Which ink does the HP ENVY 5052 use?

Two cartridges feed the HP ENVY 5052, an HP 65 black and an HP 65 tri-colour, each sold in a standard size and an XL. Both steps up pay for themselves, though the tri-colour rewards you more: the XL black drops a page from 16.66 cents to 12.33 cents, about 26 percent, while the XL tri-colour drops from 22.99 cents to 13.33 cents, about 42 percent. A pair of XL cartridges lists at $76.98 against $42.98 for the small pair.

Even after that, the colour cartridge is the expensive one. A tri-colour XL page costs 8 percent more than a black XL page, and the cartridge is spent when any single chamber empties however much cyan is left behind. Anything that does not need colour should be printed in black on this machine.

Cost per page at 12.33 cents puts the ENVY 5052 among the dearer machines to run in our catalogue, and that is the trade for a cheap printer with the print head built into the cartridge. Every replacement brings fresh nozzles with it, which is why a streaky ENVY often comes good once you blot the copper plate on the underside of the cartridge with a barely damp cloth, dry it and refit it.

The firmware is the catch. Our tracker has this model as Dynamic Security capable, so an update can start refusing non HP chips. That matters because remanufactured ink is where the money is: 4inkjets lists a remanufactured 65XL black at $14.99, which is 5.00 cents a page and 59 percent off the HP price. Our own listing for it carries a caution that HP firmware blocks it on some units, so decline automatic updates first, then buy one cartridge rather than a multipack and print a nozzle check the day it arrives.