HP’s latest printer is a blast from the past and a nod to the work-from-home hybrid era – HP ENVY Inspire

Over the last two years plenty of people discovered they didn’t quite have what they needed in terms of a home printer. Be it home schooling or new work-from-home conditions that printer many had just wasn’t perfectly suited. And born from that era is the new HP ENVY Inspire.

HP call it an all-round printer, and in reality they’ve found the perfect balance between a printing workhorse and the casual printer.

If you’re thinking “people don’t use printers anymore” – you’re dead wrong. HP’s research showed Aussies are using their printers for life-admin, like printing contracts, renewals, insurance and all such things, as well as printing work documents and of course education.

 “ENVY Inspire was built based on first-hand understanding of what is needed in our new normal, as the team that developed it did so while working remotely in the pandemic,” said Rachael Williams, Director of Personal Systems, HP Australia & New Zealand. “It brings together our best products, photo inks and services – combined with the smartest printing system HP+, our best-in-class HP Smart App, innovative Instant Ink delivery – providing families with our most versatile home printing system yet.” 

Relying heavily on the HP+ printer subscription program which not only offers support and environmental features, but also the HP Instant Ink program which ensures you’ve always got Ink – delivered direct to your door.

The HP ENVY Inspire is a stylish looking unit too, because printers don’t need to be bland do they? A couple of options out there, one I call the Ritchie Benaud – which has a couple of shades of cream or beige, and the other which has a dull blue highlight.

Under the hood is the most fascinating choice from HP – dual ink cartridges, your black and your colour. Rather than the separate colour cartridges that became more common in the last five years, and rather than the ink-tank style approach which has also been favoured, these far more traditional print cartridges also include the actual print head.

There’s two advantages to this. Firstly, for the casual printer, there’s less risk of the print head drying yp.

Secondly, a print head in the cartridge has a finer print capability, making it better for photo printing.

Speaking of which, in the front paper tray, is a specific photo paper slot so you can have photo printing at the ready.

Oh, and there’s double sided photo paper too – but you don’t print a photo on both sides, instead you print some details of the photo on the back – just like your mum used to back in the day in her own hand-writing.

The HP ENVY Inspire comes in two models, the 7900e and 7200e series and are available now at HP.com.au and Harvey Norman for $179 and $149 respectively.