It churned out just over six pages of monochrome text per minute, produced nearly four pages of color graphics in the same span, and screamed past the competition with 6.4 PowerPoint slides in the same 60 seconds. In lab testing, the HP Photosmart 7520 printer registered scores slightly faster than the average for multifunction devices at the $200 price point. The extra $50 for the dedicated fax machine and phone line on the 7520 is prudent for home offices and individuals with higher-than-average fax volume, as the 7510 eFax version is a trial that only allows a maximum of 20 incoming and 20 outgoing pages per month, with the option to upgrade to an unlimited service for a monthly fee. HP partnered with eFax to bring fax functionality to HP's lower-end models - it works by sending a fax over the Internet so there's no worry of a busy signal to interrupt your transmission.
The key difference between this model and the 7510 from last year is the latter lacked a dedicated fax machine, instead having an eFax companion utility. This model can also send scans directly to a PC, a memory card, a network folder, an e-mail message, or even the cloud. Regardless, its 1,200-dpi resolution scanned and copied crisply rendered documents. The standard flatbed scanner/copier measures 8.5 inches by 11.7 inches, but I was disappointed to find that the hardware omits a hinge that some may find necessary to scan thicker media such as books and multipage documents. The apps have potential, but prepare to battle long load times that require you to navigate through several submenu layers. It takes you directly to the store to download new apps, rate them, and even add your own comments. HP tells me that it plans to release a Software Development Kit (SDK) in the near future so software engineers can design their own shortcut apps for the store.Īdding apps to the 7520's home screen is as simple as hitting the Get More button. All the extra applications are free, and HP breaks them down into categories within the App Store: entertainment, home, kids, news/blogs, photo, and tickets.Įach one promises to streamline the printing experience by offering shortcuts to your favorite coupons, news articles, weather reports, recipes, and so on. The ePrintCenter is an online hub where you can view job history, change settings, add printers to your account, browse and install apps, and cancel print jobs. You can even create your own customized e-mail address. For another, it can't print Web pages, although you can simply copy and paste the text into a document as a workaround. It's really easy to set up, but there are a few restrictions.įor one, the printer must be on and also connected to your network. You can even navigate through the settings and change the e-mail address to an easier designation to give out to friends and family that you trust enough to take control of your printer - you can take ownership of that in the control panel (Wireless > Web Services > Display E-mail). In addition to Apple AirPrint, the 7520 also features HP's ePrint technology that lets you send jobs from any connected device to the printer using the uniquely assigned e-mail address. Macs and PCs alike on CNET's lab network were able to see the printer without the need to install any additional software. If keeping the network private from intrusive leeches is your concern, you can also manually input your network username and password details on the virtual QWERTY keyboard and the printer should immediately connect.
HP's latest Auto Wireless Connect reduces the setup time to less than 2 minutes - if you make your network visible, that is. I tested the Wi-Fi connection process and found it simple to navigate through the initial setup screens, with help from the instructions on the driver disc. Still, I'm still not ready to see Ethernet printing extinguished entirely until wireless connectivity becomes more ubiquitous, and the gap will likely be a deal breaker for IT professionals shopping for a networked printer to connect an office. Unfortunately, HP omits an Ethernet port in an effort to push cloud printing features that can work only on a Wi-Fi network, which you should probably be using to reduce clutter anyway.
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