Need a reliable printer but in a tight budget? You can put HP OfficeJet 5255 and HP Envy 5055 into your scope of consideration. These printers are available for less than a hundred bucks, making them very budget-friendly. Below, you can learn more about the differences between HP OfficeJet 5255 vs HP Envy 5055 to determine which one to get.
What we will discuss below include:
– The size and weight of each printer
– The ink cartridges that they use and the estimated paper yields
– The features and capabilities of each printer
– The performance of HP OfficeJet 5255 vs HP Envy 5055
– Which HP printer that is more recommended for you
Design and Dimensions
Like most value printers designed for home and light office use, HP OfficeJet 5255 and HP Envy 5055 are built with modesty. They look professional, but are almost too generic. They appear pretty much like other HP printers of the same category (see also: HP Envy 5055 vs 6255). They each have a black color, a front paper tray, and a small display touchscreen.
HP OfficeJet 5255 vs HP Envy 5055 actually have similar footprints. Each of them measures 17.53 inches wide and 22.22 inches deep. Both printers are quite compact and space-friendly, so they can fit quite easily in most rooms.
The difference is on the height. HP OfficeJet 5255 is taller and beefier, with a height of 7.81 inches. This is because HP OfficeJet 5255 has a few additional features, such as the fax and the ADF. On the other hand, HP Envy 5055 is shorter and sleeker with a height of 5.04 inches, and is lacking some of the said additional features.
They also weigh differently. HP OfficeJet 5255 is indeed heavier at 14.44 lbs, whereas HP Envy 5055 is lighter at 11.93 lbs. So, if you need a printer which you can easily move between home and office, HP Envy 5055 can be a more ideal choice due to being more compact and more lightweight.
Both printers, of course, have plastic construction. The hard plastic feels quite solid, but make sure to avoid dropping these printers from a height. Both printers use a horizontal paper tray, instead of a top-loading design. Which means, these printers use rubber rollers and are not really recommended for media that can’t be bent. Regular paper sheets can be handled just fine.
The 2.2-inch display touchscreen on the front is a monochrome panel. It works pretty well, though it feels somewhat slow to respond to a tap. But this is not a real problem as long as you have a bit of patience. On the positive side, the user interface is very intuitive and easy to use.
Ink Cartridges
Both HP OfficeJet 5255 vs HP Envy 5055 are dual-cartridge printers. Each of them uses a black cartridge and a tri-color cartridge. However, they work with different ink cartridges, and you should expect different page yields from them. In general, HP OfficeJet 5255 is better because the ink cartridges that it uses can yield more pages before replacements are due.
HP OfficeJet 5255 is compatible with HP 63 ink cartridges. There are three different sizes to choose from: XL, standard, and economy.
The XL cartridges are suitable for heavy use. The XL black cartridge can print 480 pages before it needs to be replaced, whereas the XL tri-color cartridge can print 330 pages.
The standard cartridges are recommended for reliable performance at medium printing frequency. The standard black cartridge can print about 190 pages, whilst the tri-color cartridge can print about 160 pages.
If you only print occasionally, you can choose the cheap economy cartridges. The economy black cartridge can print 170 pages and the economy tri-color cartridge can print 140 pages.
HP Envy 5055, on the other hand, works with HP 65 ink cartridges. There are only two sizes, which are XL and standard. Both the XL black and the XL tri-color are expected to yield 300 pages per cartridge. Meanwhile, the standard black cartridge can only print about 120 pages, and the standard tri-color cartridge can only print about 100 pages. Nevertheless, HP Envy 5055 remains as an ideal choice if you only print a few pages daily or weekly.
Scan, Copy, and Fax
Both HP OfficeJet 5255 and HP Envy 5055 have a scanner and a copier. The specifications are similar. Each printer here has a flatbed scanner, which has an optical resolution of 1200 ppi. This is more than good enough for documents. They can also scan photos with decent quality. The scanned files can be saved in RAW, JPG, or PDF format.
The copier function uses the same flatbed scanner. The maximum copy capacity is 50 pages. The copier can work with both black-and-white and colored pages. The copy results are great for most documents.
