Customers are impressed with the print quality, ease of use, and simple setup of the Smart Tank 7301 printer. However, some customers have experienced connectivity issues, slow scanning speeds, and difficulties with the paper tray. The small LCD display has also been a point of concern for some users.
This summary was generated by AI based on customer reviews.
The vast majority of our reviews come from verified purchases. Reviews from customers may include My Best Buy members, employees, and Tech Insider Network members (as tagged). Select reviewers may receive discounted products, promotional considerations or entries into drawings for honest, helpful reviews.
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Pros mentioned:
Print quality, Setup
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
GET THISSSS
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Posted . Owned for 2 months when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
This printer has saved my life. I work at in the mental health field and turn in progress notes weekly up to 50+ pages. I also print also various worksheet both black and colored. This printer was extremely easy to set it. Out of 10 printers I have used in the past few years, they either are hard to connect to Bluetooth, WiFi, set up in general but this was super easy peasy lemon squeezy!!!!!!! Took me 20 mins max to get it to run. Pages barelt ever get stuck. Only time when it has it was my majority my fault for letting the pages stump over one another. The ink reservoir my lord. The ink has been strong for 3 Months and I still have half a tank left. By far one of my best investments ! I print pages back to back and it doesn’t overheat. Color comes out great. Color contrast is amazing. No complaints yet nor do I think I will have one !!! I usually complain about printer 1 month in !!
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Print quality, Setup
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
HP saves the day
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Posted .
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Love this printer. Super easy to set up and the print quality is good for most common jobs (like my kid's homework, or general printing needs). We had an OfficeJet before and that was our scanning and printing workhorse until it finally quit working. Looking forward to many good years with this one.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Print quality
Cons mentioned:
Connectivity
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
Ink Tanks Are Not Enough
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This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
This is a maddening product. The ink tanks make frequent cartridge changes a thing of the past. Print quality is excellent. But! But! But! It goes offline every few minutes and you can’t get it back without pulling the power cord out. Why not an on/off switch ?? This printer has the most confusing mix of buttons and hold down together/in sequence instructions to get it to do what…Why not brighter lights, labelled buttons, and menu driven options- we’re not programming a garage door opener from 1990 are we ??
The paper feed is clunky and keeps jamming. Frequently pulling out the plug from the back doesn’t help. Scanning is somehow extra difficult- it takes 2 minutes before it starts to read in the document. The prior HP printer used cartridges but it was a reliable workhorse. They improved the ink but made everything else much worse.
However if you use the HP Smart App and route all your printing and scanning to the web ( no HP Direct is full of bugs) it miraculously works a lot better. But that means HP gets to read and scan all your documents. So it all comes down to you have to use HP Smart if you want it to work. Possibly it is an incompatibility between Windows and HP wireless network protocols? Yes I’m looking for another printer, one with a direct wifi connection that works, one that built a lot better, with better labels and menus. Overall promising and even enticing, but not worth it.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Print quality
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
Good print quality, horrible setup + instructions
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Posted . Owned for 3 weeks when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Overall this is an OK printer. It produces very good quality output, which I guess is the most important thing. I do like the 'ink tank' alternative to cartridges. And in relative terms, the price was right.
But... setting it up was a nightmare. HP forces you to use the "HP Smart" application, which is quite the opposite of "smart." The instructions in the box were a joke. I could not get anything at all to work using my laptop per the instructions. It is only possible to set this printer up using a phone and the downloaded app. Then the app requires you to enable "location" so that HP can "find" its printer in the world (an unnecessary and intrusive approach). Even after being "found" by HP, the printer would not recognize my home wifi network. After much Googling, aborted attempts, and using the "HP Print and Scan Doctor" it finally worked. Until I tried to scan something, and found that scanning requires you to log into your HP "account." Seriously? All needless hassle, way too complex and difficult to use.
Once you get it to work, the printer works well, though ease-of-use is further hindered by the unintuitive icons on the display. It helps to keep the tiny "reference guide" nearby to use as a cheat sheet.
Then there is the misleading marketing: "Two years free ink" (revised by BestBuy to read UP TO two years free ink, which is still misleading) strongly implies that there is a time consideration (2 years) with regard to included refills. There is not. You get the ink that's in the box, and that's it. Supposedly HP used some 'average use' measure to get to the "2 years" claim. I guess if you print a lot, you get far less. Shady marketing at best. An honest approach would have compared # of ounces included vs. that of competing ink cartridges - i.e., volume. Time is not a factor in how much ink is included.
