HP OfficeJet 150

We’ve eagerly awaited the Officejet 150 since HP announced it last May because this portable multifunction printer (MFP) uses a Lithium ion battery, so you really can use it to print on the move.

The compact Officejet 150 is about the size of a cereal packet, but HP’s managed to cram in a printer, scanner, colour touchscreen and a memory card slot for photo printing. When not in use, the paper input tray folds forward and clips firmly over the top, and the paper output flap flips up to protect the front.
The Officejet 150 is made from unusually thick plastic, which helps give the impression that it could survive many business trips. It isn’t perfect, though, as it weighs 3.1kg and the rear-mounted battery is exposed to knocks.


Sadly, the Officejet 150 doesn’t support Wi-Fi, but you can connect to it using Bluetooth or a USB cable. You can print from Windows Phone, Android and BlackBerry devices, but the latter two need third-party apps.
We’re often critical of HP’s software interfaces, but the print drivers supplied with the Officejet 150 are near-perfect. The default tab contains shortcuts and simple options to cover most needs, and additional options are easy to find, but we’re less keen on the TWAIN scan interface. Selecting a resolution is too fiddly and it doesn’t remember the last settings you used, but it does offer more precise control than many HP products we’ve reviewed.


Unusually for an HP scanner you can actually change some reasonably advanced settings
When printing, the Officejet 150 managed a little less than half the speed we expect from a full-sized inkjet, managing 6.8ppm when printing high-quality black text. It was quite slow to print colour graphics, reaching only 1.8ppm on our test, but the results were indistinguishable from a typical good inkjet. Colours had plenty of impact, while blacks were crisp and bold. Photo prints were perfectly acceptable too, although borderless A4 printing isn’t supported. The only slight disappointment was repeated misfeeds when using the Fast Draft setting, and it couldn’t complete our draft text test.


The print driver’s shortcuts tab contains most of the settings you’ll ever need
Its scanner was very slow, needing one minute and 23 seconds to capture a single A4 image at 150dpi. This had a knock-on effect on photocopies, with a single page taking about 65 seconds for a single page to copy, whether colour or mono. We can’t complain about the quality of the results, however.
The Officejet 150 is expensive, but not unreasonable when you consider that the best single-function mobile scanners cost around £200. At less than 7p per page, its running costs aren’t too bad, either. It’s a shame scans and copies aren’t faster, but even so this is a unique product which delivers great results, earning itself a Business Buy award.