If you looked at pages printed by an HP Officejet Pro X576dw Multifunction Printer you would be adamant that it was a laser and not an inkjet device.
As a laser-class printer, the X576dw is a strong contender for light to moderate-duty use in the average SME office and at 42 page per minute you can focus on work and not on standing by the printer waiting for it to spit out your work.
The X576dw is also one of the new PageWide printers which mean that if you only need to use letterheads on occasions you can embed your design as a template and print directly onto plain paper.
As you might expect for a top-of-the-line model, the X576dw offers just about every office-oriented function you can think of. You can print and fax from, as well as scan to, a PC, including over a network; work as a standalone copier, fax machine, and email sender; and both scan to and print from a USB memory key.
The printer also offers ample paper handling, with a 500-sheet drawer, 50-sheet multipurpose tray, and duplexer (for two-sided printing) as standard.
For scanning, the X576dw offers both a flatbed and a 50-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF). Even better, the ADF can copy, scan, or fax two-sided pages by turning the page over to scan the second side. In combination with the print duplexer, it lets you copy both single-and double-sided originals to your choice of single-or double-sided copies. There is also a touch-screen control panel which offers well-designed menus that make it easy to change settings and give commands.
What is also very impressive is for internal printing if you switch the drive to General Office mode the speed jumps to 66 ppm which is outstanding and so reduces the tea drinking waiting for the printer to spit out your work time.
Output quality in the default Professional mode counts as another strong point. Black text and black fills in graphics are just a touch grayish, and colors are a little dulled down on plain paper, but the output is otherwise excellent, giving the X576dw above-par text and photo quality and par-quality graphics overall.
Text quality is one step below the top tier for color laser MFPs, which makes it easily good enough for virtually any business use. Graphics quality, similarly, is good enough for any use up to and including output going to clients or customers who you want to impress with a sense of your professionalism. Also important is that, at least on the ColorLok plain paper we use for testing, the output resists smearing if you get it wet. Depending on how critical an eye you have, you may well consider text, graphics, and photos suitable for marketing materials like trifold brochures or one-page handouts.
Photo quality is the one area where the X576dw behaves more like an inkjet than a laser, which means higher quality than you’ll get with a laser. I saw some banding on a black and white photo, but color photos qualified as true photo quality, at the low end of what you might expect from drugstore prints.
To say that the HP Officejet Pro X576dw Multifunction Printer is highly capable is an understatement. Its combination of fast speed, high-quality output, and excellent paper handling, plus the conveniences of a 4.3-inch touch screen and the long list of MFP features, put it way out in front of the pack, even without considering its low cost per page.
The HP Officejet Pro X576dw really is the all things to all people device your office could very quickly not live without.
The HP Officejet Pro X576dw is available at EBuyer.com
