When it comes to printing high volumes, laser printers are the obvious choice. HP, however, is attempting to change all this with its OfficeJet Pro 8500, an inkjet MFD (multi-function device). According to HP, it's up to 50 percent cheaper to run than a laser: we'll take a closer look at this claim in a moment.

At 494mm wide, 331mm tall and 479mm deep, the OfficeJet Pro 8500 is comparable in size to most lasers. It will hook up to a PC via USB, but also offers both wired and wireless (802.11g) networking.

Sat at the front of the printer is a large control panel complete with a 3.5-inch, touch-sensitive colour display. Using this, you can preview and edit photos (these can be loaded via the multi-format card reader or PictBridge USB port), as well as access other features such as the fax, copy and scan components.

Although the display responds well, it would have been good to have some physical navigation buttons as an alternative. Instead, most of the buttons on the control panel are related to fax use. If you like being annoyed by playful tunes, you'll delight in the OfficeJet Pro 8500's sound effects. Those not impressed by such features will be pleased to hear they can be muted.

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When you have a bunch of documents to scan in, the usefulness of an ADF (automatic document feeder) shouldn't be underestimated, and the OfficeJet Pro 8500 comes with a 50-sheet version. A slight concern is that the ADF tray feels a bit flimsy: if a heavy book were to be accidentally dropped on it, for example, we wouldn't be surprised to hear a nasty snap.

A nice touch is the duplex unit that attaches to the rear of the printer. This has to be manually installed when you first unpack the printer, but once set up you'll be able to enjoy fully automatic double-sided printing.

The downside, however, is that using it is a painfully long process. Once the first side of the page is printed, the OfficeJet Pro 8500 waits around five seconds for the ink to dry. It will then slowly suck the page back in, flip it round using the duplex unit and then start printing on the other side. Nevertheless, it's a useful feature to have, even if its slow nature means you probably won't use it that often.

So, what of HP's claims that the OfficeJet Pro 8500 is cheaper to run than a laser printer? Well, with its high-capacity black ink cartridge good for around 2,000 pages and costing just £26 including VAT, the price per mono print sits at just 1.3p: you can find lasers that print cheaper, but not many. You can also purchase a lower capacity black cartridge for £19, but lasting just 1,000 pages the price per print jumps to 1.9p.

Each of the three colour cartridges costs £17 and last 1,400 pages, resulting in a price of 4.9p per colour print, which is well below that of most lasers.

HP quotes some pretty ambitious print speeds of 35ppm for mono and 34ppm for colour. When we ran multiple copies of an A4 page full of text, we only managed 14ppm. In draft mode this increased to 22ppm. If you only print a small amount of text per page, you'll get closer to HP's quoted mono speed.

Colour photos take considerably longer, with our test photo, printed at A4 size, taking five seconds short of six minutes.

In terms of quality, text output is good, but place a print side-by-side with that of a laser and you'll immediately notice the OfficeJet Pro 8500's text isn't as well defined. Colour photo prints, however, are much better than you'd get from any laser, looking vivid and featuring a decent level of detail. That said, they're not as impressive as those produced by other inkjets we've seen such as the Photosmart C6380, also from HP.

With a maximum resolution of 4800dpi, high quality scans can be captured. It managed to complete our test A4 colour scan in 24 seconds and we were impressed with the accurate colour reproduction. As a photocopier the OfficeJet Pro 8500 also works well, producing a colour A4 copy in 30 seconds. The same copy, but in black and white, took 22 seconds.

With low running costs, the OfficeJet Pro 8500 is worth considering as an alternative to a laser in the home office environment. The price is fairly high but you get a host of features including a fax, scanner, copier and built in wired and wireless networking. That said, it's not as fast as many lasers, which may be a deal breaker if you're printing high volumes.