Finally, the build quality of the printer is disappointing - although I find this to be true of most printer brands and models these days. Everything seems to be made of extra-flimsy, thin plastic. Time will tell whether it holds up. I would have given 4 or 5 stars for the "Quality" rating if the rating were limited to print quality, but I had to deduct for perceived build quality.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Setup
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
The Printer you want for Home Office & Homeschool!
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This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Easy setup with app.
Love that the printer heads are easily removable for cleaning, and the auto-alignment involves it scanning its own report and adjusting.
Pair those with the extra large ink resevoir, and this printer is what you've been wanting. Easily integrates via wifi with all phones and laptops in the home. Thanks HP!!
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Print quality
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
I like it.
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Posted . Owned for 3 weeks when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Im good with this purchase so far. I like the large capacity of the ink tanks since the ink on my prior office jet printer kept drying up & required replacing every 4-6 months. I just wish i could have found it in black color since all my other electronics are black.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Print quality
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
HP Smart Tank 7301 Came Through For Me!
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Posted . Owned for 1 week when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
This little beauty [HP Smart Tank 7301] saved me $800 in printing costs when my Epson Ecotank printer crapped out on me when I needed it most. Best Buy had the best price and delivered it in three days. Out of the box it took very little time to set up and immediately started printing over 1000 pages the first two days! Very good quality, no problems. I am NOT a "techie" person, so this is pretty amazing! I couldn't be happier.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Print quality
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Highly recommend
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Posted . Owned for 2 months when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
I was very skeptical on purchasing this printer however I was completely wrong! The prints are beautiful and bright. I have been using the printer since March and I use it everyday. I have gone through 5 reams of paper, made 8 teacher planners, and my kids have even used it, not sure how many copies they have made. But let me just say the ink hasn't budged, by now I would have replaced my old printer cartridges at least 3 to 4 times with all my prints I do. I am so happy with my purchase!
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Ease of use, Print quality
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Easy to set up
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Posted . Owned for 11 months when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Great printer and love the refills of ink. It was was easy to set up. I would suggest it to anyone looking to keep a printer around for a while
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Print quality
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Awesome printer
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Posted . Owned for 8 months when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
This printer is pretty awesome. I’ve already printed over a thousand pages of both black & white and color brochures; barely used any ink. This rivals my laser printer.
Owned for a few months. So far so good. No issues.
I would recommend this to a friend
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Not Disappointed
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Posted . Owned for 1 month when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
I'm a HP fan so choosing another HP printer was an easy decision. I don't use printers very often, so I was torn spending this much, but after reading the features I decided to pull the trigger.
It has been worth it so far. No issues with wireless printing from my Samsung Z Fold 5, Samsung S9 Ultra or my HP notebook.
It comes with bottles of ink that actually fills the cartriges via an opening hidden under the scanner bed. One of the main reasons I went with this particular model was because they advertise it comes with a 2 year supply of printing ink.
I would give it all 5's but I haven't had it long enough to give it a 5 on quality though it does seem solid.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Ease of use
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Best printing best purchase
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Posted . Owned for 1.5 years when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Best printing solution ever made this inktank technology made printing so cheaper than ever and its so easy to refill the ink
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Print quality
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
HP-Smart Tank Wireless Printer
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Posted . Owned for 9 months when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
This printer is really nice. It prints clearly and the wifi capability is very helpful.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Overall performance
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
The best
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Posted . Owned for 2 weeks when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
100% working great…………………………………………….…………,…………………..
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Print quality
Cons mentioned:
Lcd display, Scanning
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
Finally relief from the old ink game
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This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
I really like HP’s idea of separating the ink storage from the print heads and thereby increasing the amount of ink storage which reduces the cost and number of times that refills are needed. It does almost feel as though HP tried to inconspicuously find ways for you to use more of the ample ink storage though. For example, pressing the (i) will immediately spit out a printer status information sheet with no questions asked, so if you accidentally press the button… poof you just printed an unwanted piece of paper.
