HP DeskJet 3755 All-in-One Wireless Color Inkjet Printer Blue

Pros: The “Instant Ink” subscription service is the source of this printer’s value. That is what makes this printer possible at the price of $70 currently. If you are a college kid, or a parent of a college kid, this might be one of the best deals you can find. It is a piece of hardware that the manufacturer can’t possibly make and market for that price if there weren’t a high probability that users will subscribe, or buy inkjet cartridges. The printer itself is relatively fast. Only makes noise while printing. Output quality is on par with the best inkjets I’ve ever used. Color printing on photo stock is very good. Cons: When I handle this printer, it just feels cheap and flimsy. At the price, I don’t expect more, but I don’t think that it really is a “travel” printer. Anything more than relocating it twice a year for school is likely to break it. If I didn’t use the subscription service, the ink cost for this would be astronomical. This is normal for inkjet printers though. Be prepared for some serious sticker shock if you intend to buy HP oem inkjet cartridges. Fairly difficult to configure for wireless access. There are a lot of undocumented gotchas in the setup process. Have your phone handy; you’ll probably need it. Overall Review: Since the wireless TX in this printer is 2.4 ghz, you have to configure the printer with a wireless PC/Mac that is also connected on the 2.4 band. To clarify, if you use a wired, or a 5ghz connection on your device you MUST disconnect from your connection and use the 2.4ghz connection to locate and configure the printer. I thought that I would be able to manually configure the printer via the console panel, but when I followed the instruction manual’s steps to manually configure, all that happened was that the printer spit out a page with instructions for wirelessly configuring the printer…? So you really cannot configure this printer without a wireless device connected on the same band.

Pros: This little printer is pretty solid for the price, it’s lightweight, it’s compact, relatively easy to set up and configure, and the print quality is on par with other InkJet printers I’ve used in the past. Unpacking this printer from the box shows just how simple the setup is, the box contains just the printer, a power adapter, a USB cable, and a handful of packing materials and instructions. Initial setup just requires powering on the printer and using the HP Printer software to locate and configure, then I was off and ready to print. The included cloud services option is handy for printing while away from home. I was able to configure a Chromebook/Google account to cloud print to the printer even when not connected to my home network, allowing me to print out documents while away from home. Cons: While the price of this printer is really low, it’s not an inexpensive printer. After the initial ink runs dry, you’re looking at $25 for XL Black and $35 for XL color cartridges, already adding up to nearly the cost of the printer itself. This wouldn’t be too bad except this printer LOVES to drain ink and burn paper for every little thing it does. During setup I ended up printing 10-15 sheets of paper as part of the normal setup procedure, not including the extras from accidentally triggering extra prints. This is because this printer doesn’t include an LCD screen capable of displaying information. Every time I needed to do something, from configuring the network to adding cloud services, 2-3 pages were printed, often with a single sentence or a large amount of unnecessary information. Every time you wish to do a direct WiFi connection print job a pin number is printed out, which was just a few numbers and a title header wasting up an entire page. One thing that really aggravated me was the fact that the wireless MAC address was nowhere to be found on this printer. It’s not on the outside shell, when you click the WiFi button it prints out a page that doesn’t include it, and short of using a desktop with a USB connection, you won’t see the MAC address until you’re halfway through the setup process. Even worse is that the Android app for setting up and configuring the printer doesn’t show the MAC address at all, so unless you have a Windows/Mac computer and you are planning on using MAC address filtering at all, you need to do setup from a laptop or desktop system. In my opinion this shows that a WiFi enabled printer should include a basic screen and navigation system to configure without relying on another device or software. Overall Review: This printer is really cheap and is great if you just need something to print, but in the long run it’s not going to be cheap to maintain, it’s only good if you need occasional printing or scanning. If you print a lot or need to use a printer all day long, you might be more interested in the more expensive inkjets or a laser printer.

Pros: The main things this printer has going for it are it’s small size and its wireless capabilities. The printer is indeed very small. Probably about as small as any printer can be and still work correctly. It’s about the size of a large loaf of bread. The wireless features actually work quite well. Although, it did take a bit for me to be able to print wirelessly through my network. Once that was configured, I was able to print with Windows 10 like I would any printer hooked up via USB. On iOS it was even better. iOS has HP printer features built in, so all I had to do was hit the share button, select print and it automatically detected this printer with no work on my part. I setup this printer exclusively using the supplied manual. The manual HP included was actually helpful and contained detailed instructions for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. HP gives you the option to install just drivers or to include their basic software and HP Photo Creations software. The Photo Creations Software included only the most basic editing options you might find on most smart phones. But it will allow you to decide what size you want to use when printing your pictures. Or even to send your pictures or creations to HP to have them print it for a small fee. There are also options for creating cards or labels and sharing your creations on social media or email. Cons: The quality of the print outs are mediocre at best. I have had better quality prints from printers in the late 90s. The quality isn’t bad, it’s just unimpressive. There is no scanner. As usual, HP wants to install software on your computer that allows them to monitor and share your usage information. At least they give you the option to decline. On two separate occasions, the installation software asked me if I wanted to share my information. The included HP Photo Creations software only has basic features unlocked. If you want the advanced features, you have to pay to unlock it. When I was setting up the printer for installation, I was able to accidentally insert the standard printer cable, USB type B, upside down. Of course the computer wouldn’t recognize it, since the USB wasn’t actually connected. So, that took me a couple minutes to figure out before I was able to get past that point. Overall Review: When installing the HP printer software, I had to restart the printer and my computer before I could complete the installation. Once I restarted everything, I was able to get the printer installed and the wireless feature working. At first I had to use the included USB cable for my computer to detect the printer correctly. To get the wireless feature working I had to open up the Deskjet Software, click the tool icon on top, then click on Device Setup and Software. After that, change the primary connection from USB to wireless and follow the instructions that pop up on screen. From that point I was able to print using my network just like I would any ordinary printer. This printer only works on 2.4 GHz connections. So if you have a dual band router, be sure to set it up on the 2.4 GHz band or it won’t work. When I installed the ink cartridges, they appeared to be installed, but they weren’t actually seated correctly. When installing the ink cartridges, be sure to align the top of the cartridge in the uppermost area of the cartridge slot. Then push them in with a bit of force until you feel them click into place. As usual, HP offers an auto ink program. For me, this would be a massive waste of money. But if you print a lot, it may actually save you money. So that’s something to think about. Ordinarily, in the past, I have often just purchased a new printer when I run out of ink as printers don’t cost much more than just replacing the ink in your old one. This printer is reasonably priced if you want something small with wireless capabilities. I would prefer a printer with a scanner, but if you don’t need one or if you just want to supplement your network with a wireless printer. Then this is a good choice. I deducted one Egg for the lack in print quality. That was really my only issue with this printer.