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HP ENVY 6000 / 6400 Series Printers: A Complete Review
Linsey Knerl
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August 18, 2020
The printing needs of today's family look much different than they did even a decade ago. With people working from home more often or using their PC to run a small business, it's essential to have a printer that can create professional prints on demand.
Combine those needs with the ways kids use computers for everything from homeschool to homework, and you have more requirements than ever to meet via printing. Fortunately, the HP ENVY 6000 and 6400 printer lines are up for meeting the challenges of the modern household in ways that are more intuitive and affordable than ever.
Read on to learn how these innovative additions to the HP printing family are changing the way your family gets things done.
What are the HP ENVY 6000 and 6400 series printers?
The HP ENVY 6000 and 6400 series printers bring the latest developments to your home office with exciting features like improved connectivity and better designs. They print affordably, too, with ink solutions that make sense for the budget-conscious family.
There has never been a better time to bring these upgrades into your print routine, since recent demands on the family printer have never been more diverse. You can print photos, worksheets, art projects, and more with ease and incredible quality on the HP ENVY 6000 or 6400 series printer.
These devices also eliminate the need to have more than one printer in your home. The HP Smart App connects to your network, so anyone with network access can use the printer from anywhere in the home with a dual-band WiFi connection.
And if you need to quickly print a job from your phone or tablet without connecting to the WiFi, you can use the direct print feature. This lets you send a single job to the printer through Bluetooth and a special access code.
What are the benefits of the HP ENVY 6000 / 6400 series printers?
If you're familiar with HP’s printers, you may already know that they do more with less of your precious home real estate. After all, families today use their homes for running businesses, schools, and hang-outs.
Knowing that a powerful printing solution will literally fit right in – regardless of how much space you have to offer – is important. The HP ENVY 6055 and 6455 have other notable perks, too, including:
- Smart user interface shows buttons only when needed
- Dual-band, self-healing WiFi prevents connection problems and frustrating “offline” issues
- Two-sided printing saves money and paper for families with large printing needs
- Borderless printing helps create brilliant photo prints, children’s artwork, business presentations, and more
- Scan with the flatbed scanner for single-page or irregularly sized projects
- Design features more than 20% recycled plastic
- Faxing included in the Pro model, ideal for businesses and work-at-home parents
- Print from anywhere in the home with the intuitive HP Smart App
While both printers offer an improvement over devices released just a few years ago, each one has unique features that set it apart.
Meet the HP ENVY 6000 / 6400 family of printers
How does each printer stack up? While both offer hassle-free printing with self-repairing network connectivity, there are other bonuses to consider from each device.
HP ENVY 6055 printer
The HP ENVY 6055 printer prints, scans, and copies. It doesn’t have fax capabilities, but then not all families need it. Additional features include:
- Up to 10 ppm black-and-white or 7 ppm color
- Up to 1200 x 1200 dpi with the flatbed-only scanner
- Up to 9 copies per request
- Smart UI buttons that only light up when you need them
- Bluetooth-enabled printing for direct print requests from a nearby phone or tablet
HP ENVY Pro 6455 printer
The HP ENVY Pro 6455 printer prints, scans, and copies, and it also gives you fax features, so you can get important documents to the office without heading to the print shop. It also boasts:
- Up to 10 ppm black-and-white or 7 ppm color
- A 35-sheet automatic document feeder to give you hands-free ways to scan, copy, or print custom jobs
- Up to 1200 x 1200 dpi with the flatbed or document fed scanner
- Up to 9 copies per request
- Smart UI buttons that only light up when you need them
- Bluetooth-enabled printing for direct print requests from a nearby phone or tablet
Other benefits to enjoy from both printers
One printer really can do it all. With the easy set up of both the HP ENVY 6000 and the HP ENVY 6400 printers, you can start printing within minutes. These devices come with enough ink to get you started, too. Plus, the HP Smart App gives authorized family members a way to print, scan, or copy from any room in your home on the connected network or even print from email or social media.
Connectivity
The most exciting benefit of these printers may just be their connectivity. Not only do they easily connect to your network right out of the box, but they also stay connected. Unlike printers of the past, you'll find fewer frustrating network error alerts or "printer offline" notifications.
Self-healing wireless
If your wireless internet goes down, you won’t have to worry about setting up your printer again. The self-healing wireless features get your family printer back online without you having to diagnose or reset everything. It’s a hands-off benefit that keeps everyone printing without headaches or hassles.
How to save money on printing with the HP ENVY 6000 / 6400
The HP ENVY 6000 and 6400 series printers already offer incredible value, but families are always looking for ways to get even more out of their budget. One way to get a better return on your investment is with the HP Instant Ink program.
How does HP Instant Ink work?
This subscription-based service charges a low monthly fee and ships out all the ink you need for printing directly to your mailbox. There’s no need to shop in-store or try to figure out which ink cartridge type fits your printer.
It’s as easy as buying online, without the need to place your order each time. Your printer actually communicates through your home network to tell HP® when you’re close to running out of ink. Before your cartridge runs out, you’ll have the next one in your hands and ready to go.
How does this save money?
The HP Instant Ink service prices the ink per page printed. Each subscription level allows you a set number of printed pages. When you’re out of pages for the month, you can add pages on an affordable per-page basis, or you can upgrade your plan level.
Plans start at no cost and go up to $20 per month based on how many pages you print. It doesn’t matter if you print in color or black-and-white, or how much ink the job demands. Unused pages roll over to the next month based on your plan, too, to make sure you get what you pay for.
Empty cartridges are easily returned with the postage-paid return envelopes that come with your ink shipment. Wait until you have enough to send back, then stick your used ink supplies in the mail. As an environmental bonus, those cartridges avoid the landfill and become part of the HP recycling chain.
Which HP ENVY printer is right for you?
Every family is different, and only you can determine the ideal printer for your needs. By asking these simple questions, however, you’ll have a better idea of which of these two new printers are best for your busy household.
- Do you need to fax, in addition to copy, scan, and print? Then, consider the HP ENVY 6455 Pro model, which offers color faxes at 150 x 150 dpi resolution.
- Do you need a hands-free approach to large scanning, custom print, or copying jobs? The HP ENVY 6455 Pro also gives you a document feeder for these projects, which can speed up your work and make copying large stacks of worksheets or business documents a breeze.
- Is it enough to have brilliant borderless printing, copying, and single-page scanning? Most families will have all the functionality they need with the HP ENVY 6055. It may not have faxing or an automatic feeder for scanning or printing, but it gives you quality prints and access to perks like the HP Smart App and HP Instant Ink.
Since both printers have self-healing network connectivity, you’ll spend less time seeing that frustrating “printer offline” message. For busy families who don’t have time to troubleshoot print jobs, this is another fantastic reward for bringing one of these printers into your home.
Conclusion
If your family has outgrown the typical printer, consider how the HP ENVY 6400 and 6000 printer lines can bring you into the future. With the typical household doing more from home than ever before, you’ll need a printer that can tackle all of your daily printing challenges.
About the Author: Linsey Knerl is a contributing writer for HP® Tech Takes. Linsey is a Midwest-based author, public speaker, and member of the ASJA. She has a passion for helping consumers and small business owners do more with their resources via the latest tech solutions.
