HP Deskjet D5560 > Reviews (1)

Just recently, the company I work for has undergone a major IT update. Personally I was really quite excited about it, as I was spending at least two hours a day struggling with my laptop due to crap servers, knackered hardware and creaky software. The thought of being able to get into my email at 8am without commencing efforts at 7am were so consuming, that I overlooked the other upgrade - a new printer.

I have never bought an HP printer for myself, as I always thought they were overpriced and clunky. This was mainly because I have had other HP models supplied by employers in the past which have been literally the size of my desk at home, and I always ended up using my own personal one instead. But this new one has changed my opinion.

I won't go into techy detail, as all this stuff can be found on the hp website - www.hp.com - as well as software, drivers, manuals and other stuff. The website is actually pretty useful all round, which is good as I am a nightmare when it comes to most technology.

For that reason, I will speak in purely laymans terms!

This is a good printer.

The design is functional, but not ugly - its black, quite sleek and compact and fits ok on a wide shelf, rather than needing a whole desk of its own. The build quality is plasticky, but not flimsy like some others. The paper is fed in through a slot in the front, and it spews out the printed sheet the same way. This minimises space needed as there is no wad of paper sticking out up top. This suits me, as my office is my spare bedroom, and also houses my clothes, shoes and books etc so space is of an absolute premium. You can get about 50 sheets in the feeder at once - They claim 80 but I find that if you ram so much in, it tends to jam up a little. 50 isn't bad anyway.

It prints quite fast, about ten seconds a page for my colour spreadsheets. Although though this is slower than the speeds claimed by the blurb (they say 21 sheets per minute!), its still far quicker than any personal printer I've had before, and has vastly reduced the time I have to spend preparing for meetings.

The print quality seems great - colours are really vibrant, and text is very sharp even when its small, which again is very important to me for work. And, best of all, its quiet. Not silent, or even approaching that, but quiet enough that I can hear the radio over it without turning it up, and quiet enough to make calls whilst it "vvvvoooom"s away in the background.

The one drawback for me is the wireless connection aspect. For most people this will be a huge advantage, but because I'm a dunce when it comes to the scientific side of things, I had to get mine set up by an IT guy at work, and consequently can't cope when things go wrong! This is something to do with not having administrator rights on the network or something - I'm not sure. I get scared of not being able to contact IT guy if its outside office hours, and end up using a USB cable instead! I think this is due to my companies systems rather than the printer itself - but its still a consideration.

If you can set it up though, its brilliant, as you haven't got to worry about wires trailing everywhere, and you can move about with your laptop and still print from it.

One other aspect I would praise is the processing capability of the printer - although I'm not sure how much of it is down to having a new laptop too. Whereas I used not to be able to use the laptop while the printer was going, the new hardware seems to be able to cope perfectly well with printing off reams of bumph whilst I merrily send and receive emails. Bonus!

This printer has impacted on my working life in a refreshingly positive way for a piece of company kit. I can now print stuff whilst making calls and doing other work, and what used to take me an hour and a half in the morning now takes less than half that time, literally. I've never been emotional about a piece of hardware before, but I would go so far as to say I'd pine for this if it was taken away!

I can definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a basic printer that does its job quietly, quickly, and without slowing everything else down.