HP Smart Tank 7605 – an all-in-one ink-sipping printer MFP (review)

The HP Smart Tank 7605 is one of HP’s ink tank range that offers great inkjet printing and a variety of functions, all with economic ink-sipping thirst.

We all know the old joke that inkjet printers were made to sell more expensive per ml ink than the finest French perfume. And it is still true – replacing ink in cheapie inkjets costs more than the printer did in the first place. Fortunately, that is not true of HP’s ink-sipping Smart Tank printers.

The HP Smart Tank Range

• $369 5105  (Officeworks and JB Hi-Fi) – print, copy, scan. Mono/colour 12/5 ppm.
• $399  5106 – print, copy, scan. Mono/colour 12/5 ppm.
• $539  7005 – print, copy, scan, duplex. Wireless, Mono/colour 15/9 ppm.
• $599 7305 – print, copy, scan, ADF, duplex. Wireless. Mono/colour 15/9 ppm.
• $648 7605 (Harvey Norman Exclusive) – print, copy, scan, duplex, ADF, and fax. Wireless. Mono/colour 15/9 ppm.

All use HP32 90ml Black and HP31 70ml Cyan, Magenta and Yellow ink bottles. There is also an HP 32XL 135ml black bottle. These are not eligible for HP’s Instant Ink subscription program.

Consumer Advice: Buying a printer is all about use cases.

If you print <500 sheets a year, ink costs are not an issue. A printer becomes more about being an on-and-off ramp for the internet – printing, scanning, signing documents, rescanning, etc. Read Choosing the right printer for your needs (guide 2023).

Australian Review: HP Smart Tank 7605

Website	Product Page and User Guide and Manual
Price	$648 at Harvey Norman
Warranty	One-year or 30,000 pages limited hardware warranty, whichever is earlier.
Made In	China
Company	HP Inc. (Est 2015 after the spin-off from Hewlett-Packard Company) is an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California that develops personal computers (PCs), printers and related supplies, and 3D printing solutions.
More	CyberShack HP news and reviews

We use Fail (below expectations), Passable (meets low expectations), Pass (meets expectations), Pass+ (near Exceed but not class-leading) and Exceed (surpasses expectations or is the class leader) against many of the items below. You can click on most images for an enlargement.

First Impression – Business like – Pass+

HP printers generally use the Light Basalt and off-white colour scheme. It is very office-like, with clean lines. The main difference between Smart Tank is the clear viewing window for each colour – a handy indicator of how much ink is left.

Smart Tank means a Continuous Ink Supply System (CIS) where you fill the tanks as required, not throw away the cartridge/print head when it is empty. The Print head is user-replaceable if needed.

HP Smart Tank 7605 Functions – Almost all – Pass+

• Print (mono or colour) at 15/9ppm (mono/colour) 6,000 ppm duty cycle, duplex print, A4 borderless print.
• Scan 1200 x 1200 DPI (default 200) via a single-sided 35-sheet Auto document feeder (ADF) or flatbed. Scan to Cloud, Email, Email address, File, Image, PC (local), PC (network), PDF, Printer
• Copy – up to 99 copies with basic editing, 20-400% enlarge/reduce,
• Fax – 300 xc 300DPI, 100-page memory (256MB in or out), 99 number memory, 4 seconds per page, standard POTS RJ-11 port.
• Tray 1 input: Up to 250 sheets 75gsm B5-A4 bond, 30 DLC5/C6 envelopes, Card (200gsm) and 50 photopaper 250gsm
• Output: up to 100 sheets of bond.

Our only issue is that 100 sheet output may be too small for workgroup use. Otherwise, all papers fed well and without jamming.

Connectivity – Pass+

• USB 2.0: Single user only and disables Wi-Fi and Ethernet.
• Wi-Fi: AC 2.4/5GHz (2.4 recommended unless you regularly print large documents)
• Wi-Fi Direct: You can use the printer’s Wi-Fi direct address to connect and print (no home network needed)
• Ethernet (recommended for small office use)
• Bluetooth – setup only

Connects to Android, ChromeOS, Linux, Windows, Windows Phone, iOS, and macOS. To use it, you must have the appropriate drivers installed.

