We don’t easily get excited about printers, but one of the stand-out devices we saw at the recent HP Global Influencer Summit in Shanghai, China, was a portable all-in-one printer. Although portable photo printers and portable scanners are not uncommon, the HP Officejet 150 Mobile All-in-One is the first device that incorporates printing, scanning and copying in a machine that is small enough to be carried to and from important meetings.

 

It weighs in at about 3.1 kg, which almost the same as some 15” mid-range notebooks, and although it measures 350 x 171 x 90 mm, it’s still a fairly substantial piece of hardware to lug around, especially since a carry-bag is only provided as an optional accessory. 

 

The HP 150 connects via Bluetooth, enabling printing from smartphones, tablets and notebooks, while it can print/ scan/ copy up to legal sized documents. Also onboard is a SD card slot and USB flash disk slot, handily allowing one to scan directly to removable storage, and PictBridge enabled devices are supported. A 2.36” colour touchscreen on the right-hand side of the portable all-in-one makes working on the device slightly easier.

 

 

HP believes its all-in-one is capable of printing up to 500 pages on a full charge, while it recharges on a standard HP notebook power supply – a boon if you own one, since you don’t need to lug around yet another power cord. The machine cannot recharge off a regular USB port, but HP did not discount that future incarnations might be able to.

 

Significantly, the HP 150 does not require special ink cartridges; instead it makes use of the already available HP 98/95 black and colour cartridges, providing up to 500 pages before running empty. Letter sized documents printed in draft mode come out at a pace of 22 pages per minute (ppm) black and 18 ppm if printing colour pages. 

 

HP informed us that the OfficeJet 150 is subjected to ½ m drop tests as well as shock tests, which should leave the device more protected to at least some of the rigours of life and work on the road.

 

We can see the device working particularly well in business where immediate action is required, such as signing an edited contract on the spot. No local pricing or release info is available yet, but the machine retails for about €400 internationally. 

 

 

At the event, HP also had a few other printing tricks up its sleeve. You’ll only find mono printing capabilities on the LaserJet Pro 400 M401 and the Pro 400 MFP M425. However, both feature HP’s ePrint and Wireless Direct connectivity options, with the M401 offering print only, while the all-in-one M425 offers up printing, scanning, copying and faxing. Both sport print speeds of up to a zippy 35 ppm, producing the first page in about eight seconds.

 

 

Fitting well into larger companies is HP’s LaserJet Enterprise 500 colour MFP M575 series. With printing speeds of up to 31 ppm black and in colour, this multifunctional device comes with a very large 8” rotating LCD touchscreen for enhanced office efficiency, while further sporting HP Quick Sets to improve workflow. Two units are available in the range, with the only difference between the M575dn and the M575f being the latter’s fax capabilities. 

 

Also introduced at the summit was HP’s second generation ultrabooks, including the business focused EliteBook Folio and the consumer aligned HP Spectre XP.