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Whatever capabilities you associate with ink jet printers, odds are you're in for a surprise with the HP Officejet Pro 8100 ePrinter ($149.99 direct).  The one point that should match your expectations is the low initial cost.  Beyond that, it's faster than many inexpensive color lasers, offers better paper handling than many, and prints at a lower cost per page.  The combination makes it one of the few inkjets that can go head to head (or toe to toe) with a color laser and wind up as the better choice for a micro or small office or busy home office.  That's enough to make it an Editors' Choice as well.

The 8100 is basically the Editors' Choice HP Officejet Pro 8600 Plus e-All-in-One ($299.99 direct, 4.5 stars) without the MFP features.  More significantly, it's also directly competitive with the Editors' Choice Epson WorkForce Pro WP-4020 ($149.99 direct, 4.5 stars), with similar print speed and output quality.  The 8100 and WP-4020 are so close in capability, in fact, that we can't in all good conscience pick one as the definitively preferred choice over the other.  Both are equally impressive, and the best choice for you will depend on relatively minor issues.

The difference in paper handling is a good example.  Both printers come with a 250-sheet tray and built in duplexing, but the WP-4020 adds a second tray for another 80 sheets, giving it a higher capacity.  On the other hand the 8100 offers a second 250-sheet tray as an option ($79.99 direct), giving you the potential for a higher capacity still.  Which printer gets the nod for better paper handling depends on whether you need a second tray, and—if so—whether an 80-sheet tray will be sufficient.  

Most other differences are similarly subtle.  The WP-2040 offers slightly better image quality, for example, while the 8100 offers slightly better speed.  In both cases, though, the key word is slightly.

Basics, Setup, and Speed

As you might guess from its paper capacity, the 8100 is pretty hefty for an inkjet, at 24.2 pounds.  Assuming you have enough flat space for its 19.5 by 18.9 inch footprint, however, setup is standard fare.  For my tests I connected it to a wired network and installed the drivers on a Windows Vista system.  You can also connect by WiFi—or USB of course. 

In addition, the printer supports Apple AirPrint for printing from iThings over WiFi and HP ePrint for printing through the cloud.  HP ePrint assigns the printer an email address so you can print from anywhere, and from any device with email, by sending it the documents to print as attachments to email messages. 

Not too surprisingly, considering its relationship to the 8600 Plus, the 8100 turned in equally impressive, and nearly identical, results for speed.  I timed it on our business applications suite (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing) at 5.9 effective pages per minute (ppm).  That's tied with the 8600 Plus and also essentially tied with the Epson WP-4020 at 5.6 ppm.  More notably, the 8100 is faster than the laser-class Editors' Choice Dell 1350cnw Color LED Printer ($299 direct, 4 stars), at 4.9 ppm.  It also did reasonably well for photo speed, averaging 55 seconds for a 4 by 6.

Output Quality and Other Issues

The 8100’s output quality isn't as impressive as its speed, but it's good enough across the board so that it doesn't lose any points for quality.  As with the 8600 Plus, the text is suitable for almost any business use, as long as you don't have an unusual need for small fonts.  The text is also water resistant, smudging very little when I rubbed it with a wet tissue.

Graphics quality is easily good enough for any internal business need.  I saw some slight banding in full-page graphics, but depending on your level of perfectionism, you might even consider it good enough for, say, PowerPoint handouts.  Photos were easily a match for what you'd expect from drugstore prints, making them more than good enough for any business need. 

One last important strong point is the low claimed running cost, at 1.6 cents per black and white page and 7.2 cents per color page.  That's a lot less expensive than most competitive ink jets or lasers.  It's also a match for the WP-4020 for black and white pages, and a half-cent savings per color page.

As should be obvious, if you're thinking about buying a low-end color laser, you should be seriously considering the HP Officejet Pro 8100 ePrinter—and also the Epson WP-4020—as alternatives.  Not only are both printers a lot cheaper to buy than comparable lasers, they're cheaper to run and faster too.  Between the two of them, you may find a feature in one or the other that makes it the better choice for your office, but they're so closely matched that most people could pick either one and not be disappointed.  Like the WP-4020, the HP Officejet Pro 8100 ePrinter is an impressive option for a small or micro office, and equally convincing as Editors' Choice.

 More inkjet printer reviews:

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•   Epson WorkForce WF-7720 Wide-Format All-in-One Printer
•   Canon Pixma TS5120 Wireless Inkjet All-In-One Printer
•   Epson Expression Premium ET-7700 EcoTank All-in-One Supertank Printer
•   Epson Expression ET-3700 EcoTank All-in-One Supertank Printer
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