A Forwardthinking Inkjet

Hp officejet pro 8730.

Portrait of Tammy Strobel

Hp officejet pro 8730.

My Reading Room
The OfficeJet Pro 8730 marks quite a departure from HP’s previous offerings, especially in the design department. An A4 thermal inkjet printer that weighs a hefty 15.2kg, the 8730 seems to have a longerthan-most front protrusion at first glance, though it actually saves space and is less of a nuisance than many other printers during use.
For instance, the 8730 has a fully contained output tray (it’s more like a landing pad), so printouts land inside the printer itself, instead of the flimsy pull-out extensions most other printers have. A 250-sheet input tray comes as standard, but you can add a second tray to double the capacity. Another highlight is its 50-sheet ADF that supports one-pass, two-sided scanning.
The 8730 also packs a large 4.3-inch color touchscreen that’s responsive and works well with the icon-driven user interface. Its front and center position is necessary so as not to block access to the ink cartridges, which you’ll find after lifting a flap on the output tray. There’s also a USB Host port at the bottom left, which you can use if you need to print from or save scans to USB drives.
There are no output trays or
extensions to pull out; printouts
simply drop safely inside the
printer.
There are no output trays or extensions to pull out; printouts simply drop safely inside the printer.
AT A GLANCE
TECHNOLOGY Thermal inkjet.
ISO PRINT SPEED Up to 24ppm (black) / 20ppm (color).
RECOMMENDED MONTHLY PAGE VOLUME Up to 2,000 pages.
PRINT QUALITY Up to 2,400x1,200 optimized dpi for photo.
PRICE $649.

CONCLUSION

A cleverly-designed, proquality inkjet printer with very good mobile printing features. 

Another USB 2.0 port for connecting to PCs, as Hardware well as the Ethernet and RJ–11 modem jacks (the 8730 does fax too) are located at the back. The 8730 supports 802.11n Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct, and works swimmingly with mobile printing protocols like Apple AirPrint and HP’s own ePrint. Connecting to cloud services is also easy through the HP Print Apps.
The OfficeJet Pro 8730 has a top ISO print speed of 24ppm for black and 20ppm for color. At its full stride, it clocked 27.5ppm and 20.5ppm respectively, which rivals many laser multifunction printers at this price. But if I were to nitpick, the 8730’s first-page-out time of 8 to 10 seconds is less than stellar.
Print quality-wise, it’s on a par with premium inkjets I’ve tested in the past: text quality is excellent and doesn’t easily smudge. That said, it’s no laser quality, especially at small font sizes. Color and graphics performance is good too, though gradations could be smoother. If you’re looking to get a premium inkjet MFP, it’s well worth a look.

PICTURES HP.

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