HP unveils new office and consumer all-in-one printers

By Michael Crider/May 8, 2012 11:01 pm EST

HP's taken the wraps off of a handful of new printers for the latter half of 2012, in a variety of price ranges, sizes and configurations. This represents a pretty comprehensive refresh of HP's huge printer line,and new models should start showing up on HP's website and retail partners this summer. The focus is on easy operation, as all the new models feature color touchscreens.

The Photosmart 5520 e-All-in-One is designed to work in a dorm room or another tight area. The color touchscreen comes with a variety of apps, and wireless printing with HP's ePrint or direct wireless printing from Apple's AirPrint for OS X and iOS. Naturally it includes a full photo scanner and borderless photo printer.

The HP LaserJet Pro 400 MFP M425dn is designed for a slightly more business-oriented environment. It's got a 3.5-nch color touchscreen and a direct USB port for printing from USB drives, scan-to-email and scan-to-network functions and a smart install feature for easy set-up. Speeds of up to 35 pages per minute compliment wireless offerings from HP ePrint, Wireless Direct and Apple AirPrint.

HP's LaserJet Enterprise 500 color MFP 575 series is a beast of a printer designed specifically for the enterprise, with a massive 8-inch color control screen. It gets all the bells and whistles, including a 50-sheet automatic document feeder, speeds of up to 31 pages per minute and integrated network functions with an encrypted hard drive. The LaserJet Enterprise 500 color MFP 575 starts shipping in June.

The HP Scanjet Enterprise 7000 s2 is a specific scanner designed to work for those who need to scan massive amounts of documents daily. The 7000 can handle 45 scanned pages a minute and up to 90 individual images per minute, and is rates for 3000 pages every day. It comes with a suite of software including ISIS®, TWAIN, Kofax ® VirtualReScan® Pro and IRIS ReadIris PRO OCR. Management comes via a web administrator. The HP Scanjet Enterprise 7000 s2 will start shipping later this month.