HP DeskJet 4155e Review (2026): Best Budget All-in-One?

The HP DeskJet 4155e is one of the most purchased budget printers in America — and for good reason. At around $79, it prints, scans, and copies wirelessly out of the box and comes with 6 months of HP Instant Ink. But before you click buy, there are some strings attached to this deal that you need to understand. We'll give you the full picture.

What You're Actually Getting

The DeskJet 4155e is a compact wireless all-in-one inkjet printer aimed at light home users. It handles everyday printing tasks — documents, web pages, homework, occasional photos — competently and without fuss. Setup takes less than 10 minutes. The HP Smart app on iOS or Android makes wireless setup and mobile printing simple. Alexa voice control is a fun extra, though most people won't use it daily.

The 6 months of free HP Instant Ink is a genuine value add. Instant Ink is HP's subscription service where you pay a flat monthly fee (as low as $3.99 for 10 pages) and HP ships you ink before you run out. During the free trial period, you essentially get ink at no cost — which makes the effective out-of-pocket cost of this printer quite low for the first half year.

The HP+ Catch — Read This Before Buying

Here's the important part: the DeskJet 4155e requires HP+ enrollment to access its full 2-year warranty (vs the standard 1-year). HP+ is free to join but has consequences. Once you enroll in HP+, the printer will only work with genuine HP ink cartridges — it will refuse to print with third-party or refilled cartridges. This is a significant commitment. HP's own cartridges are expensive: a standard HP 67 black cartridge yields only 120 pages at around $14, working out to over $0.11 per page. Without the Instant Ink subscription, running this printer exclusively on HP's own ink is genuinely costly for anyone who prints more than 50 pages a month.

The bottom line: the DeskJet 4155e is an excellent value IF you plan to use HP Instant Ink long-term. If you prefer to buy ink on Amazon when you need it, or want the freedom to use compatible cartridges, look at a different printer — or at minimum don't enroll in HP+.

Print Quality

For everyday documents, the 4155e produces clean, legible text at standard settings. At 4800×1200 dpi, color output is vibrant for web pages and simple graphics, and photos look decent on HP photo paper. Don't expect professional photo printing — this is a $79 printer — but for school projects, holiday photos, and everyday color printing, it gets the job done.

Speed

8.5ppm black is slow by modern standards. A 10-page document takes about 70–80 seconds. For light home users printing a few pages here and there, this is fine. But if you regularly need to print large documents quickly, you'll find the DeskJet 4155e frustrating. There's no ADF, so scanning multi-page documents requires manually placing each page on the flatbed scanner.

Should You Buy the HP DeskJet 4155e?

Buy it if: You print under 50 pages a month, you want the simplest possible setup, and you're comfortable enrolling in HP+ and continuing with HP Instant Ink after the free trial. At $3.99–$5.99/month for Instant Ink, it's genuinely one of the cheapest ways to keep a home printer running.

Skip it if: You print heavily, hate subscription models, or want the flexibility to use third-party ink. In those cases, the Epson EcoTank ET-2803 at ~$130 is a far better long-term investment — no subscriptions, no locked cartridges, dramatically lower per-page costs.