Size – Pass

42.75 x 36.4 x 24.3 cm x 7.7kg. While you can place the printer close to a wall, there are power, USB, Ethernet, phone ports and a rear hatch to use if clearing a paper jam. The front paper output extends the depth by about 100mm, and you need space to remove and fill the input tray. The ADF ejects to the right side, and you need about 100mm clear (440mm deep).

Control Panel – minimal but functional

It has a touch control panel on the top front. You can use this for printer setup. It also has a web server (inbuilt web page) where you can set up and tweak settings.

Noise when printing – Pass

60dB maximum

Mobile use

HP Smart, HP ePrint, Apple AirPrint, Wireless Direct, Mopria-certified – everything you need for Android and iOS.

App and Setup – Pass+

Ideally, download the HP Smart printer app for iOS or Android. It requires you to set up an HP Account. We suggest using a ‘junk’ Gmail account.

It will connect to Android, ChromeOS, Linux, Windows, iOS, and macOS. More support here

Ink costs – Exceed

It uses HP 32XL for $29.16 (6000 pages) and HP 31 C/Y/M for $25.92 (8000 pages) = a total of $106.92 (seen for $94.83 for genuine four pack and further bulk discounts).

We cannot print 6000-8000 pages to prove this, so the theory must suffice.

• Mono could be as low as .005 cents (half a cent).
• Colour could be as low as .02 cents

These are based on ISO standards, but even if prints were ten times more expensive, they would still be well below typical inkjet costs.

Print Speed – Pass

It has a relatively slow 14/16-second mono/colour first page out (more from the mobile app). If you print mainly single pages, it feels slow.

The rated ISO speeds are 15/9 pages per minute mono/colour. Duplex print should be about 50% slower.

Tests (80gsm bond, including first page out time)

• Single Page Mono: 20 seconds
• Single page colour: 29 seconds
• 10-page mono: 58 seconds
• 10-page colour: 90 seconds
• 5-sheet, 10-page mono duplex: 140 seconds
• 5-sheet, 10-page colour duplex: 200 seconds

The HP speed claim is relatively accurate for a mono, typed sheet and colour, including 30% photo coverage and spot colour.

Print quality – Pass

With the caveat that printing on 80gsm Bond is like printing on a sponge, prints are reasonably colourful and black text is sharp. It does not exhibit colour banding.

It has a relatively narrow sRGB colour gamut, using a Tri-colour print head and a separate black head (user-replaceable). C/Y/M/K using four separate heads has a wider gamut. So, while it can photo print, there are better photo printers.

Scan – Pass

It is a single-sided scanner with a document feeder. We don’t expect any issues, but heavy scanner use may lead to increased pick-up roller wear. These are not user-replaceable. On a 20-page scan, most were well-aligned, but a couple were skewed. We put that down to paper rather than the ADF.

The scanner lid does not ‘expand’ for magazine scanning – only an issue if you need to do this.

HP Scanning software is comprehensive and can be set to duplex scanning, where it waits for the page to be turned over.

Fax – not tested

It has a 33.6kbps modem and 99-number memory. Note: It may not be compatible with your VoIP NBN line. Talk to your NBN provider to see if an ATA (Analogue Telephone Adapter) converts an analog device’s signal to a digital format when transmitting) may work.

Maintenance – Pass

We did not experience any print or scanner jams, but it looks easy to remove should this happen. It has a maximum duty cycle of 6000 pages per month (12 reams), which seems reasonable. The one-year warranty is capped at 30,000 pages – whichever comes first.

Power use – negligible

It draws 20W in print and scan and 1.1W in standby.

CyberShack’s view – HP Smart Tank 7605 is very good for small office and home office

Our only ‘druthers’ is that we often use double-sided scanning. If you don’t need that, then it is not an issue.

It is well-made, cheap to run and should give years of use. Looking at the capital cost versus the print cost, you can make that back in ink savings over about 13 reams. Makes sense to me.

The tri-colour ink head does limit the colour gamut, so look elsewhere for a photo printer.

Ratings

• Features: 95 – It has everything apart from a duplex scan.
• Value: 90 – if you use more than a ream a month, you will pay for this in a year.
• Performance: 85 – while not the fastest in duplex-print, it is reliable and meets or exceeds home users’ needs.
  Ease of Use: 85 – HP software and drivers are comprehensive, offering many features. Setup via Mobile is easy and recommended, but it also has a web server and control panel.
• Design: 90 – Office décor like.