However, HP OfficeJet 5255 also has a fax function. The fax supports both black-and-white and color pages. The maximum fax resolution is 300 x 300 dpi. The memory can store up to 100 pages. Meanwhile, HP Envy 5055 does not have any fax function. So, if you really need the ability to fax documents, you know which printer to buy.
Automatic Document Feeder (ADF)
The next difference between HP OfficeJet 5255 vs HP Envy 5055 that you may need to consider is the automatic document feeder (ADF). HP OfficeJet 5255 has this feature, whereas HP Envy 5055 doesn’t.
You can find the ADF on the top of HP OfficeJet 5255. The obvious advantage of having an ADF is that you don’t need to manually insert the pages when scanning – with a flatbed scanner, the process of scanning multiple pages manually can be very time-consuming and inconvenient. The ADF will automatically take a sheet after sheet, so you can do other things while waiting your document to finish scanning. The maximum capacity of the ADF is 35 sheets.
The other advantage of the ADF is that it will actually allow you to scan larger pages. The flatbed scanner only has a maximum scan size of 8.5 x 11.69 inches, which is suitable for A4 sheets but not enough for Legal sheets. The ADF has a maximum scan size of 8.5 x 14 inches, hence allowing you to deal with Legal sheets properly.
HP Envy 5055 doesn’t have an ADF. This is not a big problem if you don’t need to scan a lot of pages frequently. However, note that the maximum scan size of the flatbed scanner is only 8.5 x 11.69 inches, which can take A4 but not Legal paper sizes.
Other Features
Each HP printer here has a Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port to connect to computers. However, this USB port doesn’t support direct printing from a flash drive or mobile device. There is no Ethernet port, but both printers do come with built-in 802.11n dual-band Wi-Fi, which is pretty impressive.
With the Wi-Fi, you can connect either printer to a wireless network. Installing the printer on the network is quick and straightforward. Then, you can print from any device that is connected to the same network.
Alternatively, you can also print directly from a mobile device with the Wi-Fi. Both HP OfficeJet 5255 and HP Envy 5055 support mobile printing via HP ePrint, HP Smart App, and Apple AirPrint. These printers can work with Android, iOS, Symbian, and Windows smartphones and tablets. This is a very convenient feature if you often work from a mobile device while on the go, as you won’t need to transfer your documents to a PC just to get them printed.
Both printers support duplex (two-sided) printing. The input tray of each printer can hold up to 100 sheets of paper, whereas the output tray’s maximum capacity is 25 sheets. Both printers are compatible with plain paper, matte photo papers, glossy photo papers, envelopes, as well as HP brochure and presentation papers.
HP OfficeJet 5255 and HP Envy 5055 users living in certain countries (including the US, Canada, and several European countries) are eligible for the HP Instant Ink service. With this service, your printer will send the ink level information to HP. Whenever your ink runs low, a replacement cartridge is immediately sent to you. HP will charge on a monthly basis according to how many pages that you print each month.
Print Performance
The overall print quality and performance of HP OfficeJet 5255 and HP Envy 5055 are similar. Each of them has a print resolution of 1200 x 1200 dpi, which is great for text documents and documentation images. When printing on special HP photo papers from a computer, both printers can print at 4800 x 1200 optimized dpi for enhanced image quality.
The print quality of these printers is comparable to most other home/office inkjet printers. Even if you buy a more expensive inkjet model, the print quality won’t improve much; the higher price is mostly for a wider feature set.
They are pretty fast. The ISO print speed is about 10 pages per minute when printing in black-and-white. Meanwhile, the ISO print speed when printing in color is about 7 pages per minute. Obviously not the fastest home/office printers, but not bad for light-duty use. However, the print speeds are much faster when in the draft setting, 20 ppm for black and 17 ppm for color.
HP OfficeJet 5255 and HP Envy 5055 are recommended for 100 – 400 pages of monthly print volume. The maximum monthly duty cycle is 1,000 pages.
HP OfficeJet 5255 vs HP Envy 5055
Conclusion
In general, HP OfficeJet 5255 is more recommended. It is quite affordable, and it comes with a better feature set. The ADF is very useful for scanning pages automatically and taking Legal-sized sheets. It also has a fax function in addition to print, scan, and copy. The overall performance is very good.
