MORE: Top DSLR Cameras Ink Cost and Yieldīecause HP uses a tricolor cartridge rather than dedicated units for cyan, yellow and magenta, the OfficeJet 4630 will require more frequent and expensive ink changes than competitors. However, when compared against the same picture printed on the Pixma MG5620, the red bicycle trailer seat looked oversaturated and not quite as sharp.
HP's printer did a much better job of maintaining a natural tone on the face and skin than competitors like the Brother MFC-J470DW. We could easily distinguish blades of grass in the background, but not as well as on the output from the Canon Pixma MG5620.Ī portrait of a boy on a bicycle from the OfficeJet 4630 offered plenty of detail, with sharpness in the child's eyes, his helmet strap and the folds in his shirt. However, some grain was lost in the fence railings, mostly because of the lack of a true rich black to help define the contrast there. The detail was excellent, albeit a tad soft, with good sharpness in the flowers and in the grain of the cabinet.
When we printed a landscape photo of a flower stand in front of a farm, the image was a little oversaturated, particularly the green of the flower stand, but more accurate than the same photo printed on the Epson XP-410. If you use HP's photo paper with the OfficeJet 4630, you will get reasonably good results. Most competitors provide separate slots for cyan, magenta and yellow so users can replace only what's depleted. The company also cut corners by using just two cartridges: a single black cartridge for text and a tri-color cartridge for graphics. Under the hood, HP falls short by not providing a dedicated photo black cartridge that provides better dark areas, which you do find on the less-expensive Canon Pixma MG5620.
It finished our five-page mixed text and graphics print test in 5 minutes and 33 seconds, a full 50 seconds slower than the category average and more than 2 minutes behind the Brother MFC-J470DW. The HP OfficeJet 4630 provided some of the slowest color print speeds of any all-in-one we've tested.
The HP OfficeJet 4630 comes with the print and scan drivers and the HP Photo Creations application, which allows users to design things like photo books, calendars, greeting cards and more. Otherwise, it provided a fairly comprehensive list of options, including the ability to set up Direct Wi-Fi, which allows you to connect a device to your printer without going through a router. It felt like there was a lag between when I pressed the buttons on the control pad and when the changes appeared on the screen. The OfficeJet 4630's interface felt sluggish in fact, it's the slowest we've tested. It took just 3 minutes and 32 seconds to go from hitting the power button for the first time to printing, though the OfficeJet 4630 has an added step of placing the test page on the scanner bed to test the head alignment - something most other printers in this price range do not require.
We are constantly trying to carefully lift printers from packaging without ripping their fragile embryonic bags, so the pull handles were a welcome surprise. HP's package designers should be commended for creating a protective plastic bag for its printers with reinforced handles to make it easier to get the printer out of the box.