Filling the ink tanks was incredibly easy and I really like the visual ink level windows. HP did an amazing job of designing the ink bottles to be no drip. Kind of makes it feels like the old days of refilling ink cartridges before printer companies started putting chips in them to make it hard to do so but now without the mess. I can say my experience filling the tanks was 100% mess free, however, I did get a little ink on my hands when taking the seals off the top of the bottles so be advised. Each bottle will exactly fill its color’s tank so there is no guessing on amount to put in. There is nothing that I can tell that would prevent someone from loading an ink color into the wrong tank. I would hate to find out what kind of problems that would cause so be careful.
Unboxing was simple but the orange guard contraption HP has you discard is rather large and seems like a wasteful amount of plastic. The setup provided several hurdles for me. First off, I wasn’t really a fan of the recessed power plug, it is a good inch or so inside of the housing and harder that is seems that it should have been to plug the cord in. Somehow, I must have gotten the unit out of wireless setup mode maybe by inadvertently pressing the Wi-Fi button after plugging-in, but I don’t really know. Anyway, what that meant is I was totally unable to complete the Wi-Fi setup until doing a factory reset. If you see on the LCD display a blinking Wi-Fi icon with an exclamation you will likely have this problem… that’s where I ended up. After searching online, I found instructions on HP support site for resetting printer. Once reset the setup wizard worked well and walked through all aspects of setup including installing ink and print heads. Once setup the printer is easy to wirelessly connect and print from mobile devices and Windows or Mac computers with no special setup required.
I was able to connect to and access printer settings with the HP Smart App on an iOS phone, Windows PC, and iMac and it looked and functioned pretty much the same on all platforms. The app is easy to use and provides lots of printer information and configuration options. You will need this app often though, as unlike other HP printers I have owned very little configuration can be accomplished outside of using the Smart app. There are certain things you can do with various combinations of the physical buttons but good luck trying to remember how to do that without having the manual handy. This seems like such a throw-back design and is so non-intuitive as to be nearly unusable to the average user. I just don’t understand the design decision of not utilizing the LCD for some rudimentary options.
The LCD display is only for displaying the most basic of printer information with mostly icons and numerical error codes related to printer issues that are not easily identified without looking them up. Various types of status information can be printed out via pressing the (i) and other buttons in various ways. Other HP printers I have used have made much better use of the display than this one does. The user interface buttons on the front of the unit are small and hard to read, especially when not illuminated. Also, the setup guide is rather sparse and just guides you to plug in turn on and open the app. If you want to learn more detailed information about operating your printer you will have to go online and download the full users guide which is not included in the box.
On the positive side print quality is very good and print speed is also excellent. Photo printing is decent as well for a non-photo printer. Copies can be using the document feeder or placing document directly on the glass. I tested color and B&W copies of various types of documents with excellent results. Also scanned documents to my PC using the HP smart app and the Windows fax and scan app, both of which were easy to use and produced quality scans of documents and photos. There is unfortunately no way to initiate scanning from printer though.
I had an issue with scanning where the scan buttons would not illuminate when opening a document or inserting a document into feeder rendering the copy buttons non-functional. Only power-cycling the printer would get it working again. A couple of days later when contacted by HP support miraculously the problem went away, and I could not reproduce it with tech on the phone.
I really like the ease of wireless printing, output quality and speed and am really excited about the large ink capacity. My frustrating setup experience and the lackluster printer interface probably cost the printer at least a star for me.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Print quality, Setup
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Simply Awesome HP Printer
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This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
This is hands down, the most expensive printer I’ve ever owned. And that is one of its virtues. If you’re like me, over the years, you’ve been through too many printers. And the one thing they all have in common is those little, all too expensive, never seem to last long, printer cartridges we all spend too much money on and never seem to have on hand when we need one.
Enter the HP Smart Tank, 7300 Printer. This thing is a beast and that’s a compliment. This is the newest generation of printers, which uses reservoirs to hold large amounts of ink, which is beyond easy to fill and is supposed to last up to two years without needing to be refilled. And that my friends is if you typically print moderate to high volumes. Now I haven’t had this long enough to know, but I imagine the ink will last longer if you’re not a volume printer. HP suggests this printer is rated to print from 400 – 800 pages per month. That’s pretty high volume for a home printer. You should be able to print 8,000 color or 6,000 black pages using the Original HP ink which is included with the printer.
