The HP DeskJet 5550 is a printer that is capable of six-ink printing with the use of a tri-color and photo cartridge. One design feature that is unique to this printer is the auto-off. This is a feature that puts your printer into a low-power mode after 30 minutes of inactivity. This conserves power and allows this unit to be energy efficient.
The duty of the printer is 3600 pages per month with varying print speeds. When printing documents in black ink, the print speed is about 17 pages per minute in fast/draft mode. Everyday printing provides 8 pages per minutes. If you print color graphics, the print speed is about 12 pages per minute in fast/draft mode. Everyday printing for color graphics is about 6 pages per minute.
The resolution or print quality of a document has four settings. The resolution is 300 x 300 DPI for fast draft, 300 x 300 DPI for everyday, 600 x 600 DPI for normal printing and 1200 x 1200 DPI when text rendering for documents is used. When you are using photo quality ink, the resolution is increased to 4800 x 1200 DPI.
You can set up this printer for use with various operating systems. Originally the device is set for use in a Windows XP operating system environment or a Max OS X environment. However, you need to use a new set of drivers for more recent operating systems.
Attaching a printer to your computer is done with a USB connector cable. However, you can choose to use a Centronics parallel cable as well. Connecting the printer to your network infrastructure is done by a separate HP Jetdirect Print Server.
Ink cartridges that are used with the unit include a black cartridge, a tri-color cartridge and the use of a photo cartridge which is optional. Print cartiridges are available from HP or you can find a third-party vendor.