HP Photosmart 7520 Pro Reviews

HP's Photosmart 7520 is a stellar printer for home use, but it's also more than capable for home office and small office use. If you're looking for a quality printer that's great for both text and photo printing, look no further. This one's a prince among inkjets.

It feels strange to call the HP Photosmart 7510 a legacy model considering it hit store shelves only last year, but HP has already issued an upgrade with the new Photosmart 7520, an equally efficient all-in-one device that adds a few useful features like a dedicated fax machine and an additional front-loading USB port to use with an external storage drive. Like the model it replaced, the 7520 can access HP's ePrintCenter apps directly on the large 4.33-inch landscape display, though a wireless network is required to log into the store. The Web connectivity also engages HP's suite of apps, including the convenient ePrint service that takes your print queue to the cloud and adds remote printing. The $200 HP Photosmart 7520 offers no shortage of useful apps in the ePrintCenter, not to mention high resolution yields for an affordable price, but you'll be just as happy with the "older" Photosmart 7510 if you can find it at a discount.

The Photosmart 7520 seems like an excellent bit of hardware, but HP's simplistic drivers will prevent demanding users getting the best from it

The HP Photosmart 7520 e-All-in-One is similar to the Photosmart 7510 in more than just looks. You'll find that the specs list is almost identical with the only noticeable differences being the increased print speeds and the addition of a front side USB port. But that's not necessarily a bad thing because all the things I loved about the Photosmart 7510 -- quick print speeds, HP ePrint, web-connected apps, large (and responsive) touch screen and creative options -- I love on the Photosmart 7520. And I found the photo print quality to be improved during our tests. I wouldn't recommend an upgrade from the Photosmart 7510 to the Photosmart 7520, but if you are looking for a new all-in-one, the Photosmart 7520 offers a reasonable initial cost, family features, a compact footprint and reliable devices.

The HP Photosmart 7520 e-All-in-One is limited by a low paper capacity and lack of Ethernet, but it supports Wi-Fi and delivers high-quality output plus lots of features.

The running costs are modest, and the 7520 does an awful lot very well. Speeds are often quite good, and it fared particularly well on photos. Add in the wonderful interface, and this is quite the all-rounder.

HP's Photosmart 7520 offers outstanding print quality and ease of use, with all the features most small or home office users need. It's definitely worth consideration--especially by photo mavens. Canon’s Pixma MX892 is a similarly straightforward and competent choice.

While overall we found the Photosmart 7520 a fine printer, especially when printing photos, this model’s high CPPs and its low-yield print cartridges gave us pause. Some other AIOs churn out comparable photos at a lower per-page cost, and, if you use this one a lot, you’ll be replacing the ink cartridges often. Granted, the higher-yield so-called "XL" cartridges provide slightly better CPPs and significantly higher capacity, but we always give the cost of consumables a lot of weight in our overall assessment of an AIO’s value. And this one falls short on that score.