I’d like to start with giving major KUDOS to HP on the simple, I mean utterly SIMPLE set up process for this printer. Truth be told, we’ve been all in with HP for some time. We have two HP Spectre laptops and we’ve used HP Printers for years and have been extremely happy with them all. If you have great success with a product line, it just makes sense to stick with what works.
Having never owned a printer of this type, I was honestly dreading the setup. But all you do is unpack the printer. Remove some tape here, some cardboard there and plug her in. Since we’ve already been using HP Printers, we already had the HP Smart app on both laptops and all iPhone’s and iPads. But that’s the next step after you plug into power.
The HP Smart application literally walks you through the next steps with easy to understand (you honestly can’t mess this up) graphics. You connect to Wifi which HP says is Self-Healing, meaning network problems are resolved without the need for you to get involved. Then you empty the bottles of ink (which you can’t drip or make a mess with if your tried) and then install the Print Heads. That was the only part I missed as there is an orange assembly which looks important where the print heads go. And I missed that you simply remove, and discard said orange assembly and then install the print heads with ease. The printer springs into action, prints a test page, which you then scan to align the print heads and you’re done. I mean YOU’RE DONE. As I mentioned, they simply couldn’t make it any easier if they tried.
Now for the boring stuff, but necessary information. This puppy Prints, Scans, Copies, has an Automatic Document Feeder and of course is fully wireless. You can print up to 9 pages per minute, which is far more than any home printer I’ve ever owned. With up to 1200 x 1200 rendered DPI in black and 4800 x 1200 optimized DPI in color, there’s really nothing this printer can’t print well and in high clarity. I’ve printed lots of test pages and everything printed perfectly. It’s duplex printing capable as well.
The HP 7301 is AirPrint (Apple iPhone/iPad), Mopria certified (which means it meets the Mopria Alliance standards offering a simple seamless way to print or scan to any certified multi-function printer or scanner), Android Print, Direct Print and you can print or scan using the HP Smart App which as mentioned you need to download to your computer and smart devices.
Other boring, but you might want to know information is you can print up to 30 envelopes, do borderless printing, legal, Government Legal, Executive and photo printing. You can also print 99 copies at a time. Suffice to say, if you have a printing, copying, scanning need, I can’t imagine there’s anything this printer can’t do for you.
In case you can’t tell, I’m simply awed by this HP Smart Tank 7301 printer. It’s great looking. It can’t honestly be easier to get her up and running. And it’s incredibly versatile, provides high volume printing and with the two years worth of ink in this printer you won’t find yourself not being able to print on a lesser printer because you didn't know your print cartridge was getting low, and you didn’t have one on hand. Printing doesn’t get better or easier for the money than this. No it doesn’t.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Print quality
Cons mentioned:
Lcd display
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
A curious mix of fantastic and bad.
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This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
This is the most unique printer that I have experienced, and that uniqueness is not in a good way. This is not a bad printer at all, but it has enough quirks that you should be aware of before you purchase. Before I begin, I should note that I also have recently set up an Epson ET-series printer (direct competition that also uses a “tank” system with inexpensive ink bottles). So I will be comparing the two models.
First, the printer does NOT have any sort of reasonably usable display on it. It has an LCD display that shows several icons and can show a two-digit number. That is it. The first printer that I received had a hardware defect, and the printer could do nothing besides flash an exclamation point at me. You have to go to a computer or phone to even see what the error is. Competition from other brands generally feature a color display that can show you in text what is going wrong, and even show pictures on how to clear the problem. Not so with this.
Normally, I can plug in a printer and get it set up quite easily (install consumable, connect to WiFi, etc.). After it is running, I can then install drivers on the computers in the house. This printer is different. You NEED either a computer or phone to set it up. The phone app is required to move the print head carriage over to the middle so that you can actually install the repleacable print heads. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly a different direction from any other printer that I have set up in the last few decades.
Setup also requires loading the paper, and the Android app gave no advice on how to do this. I have set up enough printers where figuring this out was easy, but it fails the “grandpa” test where I am pretty sure that my father-in-law would be confused for a while. You also need to add the ink to the tanks. The ink bottles are NOT keyed in any way. If you are not careful, you could dump cyan ink in the yellow tank, and nothing will stop you. Not a big deal for most, but another “grandpa test” fail. Epson has the bottles keyed so that it is impossible to put ink in the wrong tank.
