I like Apple products. It doesn’t make them any cheaper though…or their peripherals either. That’s why I was pleasantly surprised to discover that their is a decently priced HP printer out there with Apple’s AirPrint capabilities. Yes. You now can be a part of Steve Job’s dream of individuals printing directly from their iOS devices.
AirPrint was announced with iOS 4.2 and integrates pretty seamlessly into the UI. Basically, if you see something you would like to print from the internet on your Apple device, simply click the ‘arrow pointing out of the box’ icon and a “Print” option will appear. If your printer is hooked up, it prints just as you wirelessly would expect over your WiFi network. Pretty slick.
What printer to get though? Well, at this point, there is a surprisingly short list to choose from…and only one brand, HP.
My wife and I were in the market for a new printer as we now have two computers in the house and wanted to get one with wireless capabilities so we could avoid the hassle of a wired printer set up. I remembered Airprint and decided to do a bit of cost research as I have an iPhone and hopefully will be getting the new iPad pretty soon. This would make printing to our printer with most all of our gadgets pretty seamless.
Being disappointed, but not surprised at most airprint enabled models ranging in the $100-$200 range (we were going for dirt cheap), I was excited to run across the HP Photosmart D110A Wireless e-All-in-One Printer on Amazon.com for $65.75, only $15 more than basic wireless printers we were considering. Plus, this was an HP which we’ve been happy with in the past.
The specs seem great. For our minimal printing needs, it’s got a decent rating of 29 pages per minute in black and 23 ppm in color as well as 4″ x 6″ photo printing capabilities. The built in scanner has a 1200-dpi optical resoultion and a nice LCD display helps you navigate the various functions and menus of the printer.
Being the geek that I am, I love the bells and whistles of a wireless printer including the ability to email documents to the device and have them print immediately at home. This especially comes in handy to scare my wife when she is home to see it printing by itself.
We haven’t had it long, but overall we’ve been happy with the purchase. A $65 price tag is not bad for a printer with this many options. Looking back I guess I could have gotten an even cheaper printer and simply used Google’s new Cloud Print for mobile to print from my iPad and iPhone but of course I learned of this after we had made the purchase. Still, I think it will be a great printer and if you are in the market for such a device, looking into it. What are some other great tech printers out there? What do you look for in a printer? Sound off in the comments.
