HP OfficeJet 8015e Printer Review

The HP 8015e's build quality is decent. It has a sturdy plastic body with no obvious gaps in the construction. That said, a few parts feel cheap, like the blue handle in the maintenance bay. The display's neck feels fragile and can come out of its socket if pulled with enough force. Similarly, the scanner's lid can detach from its hinges. There are a few good things design-wise; you get easy access to the sheet rollers and ink cartridges for maintenance, and the power cord is detachable, making it easy to replace if damaged.

This printer requires a fair amount of maintenance. Like most inkjet printers, there's a risk of the printheads clogging if you don't print for a long time. If you experience clogging or other print quality issues, there are a few maintenance functions built in that can help resolve them, including printhead cleaning, printhead alignment, and smear cleaning. You can watch how-to videos directly on the printer's display if you aren't sure how to perform maintenance tasks.

As for ink maintenance, you'll need to replace the cartridges frequently if you print a lot since they run out quickly. Replacing the ink cartridges is easy; you only need to turn on the printer, pull down the front panel, and lift the scanner bed to access the cartridges. The process is the same for removing paper jams, though the printer doesn't need to be on. The input tray holds 225 sheets of paper, which is a pretty good size for such a printer, so you likely won't need to refill it often.

Get the user manual here.

Though on the smaller side, the display is bright and relatively easy to see at an angle. You can adjust the tilt to improve visibility; however, its range is pretty limited. The interface is user-friendly, sporting large icons that are easily visible, and while it sometimes doesn't register an input, it feels quite responsive for the most part. Three capacitive buttons are at the bottom of the display: Back, Home, and Help.

The ink cartridges run out quickly, so you'll have to replace them often if you print a lot. High-yield XL cartridges are available—the HP 910XL have an advertised yield of 1,200 black and 1,000 color prints. The printer warns you when the color inks are low, but not when the black ink is low.

The optical character recognition (OCR) feature is software-based, meaning you can only start OCR scans via the HP Smart app. You can save scanned documents as searchable PDFs, Microsoft Word documents, or text files. You can also save the document as an editable text file using the 'Text Extract' feature.

The scan quality is mediocre when using the automatic feeder and the default 'Document' scan preset, as the image processing is too aggressive, removing finer elements like graph lines and watermarks. Also, scans come out titled. Using the 'Photo' preset improves the quality, but doesn't fix the tilt. Scanning with the flatbed and the 'Photo' preset gives the best results. Another way to improve the scan quality is to turn off a few settings that are on by default (when using the 'Document' mode'), like 'Auto-Enhancement,' which brightens colors and boosts contrast, and 'Auto-Heal,' a feature that removes marks and hole punches. See an example here.

• Power cord
• Documentation
• Set of HP 910 starter ink cartridges:
• 1x Black
• 1x Cyan
• 1x Magenta
• 1x Yellow

The quality of black-and-white documents is great. Everything is present, including fine elements like the lines in the graph and the watermark. The text looks clear, though a little more fuzzy than when printing in color. Misalignments sometimes happen; printing in the High-Quality mode usually fixes the issue, albeit at the cost of increased ink usage.

The print quality of color documents is excellent. The text looks clear, and all the fine elements are easily visible. There's some banding in colored areas, but it's fairly minimal and doesn't significantly lower the overall quality of the print.

This printer has a high cost-per-print. The ink cartridges are relatively inexpensive, but because of their low page yields, you have to replace them often. The printer comes with six months of ink via HP's Instant Ink subscription service; however, subscribing to the service will block you from using third-party cartridges, which are typically cheaper.

The output tray holds 60 prints.

You can set custom sizes from 3.5" x 5" (88.9 mm x 127 mm) to 8.5" x 14" (215.9 mm x 355.6 mm).

The HP OfficeJet 8015e has a mediocre color gamut. It can't reproduce bright saturated tones, replacing them with a darker shade instead. This results in a darker picture overall and a significant loss of fine details. While there isn't obvious banding, pictures look quite grainy, which you can clearly see in the 'Friends' photo in the Color Accuracy section (which is the next test) as well. There's also a white line on the right side of the picture, an issue that persists even after performing a printhead alignment. If you have this printer and experience the same issue, please let us know in the comments below.

This printer has decent color accuracy. It mainly struggles with blues and darker skin tones.

The HP OfficeJet 8015e is excellent at reproducing small details. While the halftones soften the edges of objects, fine elements are still easily recognizable.

The HP Smart app is feature-rich. It lets you print, copy, scan (with a printer or smartphone camera), see the printer's status, change settings, and perform maintenance tasks. You can also manage your ink subscription and access help and support pages.

You can use the printer on macOS and Chrome OS without manually installing drivers. The HP Smart app simply gives you more features, like printables and mobile fax. Windows devices need drivers; the easiest way is to install the HP Smart app, as it'll update the drivers automatically.