Setting up on the PC is easy. No manual driver download. You just do the normal “add printers” thing in Windows, and it is automatically set up for printing. The proper app is even downloaded from the Microsoft store. However, here is where things take a strange turn. If you want to actually scan anything, you have to use the “HP Smart” app that REQUIRES you to create an HP account. No account, no scanning at all. I find this to be rather abusive. What if you don’t want to make an account? Plus the app defaults to collecting usage metrics and sending advertising. The account also wants to send you advertising too (make sure to opt out of this). I have several children in my house in high school and college, and every one of them either needs to use my password, or make their own HP account. Bad move.
However, once everything is finally set up, it seems to work well. Printing is pleasingly fast and sharp, and the cost of ink should be quite low in the long term. The paper tray holds quite a bit, and the automatic document feeder in the scanner works well. The app scans all pages and then lets you make adjustments, finally saving them to a jpg or a pdf. The only drawback is that you seem to have to adjust contrast and brightness per individual page; I could not easily find a way to adjust all pages the same way.
Finally, I tried printing a photo from my Android phone (Google Pixel 4a 5g with OLED display). I also printed to the Epson EcoTank printer too. The colors from the Epson looked spot on compared to the phone’s display, while the HP seemed just a little bit more brown/yellow. For utility work (charts, graphs, etc.) this will be unnoticable, but I just thought that I should mention it. It is possible that a future app update may fix this. The one big advantage of this printer is that the print heads are easily replaceable, and the alignment stage consists of printing an alignment sheet and then putting it on the scanner. That is a nice touch that I have not seen the competition do.
So this is a solid printer that works well, but it has a few quirks. However, the competition is similarly priced, and may not have all of these quirks.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
Disappointed
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Posted . Owned for 1 month when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
It is not working at all seem like the cartridge is not working, the cartridge light is on and don’t know oh w what to do, it printed one and you can hardly see the colors. Is have not used it at all since I bought it.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend
Brand response from HP Team
Posted .
Hi, Manuel.
I’m sorry that your printer has not worked properly. I can certainly understand why a seemingly malfunctioning cartridge and poor print quality would be an unwelcome surprise. I want to help you resolve this situation, so I’ll offer some resources that I hope serve that end.
I can’t tell from your review why your printer has performed this way. I recommend that you contact us directly at +1 800-474-6836 so we can help you assess what’s happening and find the best course of action. To expedite the process, I recommend gathering the following information before the call:
- Model number - Serial number - Your location - Case number (from any previous contact with HP support)
I'll also mention that HP printers have a one-year warranty from their purchase date that covers hardware as well as ink supplies, so if it comes to that, you might consider making use of it. You can verify the warranty using the following link: - support.hp.com/us-en/checkwarranty
Keith HP Care hp.com/support
Pros mentioned:
Print quality
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Beautiful plus No More Expensive Ink Cartridges!
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This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
This printer is a superb choice if quality and cost per page is important to you. The HP 7301 Smart Tank Wireless All-in-One Printer is a very reliable, feature-rich but inexpensive, easy to use device which will economically and quietly print large quantities of documents at an excellent quality level.
HP Inc. is the personal computer and printer unit spun off from the original Hewlett-Packard company. (The remaining units became Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and are focused on the corporate market.) Hewlett-Packard was founded in 1939, operating out of a garage in Palo Alto and was the original Silicon Valley tech company. It designed and built precision instruments, then created its first minicomputers in 1966. These were followed by programmable calculators, including the famous HP-80 handheld calculator. In 1984 HP introduced its first desktop inkjet and laser printers. HP developed its own personal computers then merged with Compaq in 2002. Today HP is the second-largest personal computer manufacturer (after Lenovo.) The HP Imaging and Printing Group is the leading provider in the world for personal printers, scanners and supplies.
