Basically the same printer as the HP Officejet Pro 8630 e-All-in-One, the HP Officejet Pro 8620 e-All-in-One ($299.99) is a much better fit for more offices. With only one 250-sheet paper tray instead of two, it's meant for lighter-duty printing. Aside from paper capacity, however, it delivers the same impressive list of multifunction printer (MFP) features as the HP 8630 at a list price that's $100 lower, making it our Editors' Choice for micro and small offices with light-to-moderate printing needs and home offices with moderate-to-heavy-duty needs.

Like the HP 8630, the 8620( at Amazon) offers almost any feature you could want in an MFP. It can print, scan, and fax, including over a network, and it can work as a standalone copier, fax machine, and email sender. It can also scan to and print from a USB memory key.

The MFP supports mobile printing as well. Connect it directly to a network, by either Wi-Fi or Ethernet, and you can print to it through a Wi-Fi access point on your network from iOS, Android, or BlackBerry devices. Assuming the network is connected to the Internet, you can also print through the cloud and take advantage of HP's Web apps. If you don't connect it to a network, or there's no access point on your network, you can still connect directly using the printer's Wireless Direct—HP's proprietary equivalent to Wi-Fi Direct—to print from a smartphone or tablet.

Still another choice for connecting to the printer is near-field communication (NFC), although the support is limited enough that you might not get much use out of the feature. As with the HP 8630, the 8620 supports NFC Touch-to-Print, which is a relatively new standard, and not very widespread. HP says that the only mobile device the printer will work with at this writing is the HP ElitePad 900($127.64 at Amazon).

That said, the feature may become more useful over the lifetime of the printer. NFC Touch-to-Print is defined as part of the standard from the Mopria Alliance, a group that includes HP, Canon, Samsung, Epson, and Xerox, among others. If your current smartphone or tablet doesn't support the standard, your next upgrade might.

Paper Handling

The 8620's paper handing is a bit of a mixed bag. Because it's limited to a single 250-sheet tray, without even a manual feed, switching to a different paper type could become an annoying inconvenience if you have to do it very often. However, that won't be an issue in most offices, and the paper handling is otherwise excellent. Also, if you get the 8620 and then decide you need a second tray, you can add it as an option ($79.99 direct), effectively turning the 8620 into the HP 8630 for a lower total cost. (However, you won't get the OCR program or extra ink that come with the HP 8630.)

The 8620 offers a print duplexer (for printing on both sides of a page). For scanning, it offers both a legal-size flatbed and a 50-page automatic document feeder (ADF) that can duplex as well. Being able to both print and scan in duplex lets you scan, fax, and email both simplex (one-sided) and duplex documents easily, as well as copy from both single- and double-sided originals to your choice of single- or double-sided copies. It also helps a lot that the 4.3-inch front-panel color display offers a well-designed menu system that makes it easy to change settings and give commands.

Setup, Speed, and Output Quality

With only one paper tray instead of two, the 8620 isn't as tall as its more expensive near-twin. Due to the legal-size flatbed, however, it's still bigger and heavier than most inkjet MFPs, measuring 12.4 by 19.7 by 18.5 inches (HWD) and weighing 28 pounds 10 ounces. That makes it too big to share a desk with comfortably, but once you find a spot for it, setup is standard.

For my tests, I connected the printer by its Ethernet port and installed the drivers on a Windows Vista system. On our business applications suite (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing) it came in at 5.5 pages per minute (ppm). Surprisingly, that makes it a bit slower on our tests than the HP 8630, at 5.9ppm, despite HP saying that the two printers are identical. I also saw a small difference in speed for photos, with the 8620 averaging 52 seconds for a 4-by-6 and the HP 8630 averaging 48 seconds. I confirmed with HP that the firmware has been upgraded since I tested the HP 8630, which likely accounts for the difference in speed.

In any case, although the difference is enough to be statistically significant, it isn't very different in practical terms. Both printers are faster than any number of inexpensive color lasers, and both are among the faster business-oriented inkjet MFPs, along with, for example, the Epson WorkForce Pro WP-4540 All-in-One Printer, which came in at 5.8ppm on our tests, and the HP Officejet Pro 276dw MFP( at Amazon), which garnered 5.9ppm and is Editors' Choice for micro and small offices that need a printer with PostScript, or with Printer Command Language (PCL) 5 or 6.

Output quality average for an inkjet MFP across the board. Text quality is absolutely typical, in the middle of the range that includes the vast majority of inkjets. Unless you have an unusual need for small fonts, you shouldn't have a problem with its text for any business need.

Graphics quality is at the low end of the tight range that includes almost all inkjets. It's certainly good enough for any internal business need. Most people would also consider it good enough for PowerPoint handouts and the like. Photos in my tests were also within the typical range for an inkjet, and roughly equivalent to the low end of the range for drugstore prints.

If you need a PostScript printer or one with PCL 5 or 6, take a look at the HP 276dw. Similarly, if you can benefit from a 500-sheet paper capacity plus an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program, you'll want to consider the HP 8630.

For most micro and home offices, however, the printer language won't matter and a 250-sheet paper capacity should be enough, especially with the option to add a second tray later if you need one. Add in the HP Officejet Pro 8620 e-All-in-One's long list of features—from its legal-size flatbed to its ability to print from and scan to a USB key—and it's an excellent fit as an MFP for a home or micro office, as well as our Editors' Choice in the category.

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