PlayStation classic ‘Jak and Daxter’ will be re-released on PS4

Sony isn’t slowing down in its quest to bring seemingly every classic PlayStation series to the PS4. The gaming giant has revealed that Naughty Dog’s PS2-era Jak and Daxter games (The Precursor Legacy, Jak II, Jak 3 and Jak X: Combat Racing) will be available on the PS4 as a download later in 2017. Don’t get your hopes up for a Crash Bandicoot-style makeover, though. They’ll be rendered at 1080p and support modern features like Remote Play and trophies, but they won’t receive graphical overhauls or any new features. If you want to duke it out with a friend in Jak X, you’ll have to share a TV.

The relatively modest conversion effort isn’t surprising. Naughty Dog has its hands full with The Last of Us Part II and, to a lesser extent, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. And while third parties can certainly handle remasters (Vicarious Visions is largely responsible for the Crash re-do), overhauling four games is no mean feat. Look at it this way, though: if you’ve lost your PS2 to the ravages of time, you won’t have to completely forego Jak as well.

Source: PlayStation Blog

Great deal! These are our 3 favorite Amazon tech bargains today

Amazon’s Goldbox deals of the day feature some excellent computing devices and accessories, including a Fire Tablet equipped with Alexa, an Acer 2-in-1 laptop, and an advanced whole house Wi-Fi system. Enjoy savings of up to $200 off and 27 percent discounts. Read on to check out the best Amazon tech deals of the day.

More: Save Up To $80 On These Name-Brand Headphones With Our Deal Roundup

Fire HD 8 Tablet with Alexa

The Fire HD 8 Tablet with Alexa is the more compact and portable version of Amazon Fire HD tablets and is currently marked down 22 percent on Amazon for a limited time. The tablet was engineered for entertainment, complete with a 1.3 GHz quad-core processor and Dolby Audio. This model has 16 GB internal storage plus a microSD slot for up to 200 GB of expandable storage. It also has 12 hours of battery life and two times the storage and 50 percent more RAM than previous versions for an enhanced performance.

The tablet features a widescreen 1280-by-800 HD display with more than 1 million pixels (189 ppi) for a bright, vivid picture. Enjoy crisp, clear HD resolution, with less glare and more brightness thanks to a stunning 8-inch IPS (in-plane-switching) LCD display. The tablet has a 2MP rear-facing camera for taking photos or shooting 720p video and a front-facing VGA camera is ideal for video chatting. The Fire HD is designed to be durable, and in fact is twice as durable than iPad Mini 4. Lastly, with Alexa capabilities built in, you can not only stay entertained and informed, you can also make everyday tasks easier and control your smart home from the device.

The Fire HD 8 Tablet With Alexa normally retails for $90 but is currently discounted to $70 on Amazon, providing a $20 or 22 percent discount.

Buy it now from:

Amazon

Acer Switch Alpha 12 2-in-1, 12-inch QHD Touch Laptop

This Acer Switch Alpha 12 2-in-1, 12-Inch QHD Touch Laptop is a slim, lightweight, and flexible laptop that offers plenty of versatility as it easily transforms from a tablet to a laptop. The built-in fan-less liquid loop cooling system is the world’s first to support the high-performance sixth-gen Intel Core processors in a 2-in-1 device that keeps the system both cool and quiet. Another innovative feature is the Type-C port that transfers data quickly, streams high-resolution video to premium displays without a hitch, and allows you to recharge external devices such as your smartphones.

On the specs end, this 2-in 1 laptop has an Intel Core i7-6500U processor 2.5GHz with Turbo Boost technology up to 3.1GHz, 8GB of LPDDR3 of onboard memory, an integrated Intel HD graphics 520 card, and the Acer TrueHarmony high-performance sound system with two built-in front-facing speakers. The screen is also impressive as it is a 12-inch QHD display with 2160-by-1440 resolution, high-brightness, LED-backlit IPS technology, and an integrated 10-point multi-touch screen. 

The Acer Switch Alpha 12 2-in-1 12-Inch QHD Touch Laptop normally retails for $1,000 but is currently discounted to $800 on Amazon, giving you a savings of $200 or 20 percent.

Buy it now from:

Amazon

Luma Whole Home Wi-Fi System

The Luma Whole Home Wi-Fi System gives you a whole new level of in-home wireless. The system delivers ultra-fast Wi-Fi to every square inch of your house without any dead zones or buffering. Get peace of mind with all-day, every-day built-in security monitoring that automatically scans and neutralizes any virus or malware, keeping your devices safe. The smart device allows for smarter parenting as well. Easily set a user rating (G, PG, or PG-13) for each person on your network, to easily and effectively limit all the inappropriate material children might stumble upon.

