In the world of mobile printers, only an inkjet can provide high-quality color output and print on standard, letter-size paper. If those are abilities you need, then the HP OfficeJet 200 Mobile Printer ($279.99) is an excellent option. The company's latest iteration in its series of mobile inkjet printers, the OfficeJet 200 weighs less and gives you more connectivity options than its predecessor, the HP OfficeJet 100 Mobile Printer , and it offers more than similar models from competing manufacturers, too. The OfficeJet 200 ($299.99 at HP) is an easy pick as our Editors' Choice portable inkjet printer.

Design and Features
The all-black OfficeJet 200 is a typical size for a mobile inkjet printer, at 2.7 by 14.3 by 7 inches (HWD). It weighs 4.6 pounds (4.9 pounds with the included battery in place). That is half a pound lighter than the OfficeJet 100 and effectively matches the weight of the Canon Pixma iP110 Wireless Mobile Printer ($190.79 at Amazon) , at 4.5 pounds, or 5 pounds with the optional battery attached. The Epson WorkForce WF-100 ($172.99 at Amazon) , which has a built-in battery, weighs considerably less, at 3.5 pounds.

The OfficeJet 200's 2-inch display is flanked by buttons, with icons for Home, Backspace, Wireless, and Enter (OK), as well as up and down arrows. At the back is a 50-sheet paper feeder that can hold up to letter-width sheets. This matches the capacity of the Canon iP110; the Epson WF-100's feeder only holds 20 sheets at once. The OfficeJet 200's recommended duty cycle is up to 300 pages per month. It lacks an automatic document feeder for printing on both sides of a page, but does support manual duplexing, which is controlled through the printer's software interface.

Connectivity choices include USB and Wi-Fi, and the printer also supports a direct peer-to-peer connection with a computer or mobile device via Wi-Fi Direct. The only wireless connectivity on the OfficeJet 100 is Bluetooth. The OfficeJet 200 can print from iOS and Android phones and tablets (it's both AirPrint and Mopria Alliance compatible). A USB Type A port, which permits printing from a USB thumb drive or a PictBridge-compatible digital camera or device, is on the right side of the printer, near the back. For the bulk of my testing, I connected the OfficeJet 200 to a PC running Windows 10 via a USB connection.

Although the OfficeJet 200 ships with an installation disc, you probably won't need it. When setting up the printer using the quick-start guide, you are directed to an HP site where you can download the latest software. The printer lacks a USB cable (the Type-A–to–Type-B cable commonly used with printers is needed), so if you want to print via a USB connection, you'll have to supply your own.

Printing Speed
I timed the OfficeJet 200 at 9.5 pages per minute (ppm) in printing the text-only (Word) portion of our new business applications suite, a speed that's very close to its 10ppm rating for printing in black. Its first-page-out time averaged 11 seconds. The printer slowed only slightly, to 8.9ppm, when I switched from AC to battery power and printed out the same document.

On our full business suite, which includes PDF, PowerPoint, and Excel files in addition to the aforementioned Word document, the OfficeJet 200 averaged 4.2ppm. I timed the HP OfficeJet 250 Mobile All-In-One Printer ($279.99 at HP) , which tied the OfficeJet 200's speed in printing the text-only document, at 3.9ppm for the entire suite.

We can't directly compare these results to those from printers that we tested on the business part of our old test suite, which included a higher percentage of complex, graphics-heavy documents. Photo printing is a different matter, however. The 200 Mobile proved much faster than machines we'd previously tested, printing out 4-by-6 photos in an average of 42 seconds, far faster than the HP OfficeJet 100's 3:08 and very similar to the 40 seconds at which we timed the OfficeJet 250.

Output Quality
Print quality is above average for an inkjet, with slightly above-par text, graphics, and photos. Although the OfficeJet 200 is a mobile printer, its output quality is better than that of most desktop inkjets we've tested. Text should be good enough for any use short of those requiring tiny fonts.

The OfficeJet 200 did well in printing thin lines, gradients, and zones of similar tone in graphics. Colors were well saturated and background fills were largely smooth, though I did notice some mild banding in several backgrounds. Still, graphics quality should be good enough for, say, PowerPoint handouts. The print quality of most photo prints is what you'd expect from drugstore prints, and in some cases a little better.

Running Costs
Mobile inkjet printers have high running costs compared with standard inkjets, but based on HP's price and yield figures for its highest-capacity cartridges, the OfficeJet 200's costs are about average for its ilk: 6 cents per black page and 15.6 cents per color page. The Canon iP110's running costs are 6.3 cents per black page and 13.4 cents per color page, and the Epson WF-100 has costs of 8.8 cents per black page and 17.8 cents per color page. The printer uses two cartridges: one black and one tricolor (yellow/cyan/magenta). The high-yield black cartridge is rated at up to 600 pages, while the high-yield color cartridge is rated at up to 415 pages, considerably in excess of the highest-capacity cartridges from Canon and Epson. You shouldn't have to change cartridges all that frequently, which is a real strength in a mobile printer.

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For people who need to frequently scan or copy documents while on the road, HP has also introduced the OfficeJet 250, our first Editors' Choice mobile multifunction printer. Apart from its ability to scan and copy, it is very similar to the OfficeJet 200, though it is slightly less wieldy—measuring 3.6 by 15 by 7.8 inches and weighing 6.5 pounds (6.7 pounds with battery)—and a little more expensive ($349.99). If you can do without copying or scanning, the OfficeJet 200 is a slimmer, sleeker, and more cost-effective alternative.

Conclusion
The HP OfficeJet 200 Mobile Printer is the best mobile single-function inkjet we've come across. It adds good speed and connectivity (via Wi-Fi Direct and Wi-Fi as well as USB) plus high page yield (for a portable printer) for its ink cartridges to the strong output quality and long battery life that we saw in the OfficeJet 100 Mobile Printer. It offers more than competing models from Epson and HP, and it's a clear Editors' Choice for road warriors who may have to print out a report in a hotel room or on the fly.

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