Jill reviews it: Two weeks with my HP Envy printer

Disclosure: I received an HP Envy 120 web-enabled printer, ink, and paper for the purpose of this review. All opinions about HP, the Envy 120, and the HP Savings Center are my own. Later this month, I’ll host a giveaway for this product, giving away a new HP Envy 120 to one of my readers! If you missed my first post on this printer, click here to read it.

Earlier this month, I began reviewing a new HP Envy 120 wireless printer. I’m still really enjoying its wireless printing capabilities! As a reminder, this HP Envy 120 works with the HP Savings Center, an online coupon printing component integrated with Coupons.com to offer direct-to-printer capabilities. It sends the coupons you select straight to the printer over the web without having to install a browser plugin. Not only can you print wirelessly to it from anywhere in your home, you can also print to it from anywhere in the world! It’s fun to think about being on a trip and sending coupons directly to the printer, knowing they’re waiting there when I get home.

This printer also has a variety of free, built-in apps that you can subscribe to. For the purposes of this review, I was asked to subscribe to the meal planner and auto-delivery of coupons that the HP Savings Center selected for me based on my past print history and what’s on the meal planner’s list.

So far, I have to admit I haven’t been a huge fan of either of these features. Here was my first week’s meal planner:

In theory, the meal planner seems like a great idea — it gives you recipes for meals, then has you re-use the leftover ingredients in a subsequent night’s recipe. For example, the first item on this week’s list was a roasted pork tenderloin. The next night’s recipe was a split pea soup that utilized leftover pork from the first night. What excited me most was the coconut cake that the meal planner suggested for dessert with the pork tenderloin. I looked for the recipe and couldn’t find it though on any of the pages of the meal planner. Where was it?

Crazily, I found “coconut cake” in the shopping list column of the meal planner. I was supposed to buy a coconut cake, not make one! And as I went through the meal planner, I found other items that I was just supposed to buy, not make. I expected it to me more recipe-centric, not as shopping-centric. And, as any couponer knows, our meals are largely planned around what we’ve bought at good prices, not what we “want” to eat tonight. I love pork tenderloin, but if I don’t have one in the freezer that was purchased during a past sale, it’s unlikely that I will go buy one (and pay a much higher per-pound price) just to eat one this particular week.

I have noticed too that the coupons the meal planner selects to print don’t always correspond to the items on the shopping list either. This is not a feature I see myself using much beyond my trial/review period for this printer.

As far as the auto-delivery of Coupons.com coupons from the HP Savings Center, I thought I might enjoy this feature more than I did. The app automatically selects and prints coupons that it thinks you will like based on your past print history. I think this might appeal to people who would buy, say, Windex, every time they had a coupon for it. But for someone who already has a lot of Windex at home, I would not buy more simply because it printed a coupon for me.

Additionally, the auto-print prints one copy of each coupon. It would be very rare for me to only want to print one copy of a coupon that I wanted to use. If I choose to print a coupon, I always print two of them. So, on the chance that the printer does automatically give me a coupon I might want, it’s only printing one, and I still have to log into the HP Savings Center to print the second one. If I have to log in anyway, I’d rather be in control of what I’m printing and when. That way, I’m not wasting paper or ink.

What is nice about printing from HP’s Savings Center? This:

Four to a page! I do love this as it saves paper.

The rest of the family has discovered some of this printer’s fun features too. From the printer’s touchscreen, you can access a variety of apps — everything from crossword puzzles to Sudoku to kids’ games and crafts:

You can subscribe to these features weekly, or you can simply print them one at a time, on demand, from the printer’s menu. My kids have printed and enjoyed everything from paper airplane crafts to Angry Birds “Cootie Catchers” from this feature!

My youngest son has had a subscription to Highlights magazine, as many kids his age do. He likes it, but he doesn’t read it cover to cover. His favorite feature is the “Hidden Pictures” game, where you have to spot a variety of items within a large drawing. Well, there is a Highlights app on this printer that automatically delivers a new Highlights Hidden Pictures game to the printer each week!

His Highlights subscription recently came up for renewal, and at $24/year, I decided it was more cost effective to simply let him enjoy his favorite Highlights feature, Hidden Pictures, once a week from the printer. It’s free, other than the cost of ink and paper. And he’s grown to love checking the printer on Fridays to grab his Highlights game:

And, he’s not the only one enjoying Hidden Pictures. Hopefully this next photo won’t embarrass our 17-year-old too much, but look what I caught her doing last week:

With all of these apps, you can choose the day and time you’d like them to be delivered, so you’re not startled by your printer suddenly turning itself on at night and printing. Which leads me to the story I’ll leave you with today…

I have our scheduled apps set up to deliver in the afternoon. One day last week I went to the store, and our daughter was home alone. When I got back, she had quite a tale to tell. She said “Mom, you were gone and I heard this noise in the other room! I thought someone had broken in. I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and crept down the hall with the knife out. I came around the corner and saw that what I heard was the printer printing coupons!”

Ha ha. After that, I made sure to tell her what time the printer’s scheduled prints would take place. (And would-be intruders, take note…)

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Click here to learn more about HP Web-Connected Printers.

Want one? You can purchase the HP Envy 120 at the HSN.com for $179.99 and at Target.com for $199.99. I’ll also have a giveaway coming up this month to give a new HP Envy 120 printer away to a reader!

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Disclosure: I received an HP Envy 120 web-enabled printer, ink, and paper for the purpose of this review. All opinions about HP, the Envy 120, and the HP Savings Center are my own.