Nice and EcoEasy: HP Officejet 6500 Wireless Review

Different vendors aim to give you different reasons to feel good about buying or using a product. In this case, there are two vendors for one product: The inkjet printer/copier/scanner/fax seen here is not only an HP Officejet 6500 Wireless but a Staples EcoEasy Edition, one of 3,000-odd inventory items which the office retailer has designated as worthy of environmental note.

Staples' reasons? The $200 printer's power consumption is low enough to earn an Energy Star sticker and its automatic duplexing helps you save a tree or three by printing on both sides of a page. It even comes in a plain brown instead of colorful cardboard box, in which you're invited to bring your previous printer back to the store for recycling.

It's nice of Staples to try to give customers happy green feelings. For its part, HP focuses on other green feelings -- as in greenbacks, boasting that the 6500 not only uses up to 40 percent less energy than under-$600 color laser multifunction products but delivers comparable savings in cost per page. And considering that inkjets are generally the spendthrifts of the printing world, the HP's savings are almost stunning.