HP Smart Tank 580 Printer Review

Printers and the technology surrounding them have come a long way from around ten or even five years ago. Before, you’ll probably have to fight the printer just for it to print your document, even if they’re already connected directly to your computer or laptop. But recently, they have a lot more tech involved such as over-the-air printing and even remote printing.

Today, we are checking out one printer that is capable of doing all of the things I just mentioned – the HP Smart Tank 580.

It is one of the newer additions to the brand’s Smart Tank lineup. Unlike the higher-end Smart Tank models, this one is much more affordable. However, it still comes with the majority of the features you would find in other HP Smart Tank printers. But is this the one you should get? Well, I suggest you read on.

Design and Construction

Starting with the design, the HP Smart Tank 580 isn’t that big of a printer, making it easy to place at home or in the office without taking up too much space. When closed, it measures 434.66mm x 361.53mm x 157.26 mm and weighs 5.03kg. As with most printers, it is made of plastic, too.

Setting it up from the box is relatively easy, thanks to it being relatively lightweight. I also like how HP packaged the printer itself by including a pull handle in the plastic to make it easier to get out of the box. We all know just how hard it is to pull out a printer from a box before, right?

There are also several power cables with various plugs to fit your house or office needs. While it has wireless printing capabilities, there is also a USB-B to USB-A cable included in the box if you like to keep things old school. You also get the CNYM liquid ink bottles, which you will have to fill as well. Interestingly, there was some leftover black ink, so we kept it just in case.

In terms of styling, it’s very much what you would expect from a printer; nothing too fancy here. You can even easily check the ink levels on the bottom left corner of the printer. At the back, you have the power socket and the USB-B port in case you need to plug in your laptop or PC.

At the top, you have a scanner that can scan images, documents, and more up to a resolution of 1200 DPI. You can utilize this function more with the HP Smart app. You also have seven buttons that allow users to easily control printer functions. The ones you’ll probably be using the most are the photocopying buttons which you can do so in either black or colored. There’s also a small LCD that displays various parameters, errors, and more, and it’s also here where you can see whether the printer is connected to the Wi-Fi system or not.

The paper input can handle up to 100 sheets and you can also adjust it to the size of the paper you’ll be using. As for the output, the tray can accommodate a maximum of just 30 sheets of paper. Since this isn’t a higher-end HP Smart Tank model, there is no built-in tray that allows you to leave paper loaded. You will have to load the paper manually each time you need to print.

Printing and Scanning

In terms of printing, the HP Smart Tank 580 prints rather fast since it uses a thermal inkjet system. Depending on the quality settings and how many colors there are, HP does say it can print up to 22 pages per minute on black and 16 pages per minute with color. And from what we can see, they’re not too off with that claim.

When printing all-black documents, it does so rather quickly, meaning you can easily get your documents and go. It does take longer with color though, but if you’re not printing more than 10 pages it won’t take too long either.

What’s great about the printer and the ink HP is that the printed pages quickly dry up. This means you won’t get smudges even if you pick up the document from the printer with sweaty hands. Of course, having wet hands is a different thing altogether.

As mentioned earlier, the HP Smart Tank 580 does have a Wi-Fi connectivity, making it a lot easier to print documents. All you have to do is connect to the same Wi-Fi as the printer and you can already print documents.

You don’t even have to be in the same place either. If you have the HP Smart app either on your laptop or phone, you can print documents remotely. This works great for our setup here at the Yugatech HQ since I can have documents printed from the comfort of my home.

For scanning, the printer does it well too. With the HP Smart app, you can save scanned documents in various formats including JPEG and PNG to name a few. When scanning at max resolution it does take some time though, but you do get the best quality. However, I found that scanning at 400DPI gives the best combination of quality and scan speed.

Similar to remote printing, you can also do remote scanning as well. This makes it easier to scan documents when you are at home and the printer’s at the office or vice versa. Just make sure you have someone that can place the thing you need scanned into the scanner.

Conclusion

Overall, the HP Smart 580 is a decent printer for everything that it can do. Instead of having to manually plug in your PC or laptop each time you need to print or scan documents, you can do so with the convenience of Wi-Fi or the HP Smart app. The downside is that it is a bit more expensive than your conventional printer with an SRP of PHP 11,200USD 191INR 16,180EUR 182CNY 1,390. But at the time we wrote this review, you could get it for just PHP 9,854USD 168INR 14,235EUR 160CNY 1,223 via the official HP Philippines Lazada store.

Nonetheless, spending almost PHP 10,000USD 170INR 14,446EUR 162CNY 1,241 for a printer is still a lot of money, especially if you’re not going to be using it too often. But if you do print documents, files, and stuff quite often, whether it is at your house or the office, then it is worth it. Imagine not having to manually connect the printer each time you need to print. That alone is worth the added cost.

Also, the HP Smart Tank series uses liquid ink as opposed to cartridge-type inks. This makes it a lot easier to refill since you just need to buy the specific ink you need. So in the long run, you do get to save more.

But what do you think of the HP Smart Tank 580? Is it a model you’ll consider buying if you’re in the market for a new printer/scanner? Share your thoughts in the comments below.