HP Envy 100 e-All-in-One inkjet multifunction printer

The HP Envy 100 e-All-in-One is a multifunction colour inkjet printer that is stylish and quiet — it's designed to fit in your living room. We would still prefer to keep it stashed in a home office, but for a multifunction printer it has one of the best designs we've seen. It's not the best A4 photo printer we've tested due to its use of a tri-colour ink cartridge, but when printing text it does an acceptable job. Its low-noise design means it prints slowly in normal quality modes, though. A swathe of extra features and Internet connectivity means this printer outperforms its competitors by adding extra value.

The HP Envy 100 e-All-in-One has a motorised 3.45in colour touchscreen that automatically tilts upwards when the printer is turned on.

HP Envy 100 printer: Design, interface and connectivity

The HP Envy 100 e-All-in-One is a printer that was designed from the ground up to be used in a home setting. It's obvious a lot of thought has been put into this printer's construction — it shares its Envy name with the company's premium HP Envy 13 and HP Envy 15 notebooks. It is significantly smaller than similar printers from its competitors like the Canon PIXMA MG5250 inkjet multifunction, and measures 427 x 336 x 102mm.

When it was announced, HP told PC World that the Envy 100 printer was smaller, more attractive and quieter than the company's older models, and that it wouldn't look out of place in a modern living room. We probably wouldn't keep this multifunction inkjet printer next to the fine china and family photos, but its design certainly fits in better than any other printer we've recently reviewed.

The hinged flatbed scanner cover on the top panel of the HP Envy 100 printer is made of glass, and it is finished in a shiny mirror coating decorated with an attractive gradient of black dots. This A4 inkjet printer's paper cassette is hidden away in the base of the printer. It's accessible from the front and it can hold 80 sheets of plain A4 paper — less than many of the other home printers we've tested, but enough for moderate use. A 3.45in colour touchscreen on a motorised panel houses the printer's controls and you can use it to access HP's ePrint Internet services. Direct printing off a USB, SD as well as other memory cards is available via a flip-up panel on the HP Envy 100 e-All-in-One's front.

If you're connecting the HP Envy 100 e-All-in-One directly to a PC, we'd recommend you use the USB 2.0 port on the printer's back panel. There is no Ethernet for wired network or Internet connection, but the Envy 100 has integrated 802.11b/g/n wireless networking that is more than capable. You need to have a wireless network set up if you want to get the most out of the HP Envy 100 e-All-in-One, as without it you won't be able to access Web-based printing — where you can send a document to a predetermined email address and have the HP Envy 100 e-All-in-One automatically print it — or any of HP's ePrint cloud-based printing applications.

If you're so inclined, you can use the HP Envy 100 e-All-in-One printer to download and run HP ePrint applications. It requires a certain dedication to regularly walk up to your printer, choose some fun sudoku charts and colouring-in pictures, and print them — but the extra features and diversity of available applications may be a drawcard for families or tech-savvy users.