HP Officejet 4630 – Print Speeds

HP rates the OfficeJet 4630 at 8.8ppm mono and 5.2ppm in colour. In our tests, the mono print speed varied from 6.5ppm for a five-page text document, to 9.1ppm for one in draft mode.

The reason we quote the draft mode speed is that HP’s draft is better than most and in many circumstances we would be happy to use it for everyday printing. Characters sometimes look a little wavy, but are pretty much as dense as in normal print.

We usually expect to see an increase in speed on our longer 20-page test, but in this case it was slightly slower than the shorter documents, at 6.4ppm. Duplex print gave 3.9 sides per minute, which is respectable for a low-cost machine like this, though our black text and colour graphics test gave 2.5ppm, which is slow. 15 x 10cm photos from PC and smartphone took around 1:20.

HP Officejet 4630 – Print Quality and Costs

Print quality is generally very good, with dense text, though showing a little spatter. Colour graphics are very well reproduced, with no signs of dithering and good black text over colour, without smear or head lowing.

Photo prints are good, too, with smooth colour gradations, detail in the shadows and natural colours throughout. The printer is a little noisy and we measured peaks of 64dBA at 0.5m.

The two print cartridges are available in standard and high yield varieties, though even the high yield are rated at 480 pages black and 330 pages colour, which isn’t a lot.

Using the best prices we could find, page costs come out at 4.8p for mono and 10.6p for colour print, including 0.7p for paper. Both these are high, with the mono cost the highest we’ve seen for a while. The 301XL cartridges appear to have risen in price quite a bit, recently.

Should I buy an HP Officejet 4630?

This is a well-equipped all-in-one, but there’s plenty of competition at the price, including the recently reviewed Epson Expression Premium XP-615 and Canon’s https://www.trustedreviews.com/canon-pixma-mg3550_Printer_review PIXMA MG3550. The Epson is more suitable for those with a keen interest in photography, with its twin trays, card slots and PictBridge socket.

The Canon has similar print quality to this Officejet, but a few LEDs are all the control display you get. It’s slower and more noisy, too.

Verdict

This is a neat little all-in-one, well geared to its advertised purpose, as a smartphone and tablet printer, though just as capable as a PC or Mac machine. It’s quite quick, produces high quality print and has flexible wireless support. It’s not that cheap to run, though.