To say that print speed is a strong point is an understatement. I timed the 8500 on our business applications suite at a total of 7 minutes 23 seconds—a new record for an inkjet AIO. The only models that come close are the far-more-expensive Ricoh GX3050SFN, at 7:47, and the somewhat-less-expensive Epson Artisan 800, at 8:10. Photo speed is less impressive, however, averaging 2:27 for 4-by-6s and 5:21 for 8-by-10s, compared with 59 seconds and 2:08, respectively, for the Epson printer.

Output quality is acceptable for text and impressive for graphics and photos. More than half of the fonts on our text tests qualified as easily readable at 6 points, although it took a boost up to 8 points for more than half to qualify as both easily readable and well formed. Even two heavily stylized fonts with thick strokes passed both thresholds at 12 points. One of the test fonts, a common choice for business documents, showed a slight character-spacing problem at sizes as large as 12 points, but since only one font had that problem, I count this as a minor issue at most. The text quality is certainly good enough for most business uses.

Graphics and photo quality are both in the top tier for inkjet AIOs. I saw banding in some of the graphic images in default mode, but no important flaws in highest-quality mode. That's enough to make the output more than good enough for any business application up to and including marketing materials like one-page handouts and trifold brochures.

Colors in photos were a little punchy, and they had a tendency to lose detail in dark areas. On the other hand, many people prefer slightly punchy colors to more realistic images. All the photos were a match for what you might expect from your local drugstore, making them true photo quality by definition.

The 8500 Wireless is covered under HP's standard one-year warranty. If you have a problem that can't be resolved with a phone call, HP will ship a replacement along with a return shipping label, with HP covering the cost of shipping both ways.

The 8500 Wireless also has the distinction of being one of the first printers to qualify for the PCMag.com GreenTech Approved seal. It is RoHS and REACH compliant, and Energy Star 1.0 qualified. (HP says it expects that the printer will also be Energy Star 1.1 qualified, but that assumes the requirements that are currently expected don't change in the final Energy Star version.) The LED light source in the scanner eliminates wasted energy for warm-up and is mercury free. Even better, there's a recycling program for both the printer and ink cartridges, with no out-of-pocket costs for either.

The printer also scored reasonably well on our practical tests, particularly for canceling a print job. The cancel command takes only one button press, and printing stopped immediately on my tests, without wasting any additional paper or ink once I canceled the job. Printing a 12-page Word file in duplex mode took a touch over three times as long as printing in simplex—at 3:21 compared with 59 seconds—mostly because, as with any inkjet, the printer has to pause to let the ink dry on the first side before printing on the second side.

One last plus that demands mention is a notably low claimed running cost, at 1.6 cents per black-and-white page and 7.2 cents per color page. That's comparable with—and for black-and-white pages lower than—the 2.3 cents and 6.9 cents that Kodak claims as a major selling point for its line of AIOs. Print enough pages and the running cost can make the 8500 Wireless cheaper to own in the long run than a less-expensive AIO with a higher cost per page.

As should be obvious from reading this, the HP Officejet Pro 8500 Wireless All-in-One is an impressive printer. Its speed is a match for some slower lasers; its output quality is adequate for text and impressive for graphics and photos; it has almost any AIO feature you could want; and it's cheap to run. It is, in short, a runaway winner and easy pick for Editors' Choice.

Check out the HP Officejet Pro 8500 Wireless All-in-One's performance test results.