HP Officejet 150 Mobile – Performance

HP rates the OfficeJet 150 Mobile at 5.0 pages per minute (ppm) for black print and 3.5ppm for colour. Our five-page black text print gave 5.2ppm, rising to 5.8ppm on the longer 20-page test and to 8.8ppm when printing in the, very acceptable, draft mode. You could comfortably make draft the default mode for most documents.

The five-page text and colour graphics print gave 2.1ppm, so overall the print results were better than spec for black print, but not as good for colour. In comparative terms, the black print speed is quick for a mobile device and the colour speed is acceptable.

A single-page copy (all that’s available from this machine) took 1:05, while a 15 x 10cm photo took between 1:41 via Bluetooth and 2:17 from an SD card – both of which are reasonable for a portable printer.

Thanks to the device’s conventional HP print engine, print quality is more than reasonable. Black text is sharp and free from noticeable fuzziness and colour on plain paper is smooth and bright, with no signs of banding or dither patterns. Photo prints are also fine, with good shadow detail, natural colours and smooth transitions in sea and sky. Given that this is not a particularly fast printer, noise level is quite high, peaking at 64dBA at half a metre.

The two ink cartridges are available in standard and high yield versions, though the difference between the standard and high yield black is only 60 pages and the high yield cartridge appears cheaper from several Internet suppliers.

Using the best prices we could find, a black and white page costs around 4.7p, while a colour one comes in at 10.2p. Both of these page costs are a little high, since the cartridges are normally designed for printers with much lower purchase prices.

HP Officejet 150 Mobile – Verdict

HP’s OfficeJet 150 Mobile shows what can be squeezed into quite a small form factor to create a mobile all-in-one, however it may still prove too bulky to carry conveniently on short trips. HP’s decision not to build wireless connectivity into the printer is a missed opportunity, as it restricts links to Windows devices and then only through a fairly convoluted Bluetooth setup. Overall then, a decent effort but one that ultimately falls a bit short.