A Closer Look
The HP DeskJet 4220e is a rather classic-designed printer. It won’t add anything new to the printers’ design segment. And it doesn’t need to. I don’t know if we will ever see Gaming Printers or Razer Edition. The quality of the plastics is on the spot for this price segment, as is the case for all printers in this range. Not terrible, but not excellent, just adequate. All you have to do is plug its power cord into the corresponding port at the rear and then to a wall socket to power it on. You are advised to open the ink shelf while powering the device to put the ink cartridges. The ink cartridge receivers will be at the right spot to put them. As with every HP printer, you set the two cartridges with the QR facing outwards and left the tri-color, right the black. As simple as that.
At the rear of the HP DeskJet 4220e, you will see a Type-B USB port to connect the printer to your PC, etc.; it is advised not to do it before setting it wirelessly. I have to stress that. That’s why there is a sticker on the port. The tray takes up to 60 sheets, but it is best not to put more than 40. Moreover, the printer includes an Automatic document feeder, which might be helpful but doesn’t support Duplex printing. This is a caveat, but most of the competition doesn’t offer this option at this price range. So, I can’t be too strict. But manual feeding is an extra hassle.
As an All-In-One printer, it supports the scanning of documents, which meets up with the rest of the competition. You must set the paper bar to the correct position, depending on the paper size you will use (A4, etc.). Then, you have to proceed with the printer setup, which is not as easy as it should have been. The best way to do this is through your smartphone and utilizing the HP Smart app. I also recommend activating an HP+ account for the extra 1-year guarantee and features like Printing-Anywhere. But things are challenging (more on this article’s Software and Usage Experience & Testing).
I also took some basic measurements of the device to see how it performs, etc. The power consumption is relatively low:
- Average: 4W
- Idle (average): 2.6W
- Average under load: 8.6W
As expected from a printer, the temperatures meet up with HP statements (according to my temperature device), and the device never felt unreasonably hot when touching it under load at a room temperature of 28 degrees Celsius. I can see that in these segments, the printer scored well. But remember that I am not a lab, and my equipment is a bit amateurish. However, I mention things that anyone can verify independently if he needs to.
I also took some measurements with my EMF, but you should take it with a grain of salt. My EMF device is too basic to take it seriously into account. I don’t own another or better EMF device to verify the results. And I don’t have the proper equipment and means to test the device in a lab-grade environment. However, these are the results:
Only EF (Electro. The other modes were negligible) :
- Peak: 415
- Average: 253
- Safe distance: 30 cm
My EMF device reported red and orange codes (dangerous and quite dangerous) up to 29 cm from the device, even when the printer was off. To give you a better idea, these results are similar to those of my charging smartphone. But as I said, I report them with a grain of salt. I must stress enough that the input tray is of lousy quality, and by personal experience, it won’t last for too long. After a while, you might notice a paper stack or similar problems. This means you should help it by pushing it manually when the problem appears. Just a guess, though. I have nothing else to add to this section, so let’s proceed with the rest of the menu.
