HP Officejet 100 mobile inkjet printer

The HP Officejet 100 is a mobile inkjet printer that's powered by a long-lasting battery, allowing it to be used away from an office. It has built-in Bluetooth as well as USB for direct connection.

HP Officejet 100: Design and setup

The HP Officejet 100 looks like a notebook on steroids, although it's not as deep. It's compact and weighs 2.5kg with the battery attached. We would have ideally liked the Officejet 100 to store its paper internally — instead, the 50-sheet cassette extends out the top of the printer, so you'll have to take the paper out each time you want to move the Officejet 100. The external battery sticks out slightly from the Officejet 100's rear.

The HP Officejet 100 doesn't support Wi-Fi, which is disappointing given the printer costs $449.

We connected the HP Officejet 100 to our test Apple MacBook Pro via Bluetooth. In its default security mode the Officejet 100 is open to any Bluetooth device, but more stringent security can also be set up. You can also use USB if you want to connect to a notebook, and direct printing is also available through the PictBridge USB port which supports JPG and other common image files.

The Officejet 100 mobile inkjet printer's Bluetooth driver is basic, but it allows you to alter key settings like paper size and type. We weren't able to monitor ink levels, though — this can be done through the USB drivers, and an ink warning light on the printer's top also tells you when it's time to change cartridges.

HP rates the Officejet 100's detachable battery at 500 pages before a recharge is required. Considering the printer's recommended duty cycle is also 500 pages and the printer itself can only hold 50 sheets at a time, we think the battery is more than powerful enough for the HP Officejet 100.

HP Officejet 100: Print speed and quality

The HP Officejet 100 supports 300dpi and 600dpi printing through its Bluetooth print driver; to print high quality photos at the maximum 4800x1200dpi, you'll need to connect via USB. We printed a three-page test monochrome text document in 1min 29sec using the Bluetooth 300dpi setting — slow going largely due to the 43sec wait for the first page to be printed. Hooking the printer up to USB offers faster print speeds, mainly due to the first page coming out quicker — we achieved HP's quoted five pages per minute for black printouts but colour documents were slower at around two and a half pages per minute.

The black text we printed with the HP Officejet 100 portable inkjet printer was acceptable. Edges on text are ever so slightly fuzzy and we thought text used slightly too much ink. Colour print quality is similarly acceptable, but not spectacular. We'd happily print out pie charts and simple graphics, but full colour photos tend to look grainy and undersaturated. The tri-colour ink cartridge also means that you're likely to run out of one colour before the others are empty.

HP Officejet 100: Conclusion

The HP Officejet 100 is a suitable product for anyone who's travelling and needs regular access to a printer — as long as print speed and print quality aren't crucial. We would have liked to see more features and a few minor design changes, though.

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