Sync the system with the compatible Luma app to get even more control. You can pause the internet, prioritize devices, grant guest access, and remove unwanted devices from your smartphone. The Luma system has built-in Alexa capabilities allowing you to go hands-free and simply speak commands. This offer comes with three individual Luma Wi-Fi devices, enough to cover 2,000 to 3,000 square feet, as they replace your existing router and extenders.

The Luma Whole Home Wi-Fi System normally retails for $400 but is currently marked down to $292 on Amazon, providing a $107 or 27 percent discount.

Buy it now from:

Amazon

AMD’s Ryzen 5 1400 CPU takes on Intel’s Core i5-7400 in new gaming video

Why it matters to you

Here’s your first opportunity to compare AMD’s newest Ryzen 5 CPU against Intel’s Core i5-7400 across a range of gaming titles.

AMD’s new Zen architecture and Ryzen line of CPUs has been a real shot in the company’s arm when it comes to its competitive standing with Intel. The Ryzen 7 series of processors has demonstrated strong performance wherever multiple cores are a benefit and competitive gaming performance given the price.

The Ryzen 5 series hasn’t yet hit the streets, and so there’s not much hard data on how it will perform compared to Intel’s Core i5 CPUs. However, one intrepid reviewer managed to get a Ryzen 5 1400 running in a system and provided a video overview of its performance, as Hexus reports.

More: AMD presses its advantage with affordable Ryzen 5 processors, available April 11

Santiago Santiago was the reviewer, and he compared the Ryzen 5 1400 both stock and overclocked to 3.8GHz to the Intel Core i5-7400 and Intel Pentium G4560. That equates to the Ryzen 5’s four cores and eight threads going up against the Core i5’s four cores and four threads and the Pentium’s two cores and four threads.

Note that the performance comparison was limited somewhat by the pre-release nature of the Ryzen 5 and the lack of updated firmware. The processor gets hot as is, and apparently that limited the ability to overclock. RAM was also running at a relatively slow speed.

Nevertheless, the video does provides a tantalizing glimpse at the Ryzen 5’s performance, and Santiago ran a number of games to compare performance across the AMD and Intel chips. Santiago was kind enough to provide a list of the games and where the coverage begins in the video in his description:

• Battlefield 1 (01:18)
• Fallout 4 (04:04)
• GTA 5 (04:51)
• Hitman (06:49)
• Just Cause (07:39)
• Assassin’s Creed (08:06)
• The Witcher 3 (08:57)
• Rise of the Tomb Raider (10:02)

After providing a brief introduction, Santiago went straight to clips from the games in a split-screen mode showing relative performance. Results were mixed depending on the game, where in some cases the overclocked Ryzen 5 exceeded the Intel Core i5’s performance, in some cases matched it, and in yet some other cases fell short.

On paper, Ryzen 5 should perform as well as or better than the comparably priced Intel Core i5 processors. Ryzen 5 offers double the threads of Intel’s Core i5-7400, and offers a faster maximum clock speed. The Intel equivalent is also slightly more expensive.

According to Santiago’s testing, the Ryzen 5 is competitive against Intel’s CPUs, and there’s still room for improvement as AMD brings the chips to market. If you’re considering AMD’s newest midrange chips instead of Intel’s, then the video should be something of an eye opener in helping you establish your plans. Ryzen 5 is expected to be released sometime in the current quarter.

Swiss hospitals are using drones to shuttle around medical samples

Why it matters to you

Drone deliveries aren’t just about Amazon packages. This pilot scheme is using them to shuttle lab samples between two hospitals in Switzerland.

We’re still a way off from the kind of Amazon Prime Air drone delivery service Jeff Bezos dreams about. But while you won’t be getting your new Game of Thrones boxset dropped from the sky any time soon, there’s a good chance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) delivery could save your life in the very near future. If you get sick and happen to live in Switzerland, that is.

That’s because Swiss Post has joined forces with drone logistics company Matternet to move lab samples between two hospitals in the city of Lugano, in southern Switzerland. The scheme has received the blessing of the Swiss Federal Office for Civil Aviation, and trials have been underway since the middle of last month — with around 70 autonomous flights racked up so far.

More: Swiss Post to test robots to deliver parcels, maybe even chocolate?

The drones are capable of carrying loads of up to 4.4 pounds for a distance of 12 miles at a top speed of 22 miles per hour. No, that’s not faster than a speeding car, but it does come with some major advantages.

