HP DeskJet 4155e Review

The HP Deskjet 4155e is a bit of a conundrum. It does score highly with most metrics that we tested, particularly excelling at photo printing, but its excessive operating costs and general operating errors make it hard to recommend. Keep in mind that this machine cannot print duplex documents. It's very high photo quality coupled with its low initial purchase price does make it stand out from the pack, and if you don't print very often, this may not be a bad option.

Performance Comparison

Text Quality

The HP Deskjet 4155e performed pretty well quality-wise but made some errors that resulted in a reduced score. When performing our black and white quality test, the 4155e misprinted the first line of a few pages, with text being faint or missing part of letters. Otherwise, the text quality was quite good, with sharp, crisp character resolution.

If it weren't for the printing errors, the 4155e would have scored a point higher in this metric, tying it with some higher-performing printers in our lineup.

Operating Cost

The HP Deskjet 4155e operating costs are pretty insane, landing it the worst score of any printer that we tested. Every 120 pages of monochrome prints will cost you $16, or $66.63 per ream. Color prints will set you back $84.95 per ream. For reference, the next most expensive printer to operate in our lineup costs $20 less per color ream.

With such high ink costs and because you have to replace ink so frequently with the 4155e, its estimated 3-year lifetime cost comes in at a whopping $1,095. If you purchase this printer and print an average of 2,500 pages per year, you'll be buying the printer again ten times over after three years of ownership.

Ease of Use

The 4155e performed pretty well overall in this metric but is limited by its small display screen. The initial setup is quite simple and is aided by the support of a mobile app, and although slow, we found the app and HP's website quite easy to navigate and helpful.

The 4155e has a tiny display to indicate ink levels, paper loads, WiFi status, etc. It makes pleasant noises to indicate when print jobs are complete and ink cartridge replacements are simple. The biggest drawback here is its lack of duplex printing. Overall, a strong performance for such an (initially) affordable machine.

Graphics/Photos

The 4155e had a surprisingly good performance in this metric. The high-resolution prints had great texture and color, and the resulting image was discernible and sharp. If you look closely, there was some very faint striping in parts of the image, but not so much as to detract from it. Business graphics were solid, with good color display, sharp text, with the occasional very faint striping (again, not terribly noticeable). The overall resolution was very sharp, and the color quality was vibrant, again with very faint striping on darker colored subjects.

While not perfect, the 4155e demonstrated very strong photo a graphic printing prowess in our testing and directly competed in this metric with some of the award winners in our lineup. It would've scored quite high overall if it weren't for the 4155e's excessive operating costs.

Printing Speed

Other than being a printer that has no duplex printing ability and some minor errors, the 4155e performed decently in our speed testing. During our mixed photo and text document test, the 4155e occasionally would partially cut headers on each page (the topmost portion of letters was missing). Otherwise, the text appeared crisp with some faint striping with images with black backgrounds.

Full-page images are printed in about 30 seconds, with simplex documents printed in about 2 minutes and 16 seconds. Again, this printer cannot print duplex documents, so we did not score it against the others that could. Potential buyers just need to be aware of this limitation when considering it against other printers.

Should You Buy the HP DeskJet 4155e?

At a glance, the 4155e doesn't look like a bad buy: low purchase price, high-quality photo prints, compact size, decent all-around performance. However, our testing revealed that its operating costs negate any cost savings you might be thinking you're getting by purchasing such an inexpensive printer. That said, if you're someone who doesn't print often, but when you do, you want photo (and other) prints to be high quality, and you don't need duplex printing ability, the 4155e is an OK option.

What Other Printers Should You Consider?

Ultimately, the HP Deskjet 4155e is hard to recommend to anyone outside of the casual printer user who wants high-quality photo prints. Options like the Epson Workforce Pro WF-4820 present a much lower operating cost while still producing high-quality photographs. Similarly, the award-winning Canon Color imageCLASS MF741Cdw offers top-quality performance but at a much higher price point.