Officejet Pro 8720

A fast inkjet for a home office

This fast inkjet multifunction printer (MFP) is designed to compete with laser printers, and it starts with their size: it’s enormous, although its curves make it less imposing. The built-in Wi-fi supports phone and tablet printing via Apple’s Airprint and HP’S Android app, and there are USB and Ethernet ports too. An extra USB port on the front lets you plug in a flash drive to print stored photos and save scans. Fax is also supported if you attach the device to a phone socket.

The big colour touchscreen is clear and easy to use. Assisted by the 50-sheet automatic feeder, photocopying was quick and simple, taking 14 seconds to produce a single page, just over a minute for 10 black-and-white pages and a minute and a half for colour. Scanning an A4 page to our PC at 300 dots per inch took just nine seconds; 600dpi took 46 seconds (but looked over-sharp), while a 1,200dpi0dpi scan required a longer preview process.

Our long text document printed at 21.4 pages per minute, which is faster than many lasers. This increased to 25.4ppm in draft mode. Pages of colour graphics came out at a brisk 8.6ppm, and quality was good all round, although some ink bled through thin paper. Photos looked fine, but you’d choose a different printer if they were your priority. The device prints and scans both sides of the paper.

HP’S 953XL cartridgess cost £24 for each colour and £35 for black ( www.snipca. com/21135), and are rated at 2,000 and 1,600 pages respectively. That gives a cost of just under 4.5p for a colour page, which is less than half the running cost of most lasers and also beats basic inkjets.

SUMMER 2016

The successor to Samsung’s Galaxy Note 5 is rumoured to arrive in August or September. If the leaks are correct, it could have a big, wraparound screen, like the S7 Edge (pictured), as well as a top-end Snapdragon processor.

Samsung also has the best ipad Mini rival. It’s not as fast as the ipad Mini 4, but has 32GB and a great screen. £300 from www.snipca.com/21125

If you prefer your desktop PC in one neat box, this Intel i5 system has all the essentials at a reasonable price. £650 from www.snipca.com/20205