HP 65 tri-color · standard

The HP 65 tri-color holds cyan, magenta and yellow in a single cartridge, so it prints every color these machines can produce. Five printers in our database take it: the DeskJet 2655, DeskJet 3755 and DeskJet 3772, plus the ENVY 5052 and ENVY 5055. They are all entry-level inkjets from 2017 and 2018 built around the same 65 and 65XL pair.

This is the most expensive way to print a color page anywhere in our catalog. The cartridge is rated at about 100 pages and lists near $22.99, which is 23.0 cents every time the printer touches color. The 65XL tri-color prints about 300 pages for around $39.99, or 13.3 cents, so it gives you three times the pages for less than twice the money. Buy the standard 65 only if the printer is on its way out. Color costs more than black on this family whichever size you pick, with the 65 black at 16.7 cents a page and the 65XL black at 12.3 cents.

All five printers are on our firmware lockout list. They shipped with HP Dynamic Security, which can start refusing non-HP chips once the printer installs a firmware update, so a compatible 65 that prints happily today can stop being recognized months later. If you plan to run third-party ink in one of these, turn automatic printer updates off before the machine has a chance to apply one, buy from a seller who states current firmware compatibility, and keep the receipt.

The tri-color design has one failure mode worth knowing about. The cartridge is finished the moment any one of the three colors runs out, and the ink left in the other two chambers goes in the bin with it. Before you replace one, check whether a color has simply stopped coming out. A blocked nozzle shows up as a missing or wrong color while the rest of the page looks normal, and a cleaning cycle followed by a nozzle check will tell you which it is. If the printer will not recognize the cartridge at all, take it out, check the protective tape is fully off, wipe the copper contacts with a dry lint-free cloth and reseat it until it clicks, then power cycle with the plug pulled for a minute.