HPSmart Tank 6001No product photo yet

HP Smart Tank 6001

Ink tankBottles

Automatic duplex is the upgrade over the 5103, and HP quotes up to three years of ink in the box rather than two — same bottles, a fuller initial fill. Colour speed improves a little as well, from 5 to 7 ISO pages a minute, which matters if the household prints children's homework with pictures in it. What has not changed is the absence of a document feeder and the reliance on the HP Smart app for anything the monochrome LCD cannot show, which is most things. Sitting between an entry EcoTank and a MegaTank on price, the 6001's argument is the 8,000-page colour bottle: it is the cheapest colour ink per page in the four-ink tank class, and for a household printing school projects that is exactly the ink that empties.

Approx. price: ~$269
Cost per mono page: 0.40¢
Cost per colour page: 1.2¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$297
Print speed, mono: 12 ISO ppm

Best for

A family that prints homework and colour handouts and wants the cheapest colour ink without office extras.

marks an estimate. Computed from the consumable's ISO page yield and its list price. An estimate. Purchase price plus ink or toner over the pages shown, assuming four mono pages for every colour page. Price is an approximate snapshot from our last catalogue update.

What it costs to own

Black consumable: HP 32XL black bottle · 6,000 ISO pages · ~$23.89
Colour consumable: HP 31 colour bottles · 8,000 ISO pages · ~$21.89 each
Cost per mono page: 0.40¢
Cost per colour page: 1.2¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$297
Cost to own, 200 pages/month for 3 years: ~$309 (7,200 pages)

Computed from the consumable's ISO page yield and its list price. An estimate. How this is worked out

Cost to own · 5,000 pages

HP Smart Tank 6001~$297
~$269 printer + ~$28 supplies
HP Smart Tank 5103~$297
~$269 printer + ~$28 supplies
HP Smart Tank 7301~$407
~$379 printer + ~$28 supplies

purchase priceink or toner. An estimate: purchase price plus 5,000 pages at each printer’s computed cost per page, assuming 4 mono pages for every colour page. Printers whose consumable price we could not source are left out.

Specifications

Manufacturer-published figures. Cost lines are computed from the consumable figures above and are estimates.

Approx. price: ~$269
Cost per mono page: 0.40¢
Cost per colour page: 1.2¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$297
Cost to own, 3 years: ~$309
Technology: Thermal inkjet
Ink system: Bottles
Inks: 4
Black consumable: HP 32XL black bottle · 6,000 pages
Colour consumable: HP 31 colour bottles · 8,000 pages
Ink in the box: 6,000 pages
Third-party ink lock: No
Ink subscription: None offered
Print speed, mono: 12 ISO ppm
Print speed, colour: 7 ISO ppm
Functions: Print · Copy · Scan
Two-sided printing: Auto
Document feeder: None
Paper capacity: 100 sheets
Max paper size: Letter
Borderless photo: Yes
Resolution: 4800 × 1200 dpi
Connectivity: Wi-Fi
Mobile printing: AirPrint · Mopria
Display: Mono LCD
Dimensions: 17.1 × 14.0 × 6.7 in
Weight: 12.3 lb
Released: 2022

Features

Automatic two-sided printing
Four refillable tanks on HP 32XL and HP 31 bottles
Up to three years of ink included in the box
Not an HP+ model — no Original-HP-only requirement
Borderless photo printing
Flatbed scanner and standalone copier

Auto duplex No ink lock Borderless photo

In its favour

Colour pages cost less here than on any other four-ink tank printer in the catalogue
Automatic duplex, which the 5103 lacks
Three years of ink quoted in the box is more than any EcoTank claims
No HP+ enrolment and no supplies lock

Against it

Still no document feeder
Monochrome LCD forces most tasks into the phone app
Letter-size ceiling with no legal support
12 ISO ppm black is mid-pack at best

What owners say

Distilled from owner discussions and long-term published reviews

The sensible middle of HP's tank range: the 5101 plus an automatic duplexer and a fuller initial ink fill. For a household printing children's schoolwork — which is the use case that comes up most in discussion of this model — the combination of two-sided printing and the cheapest colour ink in the four-ink class is the right one.

The friction is all software. A monochrome LCD means the HP Smart app is the interface, and the app is more interested in accounts, offers and subscription prompts than owners would like. It is not the HP+ lock — this model has none — but it is the same corporate instinct, and it is what people mean when they say they are done with HP.

What owners like

Automatic duplex, which is the upgrade over the 5101 owners say they use daily
HP quotes up to three years of ink in the box, and owners report the initial fill lasting a long time
No HP+ enrolment and no supplies lock
The 8,000-page colour bottles make school and craft printing genuinely cheap

Common complaints

Still no document feeder at this price
A monochrome LCD pushes almost everything into HP's app, which owners find pushy about accounts
Letter-size ceiling with no legal support
Idle clogging, as with every tank inkjet

Questions that keep coming up

Is three years of ink in the box realistic?

It is HP's figure, based on an assumed monthly volume, and like every such claim it depends entirely on how much you print. Owners printing typical household volumes do report a very long time before the first refill. Frequent head cleaning — which happens when a printer sits idle — shortens it.

Does it need an HP account?

The app wants one, and with a monochrome LCD the app is how most settings get changed. Unlike HP's 'e' models this is not an HP+ printer, so there is no supplies lock and no requirement to stay online to print. The account pressure is an annoyance rather than a constraint.

Smart Tank 6001 or Epson ET-2850?

Very close. Both are four-ink tank printers with automatic duplex and no feeder. Epson's black bottle is rated higher; HP's colour bottles are rated higher, so HP wins on colour-heavy printing and Epson on text. Epson's colour LCD is better than HP's monochrome one. Price and what is on offer locally will decide it for most people.

Computed from the consumable's ISO page yield and its list price. An estimate. Owner notes are a summary of what people who own the machine report, not a test result — there is no lab behind this site.