HP OfficeJet Pro 8620 – Print Speeds

HP quotes decent print speeds for the Officejet Pro 8620, of 21ppm for mono print and 16.5ppm for colour. However, our 5-page text print took 24 seconds giving a speed of 12.5ppm, though this did increase to 15.8ppm in draft mode and 16.9ppm for the longer, 20-page document.

The 20-page document printed in duplex produced 9.6 sides per minute and a single-sided, 5-page black text and colour graphics test produced 8.8ppm. All these speeds are very impressive for an inkjet machine, despite note quite meeting HP’s claims.

A single-page colour copy from the scanner glass took 12 seconds and a 5-page mono copy through the ADF took 38 seconds. Five duplex pages copied in 1:54. These are also very respectable times and 15 x 10cm, full colour photos took from 58 seconds in normal print mode from an Android device, to 1:11 in best mode from a PC.

HP OfficeJet Pro 8620 – Print Quality and Costs

We’ve come to expect good quality print on both plain and photo paper from HP inkjets, but we weren’t that impressed here. Text was not as clean cut as we usually see, nor as black, and some characters showed slight fuzziness.

The greyness, viewed under a loupe, turned out to be a lack of full ink cover, with white paper fibres showing through. Colour graphics are reasonably well reproduced, though mono text on colour shows some bleed. Solid colours in a colour copy were slightly banded as well.

Colour photos are excellent though, with smooth colour transitions, strong shadow detail and very natural colours.

The black ink cartridges are available in two yields, while the three colours come in just XL versions, but all the capacities are closer to a business laser than traditional inkjet levels. We calculate a mono page at 1.8p and a colour one at 5.4p, very similar to several other SOHO-style inkjets we’ve tested recently and considerably lower than any equivalently priced colour laser MFP.

Should I buy an HP OfficeJet Pro 8620?

This machine is definitely built for business and a lot of its facilities will fit well with small offices of all kinds. There are strong rivals, though, like the £65 cheaper Brother MFC-J6520DW.

Although the Brother machine is quite a bit slower, it has very similar running costs and can handle A3, as well as A4, paper. The Brother printer doesn’t support NFC, but in an office environment this seems like a small consideration.

Verdict

It’s a shame if HP is sacrificing its print quality for extra speed, as although the OfficeJet Pro 8620 is very quick for an inkjet machine in this class, there are several places in which mono and colour print doesn’t come up to the standard of HP’s own, cheaper, home all-in-ones. In other respects, including running costs and convenience, this is a good, small office device.

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