The HP OfficeJet 250 All-in-One Portable Printer is exactly as the name describes: it’s a portable all-in-one printer that brings tethered printer functionality and print quality to a portable form factor. Its high price is largely justified by its wide range of features–most of which adds legitimate, useful functionality–and great print quality, making it a strong contender for the best printer in the market today.
Related: Also check the HP Officejet 200 Mobile Printer review
Why We Like It – HP OfficeJet 250 All-in-One Portable Printer
The HP OfficeJet 250 All-in-One Portable Printer is a great mid-range mobile printer with high quality prints, a solid array of features beyond its ability to print (copy functionality, scanning, etc.), and of course portability. Its price is a bit high for a portable printer, but it’s a very solid product all around.
- Good efficiency for a mobile printer
- All-in-one functionality
- Great print quality for product class
- Very heavy for a portable printer
Related: Get other quality printers in our HP Officejet 4650 review
Speed
Print speed is average for a portable printer, which is to say it’s very mediocre overall. When printing black text-based documents off, print speed is just shy of 10 pages per minute; this puts it on par with its lower end brother, the HP OfficeJet 200 Mobile Printer, and well ahead of the pricier Epson WorkForce WF-110’s 6 pages per minute. It won’t hold a candle to a dedicated wall printer, but it’s par for the course for a portable one.
Print Quality
Print speed won’t impress, but print quality might; text quality is solid and image quality is surprisingly good, particularly for its low price point. It won’t match the prints of a professional shop, sure, but colors are vibrant and it handles lines and gradients well, and it’s better than budget photo printers like the Fujifilm Instax Mini Link Smartphone Printer – Dusky Pink. The Canon Pixma iP110 offers similar image quality, but text quality is much worse.
Efficiency
The HP OfficeJet 250 All-in-One Portable Printer has high yields for a portable printer, but it’s expensive to maintain overall compared to a traditional tethered printer. Its running costs of 6 cents a page are, frankly, dreadful compared to even a mediocre wall printer, but it’s a very solid figure for a portable one; costs of 8 cents and even higher are pretty standard for this class.
Advanced Features
Most buyers will likely be interested in the HP OfficeJet 250 All-in-One Portable Printer for its advanced features, and in that regard it more than delivers. Because it’s an all-in-one, it can scan and copy documents as well, and it has basic Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct functionality for mobile printing.
Value
Value is where the HP OfficeJet 250 All-in-One Portable Printer struggles a bit. If you’re going to use its all-in-one features, it’s a very good buy for a multitude of reasons; print quality is good, and the extra features add legitimate functionality to it. If you’re just using it as a printer though, it’s around $100 too expensive; its print quality isn’t far off from its cheaper competition, though it does have lower running costs than most portable printers.
HP OfficeJet 250 All-in-One Portable Printer Wrap-up
If you need a portable all-in-one, the HP OfficeJet 250 All-in-One Portable Printer is the printer to get. Its print quality isn’t much better than cheaper options, but the amount of functionality it brings to the table is extremely nice to see both at this price point and just overall. You might be better off saving $100 and getting the Canon Pixma iP100 or a cheaper HP OfficeJet if you only want to print, but its lower running costs might still make it worth buying, and if you need more than printing functionality it’s a complete no-brainer.
