Under-$100 Roundup: HP DeskJet 5150

The HP DeskJet 5150 is a real winner as far as reviewers are concerned -- they lauded its high-quality text and photo printing (as good as more expensive HP devices) and good performance. This is a printer that doesn't ask its users to compromise quality for price.

Price: $89.99
Type: Color inkjet
Max. Print Speed: 19ppm black, 14ppm color
Max. Print Resolution: 4800 x 1200 dpi (optimized)
Special Feature(s): Optional duplex printing

Computer Buyer Review

Rating: 6.0 out of 6

Liked: Text looked almost as if it came from a printing press. All characters were a crisp, bright black, making them really stand out from the page. Even better: standard text print speed was a solid 3.1 pages per minute. Picture performance on plain paper was excellent.

Disliked: N/A

In Short: The HP 5150 uses the same ink and cartridges as HP's expensive printers. Quality is excellent and printing speed is superb - easily worthy of our Best Buy award.

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Computer Power User Review

Rating: N/A

Liked: Draft text printed at nearly 10ppm, and my PowerPoint and Word documents both printed at 2.5ppm, enough oomph to zip through most home jobs with ease. Photos I printed to glossy paper had very good color quality, and smearing was minimal after the prints dried for 24 hours.

Disliked: Printing at the high resolution (4,800 x 1,200) didn’t prevent banding on plain paper.

In Short: This HP is a fairly standard $99 printer, albeit one with a few new capabilities not found in similarly priced units.

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PC Magazine User Review

Rating: 5.0 out of 5

Liked: Photos showed excellent detail in dark shadows as well as bright highlights. Four-point text was legible in all but the boldest fonts.

Disliked: [Doesn't have] the convenient envelope feed slot found on so many other HP ink jet printers. Large "wall wart" transformer plug that will block at least two adjacent power sockets on most surge protection strips.

In Short: The Deskjet 5150 is the best bargain of the bunch—and perhaps of the entire field..

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