Here are the key features of this great multifunction printer:
• HP 7301 Smart Tank All-in-One Color Inkjet Printer/Copier/Scanner
• 2.7 inch monochrome LCD control screen
• Connectivity: Self-healing Wireless (802.11b/g/n/ac), Bluetooth, USB, Ethernet 10/100
• Ink capacity/page yield: Black 90 ml = approx. 6,000 pages, Cyan/Yellow/Magenta 70 ml each = approx. 8,000 pages
• Print resolution: up to 4800 x 1200 dpi
• ISO print speed: 15 ppm (Black), 9 ppm (Color)
• Automatic duplex (two-sided) printing
• Multi-page printing on a single sheet – up to 16 pages/images per side
• ISO duplex print speed: 6.5 ppm (Black), 4.5 ppm (Color)
• Paper capacity: 250 sheets in lower tray
• Paper sizes: Adjustable down to 3.5” width, Letter, A4, Legal, #10 envelopes
• Duty cycle: Up to 5,000 pages/month
• Scan function: up to 1200 x 2400 resolution, 8.5 x 11.7 inch flatbed (A4 paper size)
• Copy function: up to 99 copies, reduce/enlarge (25% to 400%), borderless, duplex
• Full function HP Smart app for PC, Mac and smart phones
• Dimensions: 16.8 inch Wide x 14.3 inch Deep x 9.5 inch Tall
• Weight: 17.0 pounds
• One year/30,000 sheet limited warranty
First impression: elegantly sculpted in a beautiful combination of arctic white, grey and slate with alternating colors and right angles that make the HP 7301 seem smaller than it is. It has a compact footprint (just 16.8” x 14.3”) and stands just 9.5” tall. HP cleverly designed the sheet feeder to fold flat when not in use, minimizing both the height and the width of the printer. The power cord has no bulky transformer on it so it adds to the clean look. Overall you will be pleased to share your office with this attractive unit, especially since it is very quiet. Wirelessly connected, it can be located in any convenient space – it does not need to be next to the PC it is serving. This is ideal for homes and small offices since you can also use this great device as a supplemental copier.
Setting up this printer is quite easy. HP protects the printer during shipping with tape around key parts, but all of the tape is bright blue and very easy to remove. The quick setup instructions are well-written and you could just read them. But an even easier method is to download the HP Smart app to your phone. Attach the power cord to the printer, turn it on and add some paper to the tray. Then just obey the illustrated step-by-step instructions in the app. Filling the printer ink tanks seems foolproof. Once ink is loaded, snap the print heads into position and an automatic alignment process will be conducted.
The HP Smart app will connect the printer to your wireless network. This was the easiest step in the setup process. The printer will automatically join the WiFi network to which your smart phone is connected. At that point the printer will be accessible to any computer or phone on that network. There are two alternates to the wireless connection option: attaching an Ethernet cable to your router or using a USB cable to your PC.
If at any point in the setup you need assistance, HP has prepared excellent videos to explain the process.
If you have a Windows PC just go to Settings, then Devices and select Add Printer. The HP 7301 printer will be discovered and the driver automatically downloaded. Any computer on your network should be able to access all of the printer features with the HP Smart app - a superbly designed software suite, containing easy-to-follow printing, scanning, copying, faxing and photo printing controls.
The HP 7301 has a large (250 sheet) paper capacity in the lower paper drawer. It loads easily and is adjustable for multiple paper sizes. To print envelopes you must remove the paper and adjust the paper guides to the width of the envelope. If you want to use legal-size paper, the end of the paper tray extends to accommodate the longer paper stock.
Print quality is really excellent, even in the economy (standard) mode. In the higher quality (business document) mode the print quality matches most laser printers I have used. The printer driver provides nice printing options like 2 on 1, 4 on 1 and up to 16 on 1 (number of page images on a single sheet of paper), borderless, scaled, fit-to-page, booklet and others. The most useful option is the automatic duplexing (two-sided printing) which it manages without drama.
Photo printing quality is quite good and will satisfy most purposes. (If you want really outstanding photo printing quality you should invest in a dedicated photo printer with more than three ink colors.) This printer’s color capability will be best used in printing business documents (graphs, multi-colored text, PowerPoint slide copies, etc.) and it does a very nice job on such tasks. The printing speed is not equal to that of a laser printer but certainly acceptable at about 15 pages/minute (black) and about 9 pages/minute for color documents (speeds estimated by my own testing.) For home use and most small offices this is more than adequate.
Scanning, at resolutions up to 1200 x 2400 dpi, can be managed from the HP Smart app which will scan to a PDF, stich large documents together and facilitate OCR, among other features.
