very high operating cost and out of all the best home printers we tested, it is one of the most expensive models to own over time. It is also confined by HP’s own ink service, a possible workaround to obsolescence. Overall, this printer makes sense for those whose priority is a low initial purchase price and who want a high-quality printer capable of producing solid photo prints, but don’t use their printer very often.
The 4155e has a small display that shows remaining ink, paper and WiFi status. A pleasant sound alerts you when printing is complete and the ink cartridges are easy to replace. The biggest drawback is the lack of two-sided printing. Overall, it is a strong performer for such a (initially) affordable machine, and the 4155e performed surprisingly well by this measure. High-definition prints had good texture and colour, and the finished image was easily discernible and sharp. On closer inspection, some very faint stripes could be seen in some of the images, but not enough to detract from them.
Business graphics were also solid, with good colour display and sharp text, with only occasional very faint stripes (again, not terribly noticeable). Overall, resolution is very sharp, colour quality is vivid and, again, very faint stripes occur on darker coloured subjects. On the other hand.