HP Officejet 100 Mobile Printer

Product Description

OJ 100 Mobile

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Product Details

• Color: Black, Gray
• Brand: HP
• Model: CN551A
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 3.32" h x 13.70" w x 6.91" l, 8.15 pounds
• Memory: 2TB DRAM
• Hard Disk: 60GB

Features

• Print at your convenience while on the go, using built-in Bluetooth wireless technology
• Rely on a long-life, lithium ion battery-print up to 500pages when the battery is fully charged
• Do more-produce professional-quality documents on the go, using Original HP high-capacity ink cartridges

Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews

151 of 155 people found the following review helpful.
Very good for what it does
By Ursiform
A little background: I already have two printers I use. My Epson R2400 is a great photo printer, but only a mediocre general purpose printer. My old HP LaserJet 4M still does the job, but it has some limitations. It's a big energy hog/space heater, so I don't leave it on, and it takes a while to warm up. It's black and white only. And the single feed tray no longer works. I thought this little HP inkjet might be a replacement for my general purpose printing, of which I don't do a lot. I was also intrigued by its Bluetooth capability; I don't print very often from my laptop, but Bluetooth would be a very convenient way to do it when I want to.

I first loaded up the software on my laptop, which took a while. HP is certainly not frugal in loading software. At one point the instructions were to just follow the "add printer" instructions in Windows (XP), which weren't entirely clear for adding a Bluetooth printer. I didn't have much trouble figuring it out, but I've been dealing with computers for a lot more years than I want to think about. HP's instructions could have been more helpful.

After that I was able to print using the Bluetooth connection. I then unplugged the printer, and printed using battery power. It all worked!

Next I loaded the software on my desktop, and set out to print via USB. There is, of course, no USB cable included. Never mind that USB connections on computers are 99% standard, they saved the few dimes including a cable would have cost. Fortunately I have a cable for nearly any occasion, including things nobody has used in twenty years, so I got it hooked up and printing.

The print quality is very good on the paper sample HP included, and almost as good on basic laser printer paper. It can't quite match a laser printer on fine lines and small fonts, but for most people it will suit their needs quite nicely.

As HP included the ability to print borderless photos, I had to test that capability. I printed a photo from Tuscany at 4x6 on both the HP and the R2400. To be fair, I used the stock settings for both, not the adjusted settings I normally use with the R2400. The HP did produce a decent picture. It wasn't up to the R2400's quality, but it's not an expensive photo printer. With some adjustments it could be pretty darn good. I wouldn't recommend getting one to use as a photo printer, but it is certainly capable of printing a photo now and then.

OK, let's talk its limitations. It has no paper capture tray, which is not surprising in a printer designed to be portable. And its dinky cartridges aren't going to print a lot of pages, especially with a lot of color.

This is a good, light duty printer that will work in a constrained space or as a portable printer. If you plan to do a lot of printing get a larger inkjet printer with separate cartridges for different colors, or a laser printer. If you want to print a lot of photos get a photo printer. But if you are looking for a printer that fits in a small space, can be moved around, and does a good job on the occasional page you need printed, this is a surprisingly good printer.

124 of 130 people found the following review helpful.
Almost perfect if you need portability
By D. Matheny
We already have a good color inkjet printer in the house - but we've been wanting something portable for the last year or so. The main use for this printer is for my wife to take to 'scrapbook weekends'. A little printer is very useful when scrapbooking, but it's just too big of a hassle to lug the full-size printer around with her.

This Officejet 100 mobile printer fits the bill perfectly! Although we ran into some unexpected problems, the overall experience was far better than we expected for a printer of this size. (I will go over some of the issues we've run into during this review.)

Before I get into the specifics of this printer, I should mention that we replaced the included black HP98 cartridge with a photo-color HP99 cartridge. The documentation doesn't mention whether this is possible, and the inside of the printer doesn't list it as being compatible - so I was a bit nervous. Honestly, the only reference I found to the HP99 anywhere was an obscure reference on the HP support sight (and that wasn't very clear). Fortunately, the printer picked up the new cartridge just fine and is using it as expected in combination with the, also included, HP95 color cartridge.

Another thing I did was to download the 'Basic Print Driver' package directly from HP instead of using the included install CD. This was a simple process, and the wizard walks you through setting up a Bluetooth printer connection if you haven't done it before.

Now, let me cover the things that we like about this printer:

1) The output is truly photo quality when using the HP99 cartridge, and the black output looks great as well (when using the HP98 cartridge). I will admit that the photos from our full-size ink-jet do look a bit nicer, but not by a lot. This truly is 'photo quality' output.

2) The Bluetooth connectivity absolutely rocks! When using Bluetooth, this printer is truly wireless - which makes it absolutely simple to pull out of a carrying bag and use. There is no worrying about cables getting lost, or in the way...

3) The overall footprint is very compact (it seems smaller in person than in the product photos). Because of that, you do give up a paper capture tray and the paper feeding isn't the best either - but those are compromises that most portable printer users should be willing to accept.

4) The battery life is excellent! The battery itself looks like a laptop battery, and just plugs into the back of the printer. The charge time from completely drained to fully charged is about an hour - which is pretty good. My wife has taken this on 2 overnight scrapbook retreats and it hasn't needed a charge while she was away; although, she does keep the power cord handy just in case.

5) The print speed is a bit slow for photos - but not overly slow. Once again, I was expecting this, and I felt like it was fast for such a small printer.

6) We have been using it with the borderless 4x6 HP paper, and that works great! We have to feed it one sheet at a time, and also have to push down a bit when it starts feeding; but, once again, I don't mind having to help it along in exchange for the portability.

7) Because of the small size, this printer is incredibly simple to operate. No fancy LCDs or flash memory slots, it just turns on and works as expected without any hassle.

If you've made it this far, I hope I've made it clear that this is a great little printer - but there are some limitations that we expected because of the size. Aside from those issues, we have run into a couple of problems that really do count against the printer:

1) The battery life is good, but the battery itself drains quickly when not in use. For example, we fully charged the battery after using it and then turned off the printer and placed it in a cupboard. The next time it was needed (only a couple of weeks later), we pulled it out and the battery was completely drained - to the point where it wouldn't even turn on. Because of this, you need to be careful to fully charge the printer before you load it up to take it with you. Don't assume the battery is still charged, even if you used it recently...

2) Some people will love this, but I can't believe how long the power cord is! It measures in at longer than 12 feet - and doesn't wrap up that compactly as a result. Honestly, the wrapped up power cord takes up about 1/4 of the space of the entire printer...

Overall, if you're looking for a portable printer, this is the best one I've found and I highly recommend it. On the other hand, don't make the mistake of thinking this will be your main printer at home. Although, at this price, I doubt many people will be thinking that! ;-)

72 of 78 people found the following review helpful.
Paper Feed Big Problem
By Rene Jordan
I had high hopes for this mobile printer since I have purchased several HP printers and previously had the HP450 mobile printer. Read one review about paper feed problems but thought that since the other reviews gave it high marks....I installed it according to directions--using the disk prior to plugging the printer into the computer. All set up, loaded paper into the printer, plugged it into the computer and when I tried to print a test page, got the message that there was no paper in the printer. Took the paper out, re-inserted it, still the same message. After several times of going through the same process, it printed. Used it at work the next day, and it was very sporadic in printing with paper always available. HP would not take the printer back--they only wanted to replace it. Fortunately, the vendor I purchased the printer from did allow me to return it. I have replaced my mobile printer with a Canon printer and it is working wonderfully.

See all 129 customer reviews...