A document feeder, and 100-page cartridges
This machine has an automatic document feeder, which is rare on a DeskJet and very handy: you stack your originals, press the button and walk away. Except that the colour cartridge holds only 100 pages.
The contradiction is real and worth knowing before the habit sets in. Copying a stack of thirty pages in colour uses close to a third of a tri-colour cartridge in a single operation. Two such stacks in a month and you are buying again.
The answer comes down to one habit: copy in black and white by default, and keep colour for documents that genuinely contain it. The black lasts a little better — 120 pages, 240 in XL — and it draws on one cartridge instead of two.
305 or 305XL: the sums are quickly done
HP recommends a volume of 100 to 300 pages a month. At the ceiling, a standard tri-colour empties in ten days, a 305XL in three weeks. On a machine with a feeder, which mechanically invites more copying, the XL version is not a comfort but the normal format.
Do beware of oversizing, though: an opened inkjet cartridge dries with time. If you really print a hundred pages a month, an XL will take more than two months to empty, which is reasonable; below that, the standard version avoids waste.
The black resists water, the colour does not
The 305 black is a pigment ink: the text stays crisp, does not run under a highlighter and does not fade. The tri-colour, being dye based, gives brighter shades but far more fragile ones. For a document to be kept or signed, print in black — it is not only a question of cost.
The usual flaw of the three-in-one cartridge applies here too: when a single shade runs out, the whole cartridge becomes unusable, even with yellow and magenta left. It is the same compromise as on the DeskJet 2320, and it weighs all the more heavily here since the machine also copies.
A fleet of printers to keep supplied?
We draw up the list of consumables for your whole fleet and a single grouped quote. Invoice in your company's name with its ICE number, delivery anywhere in Morocco.