HP Officejet Pro 8000 (A809) inkjet printer

With the Officejet Pro L7590 and the Officejet Pro K5400dn, HP proved that inkjets can compete with laser printers. The HP Officejet Pro 8000 A809 serves as yet another testament to this.

This colour inkjet printer has features that rival the HP Colour LaserJet CP2025dn, offering automatic duplex as standard, along with Ethernet and USB connectivity.

By separating the ink cartridges from the printhead in the Officejet Pro 8000 — feeding ink through small tubes between both components — HP can use larger cartridges without making the printhead heavier. This has definite benefits: high-yield cartridges are quoted at 1400 pages for each of the colour cartridges and 2200 pages for black. The printer's consumables cost of 14.2c per A4 page make it one of the cheapest inkjets available, though more expensive laser printers can manage 3-4c per page. The feature set and ink delivery system do add to the HP Officejet Pro 8000's footprint though. It is 494mm wide and almost 680mm deep with duplexer installed and trays fully extended (it's not very tall, however).

The input tray on the Officejet Pro 8000 inkjet printer can fit up to 250 A4 sheets at a time, and it can be extended to allow paper to be restocked without having to lift the output tray. Unfortunately, the output tray is only connected to the printer by small divots, which it easily falls out of.

The HP Officejet Pro 8000 is slow at initiating jobs, taking an average of 18-20 seconds to print the first page of a document, but subsequent pages come out very fast for an inkjet printer. In draft mode, mono documents printed at an average speed of 22.3 pages per minute, while in normal quality this drops to 15.8ppm (which is still quite quick). Colour documents printed at 22.2ppm in draft and 9.2ppm in normal.

Although the Officejet Pro 8000 inkjet printer doesn't have the consistent speeds offered by laser printers, the draft print speeds rival the likes of the HP Colour LaserJet CP3505dn. Even photo printing is quick, taking roughly 29sec for a standard 4x6in print and 1min 9sec for an A4 photo.

Mono documents from the HP Officejet Pro 8000 don't quite have the accuracy of documents produced by laser printers, though text is still readable even at 7pt. The printer produces slightly feathered characters across small, normal and large font sizes — laser printers still hold a clear advantage in mono printing.

Colour quality is much better. Apart from blues, which tend to be slightly pale, the HP Officejet Pro 8000 inkjet printer produces an excellent colour palette with accurate reds, greens and yellows, though it still lacks the detail that makes for excellent photos. Colour documents and photos are both vibrant and attractive; the only thing stopping us from recommending the HP Officejet Pro 8000 as a regular photo printer is the noticeable amount of banding visible across all photos.

As a competitor to laser printers, the HP Officejet Pro 8000 inkjet printer puts up a good fight. It delivers good quality documents at a lightning-fast speed and a low cost per page. Laser printers will still produce better quality mono documents at a cheaper cost per page, but this inkjet printer's low price tag and good colour printing are a decent trade-off.

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