The copy function is accessed by two buttons on the printer, one for color copies and one for black copies. Hold the button down or tap it to increase the number of copies. It is fine, producing up to 99 copies in black print or color at 1:1 size ratio from each original. But the claim that it can shrink or enlarge originals, adjusting contrast, etc. should have an asterisk. The only way to do these functions is by first scanning the originals to a PDF, then print the PDF using the scale (zoom) setting on the print control page.
There are eight control buttons on the printer (Power, ID Copy, Color Copy, Black Copy, WiFi, Information, Resume and Cancel.) Most are self-explanatory. The “Information” button produces various reports, depending upon how long you hold the button and what other buttons you press at the same time. One puzzling button on the printer is “ID Copy” which is really only useful if you want to make a copy of the front and back of a card (e.g., driver’s license, credit card, etc.) on a single sheet of paper. While this may be useful at times, it seems odd that HP would devote a button to this task.
I tested each feature of the HP 7301 and all worked flawlessly (with the only quibble being the clumsy method of creating enlarged or reduced copies.) The unit seems very solid and I expect that it will work for years without complaint, given its HP heritage.
The most important feature of the HP 7301 is its massive ink tanks. It holds 90 ml of black ink and a total of 210 ml of color ink (70 ml each of cyan, yellow and magenta). Those ink tanks will print about 6,000 sheets of black ink documents and about 8,000 sheets of color documents. If you print ten pages a day that initial ink supply will last you nearly four years! The best part is the incredibly low cost of the ink. The refills for the ink tanks are far less expensive than replacement cartridges. The cost comparison to standard ink cartridges is amazing. A typical replacement inkjet cartridge for other printers costs $30 to $40 and will print 220-350 pages at an ink cost per page of about $0.09. The ink cost per page of the HP Smart Tank system is about $0.004 – less than 5% of the cost of a standard inkjet printer!
With a traditional inkjet printer you probably minimize your printing to avoid costly ink cartridge replacements. This HP 7301 will free you to print much more readily since you have a cost per page lower than almost any other printing device on the market.
Those savings are due to the fact that you are not replacing the print head, as you must with each new ink cartridge, and the elimination of the plastic cartridge body cost. The ecological benefit of eliminating this waste is a nice bonus. And having a large supply of ink will eliminate that dreaded emergency trip to the all-night office supply store to replace an empty cartridge when you need to print a document for an early morning meeting!
One caution: Be sure to print at least one page in black ink and one color copy each month to keep the ink lines from potentially drying out from lack of use.
In summary, the HP Smart Tank 7301 All-in-One Inkjet Printer/Copier/Scanner is superb. I give this great printer a full five stars and my unqualified endorsement. You won’t regret this purchase!
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Ease of use, Print quality
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Excellent All-In-One!
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This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
I haven't had a need for a printer at home for a long time, but since I am now working from home instead of the office, this Smart Tank 7301 is truly a god send. I love how easy it is to not only set up, but also use and refill.
In the box comes with the printer well protected, printer heads, color ink and black ink bottles, power cord and the usual paperwork.
Set up was a breeze and the App made it super easy and straight forward. Set by step it tells you exactly what needs to be done all the way from plugging it in to scanner alignment. The steps even tell you when to remove the protective plastics and cardboard. I'll admit I was hesitant to do the ink bottles, but the spill-free bottles made it so even a child can do it.
There are many ways to connect to it. WiFi requires the PIN inside the printer if you are connecting multiple PCs to it that way. BT, LAN, and old school USB. I have my Phone, 2 tablets, 2 laptops and 4 PC all connected to it at once.
Out of the box with the ink, HP claims to give you 8000 color or up to 6000 black and I can attest to that fact. Working from home, I have already gone through 3 packs of paper (500 per) and even a few hundred for personal use including a TON of shipping labels. The color/black lvls hardly broke a sweat.
Printing is by all means not slow for an inkjet at all, but now super fast as a laser. It to me is perfect when printing out my work packages to ship off. Never once have I caught myself staring at the printer waiting for it to finish.
Even the scanner is super hi def at making copies. I was quite surprised when making a scans and seeing how they looked on my PC.
In the end, this all-in-one is lives up to it's name. Can do a massive amount of printing before a refill is needed, great connectivity options and fast for an inkjet. I would recommend this printer in a heartbeat but even quicker to people like me working from home.