“A big advantage is that it helps avoid traffic jams,” Nathalie Dérobert Fellay, a spokesperson for Swiss Post, told Digital Trends. “Instead of having transportation on the road, where you may be stuck in traffic for a long period of time, transportation by drone is significantly faster. It’s also better for the patient because we can run it 24 hours a day.”

At present, the project is still in its trial stages, with this first spate of testing concluding tomorrow. After that, there will be another testing phase in the middle of year, before the drone medical sample delivery service rolls out for good in 2018. Using the system, staff can load samples into the drone and then launch it into the air via a mobile app, after which it flies via a predefined route to its destination.

“This use of drones won’t extend beyond a niche market for the foreseeable future,” Dérobert Fellay said, concerning a larger scale rollout of drone delivery systems. “We think they will complement traditional parcel delivery, but not replace it.”

It certainly seems to work well in use-cases like this, however!

Here’s how to transform plastic bottles into strong, versatile string

Why it matters to you

A method for turning old plastic bottles into strong plastic string should come in handy when the zombie apocalypse arrives.

Do you own a small block of wood and a knife? Looking for something MacGyver-esque to do with all those plastic bottles you’ve got piled up? Constantly find yourself short of string?

If the stars align in such a way that you answered “yes” to all three of the above questions, then you may be interested in a nifty “survival hack” demonstrated by YouTuber Grant Thomson in one of his latest videos. As the owner of the “King of Random” YouTube Channel, Thomson makes videos exploring a wide range of “life hacks, experiments, and random weekend projects.” In this particular video he teaches us how to make near endless supplies of strong plastic string using the most basic of tools.

The “hack” involves cutting a small block of wood and then sticking a knife into it to form a makeshift blade. Into this, Thomson then feeds a bottle, which — provided the blade is positioned correctly — cuts incredibly thin strips of bottle. Pulling the bottle then transforms it into string. Using just a few bottles, he ends up making more than 1,200 feet of string.

More: A DIY laser bazooka is the most terrifyingly awesome thing you’ll see today

That’s not his only similar hack, either. Inspired by his string-making success, Thomson then goes onto fashion the string into plastic ropes, using a previous contraption he had created.

“I’ve seen soda bottle string, but with my rope-making machine [that I] recently created, it made me wonder what would happen if I put the two together,” he told Digital Trends. “Many comments were asking me to combine several ropes as well, and this was the perfect opportunity to try that as well to see what would happen.”

As for practical applications … well, they’re pretty much what you would expect. “The practical applications for soda bottle rope are probably the same as anything you could use rope for I imagine,” he said. “If you got the strands thin enough, it would be even finer.”

Well, that takes care of one part of our zombie apocalypse survival kit. Now we just need someone who can tell us how to fashion discarded cable ties into a bludgeoning tool…

ZTE launches the Prestige 2 for Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile customers

Why it matters to you

Need a cheap phone on a great carrier? You might want to consider ZTE’s Prestige 2.

Quality phones that don’t break the bank are hard to come by. Sure, you can shell out a couple of Benjamins for the Moto G5 Plus or ZTE Axon 7 mini, but if cheap, affordable smartphones that come in under the price a handful of movie tickets are a rare breed, indeed. Luckily, ZTE has a solution: The $80 Prestige 2.

“The original Prestige was immensely popular among consumers and we are excited about following up that device with the Prestige 2,” Lixin Cheng, chairman and CEO of ZTE USA, said in a statement. “We continue to provide affordable premium options across all pricing levels and this device is perfect for budget-conscious consumers who want value, but do not want to compromise on quality.”

More: ZTE scraps Kickstarter for Hawekeye, its crowdsourced smartphone

The Prestige 2 won’t break any records, but what you get for the money isn’t too shabby. It packs a 5-inch screen with a FWVGA (854 x 480 pixels) resolution, a 1.1GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of internal storage expandable up to 32GB with a MicroSD card. There is a twin pair of 5-megapixel shooters that handle photo-taking duties (one on the front and one on the back), and a 2,035mAh removable battery that supplies a day’s worth of power.

Unfortunately, you won’t find the Prestige 2 everywhere — it’s only available on Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile. But don’t let that deter you — both carriers paired ZTE’s new handset with competitive plans.

Virgin Mobile’s offering two options: Data Love and Data Love Plus. Data Love starts at $35 a month for unlimited talk, text, and 5GB of 4G LTE data. The $45-a-month Data Love Plus, meanwhile, bumps data up to 10GB. Both plans include music streaming that doesn’t count against your plan, and both can be stretched further with optional data packs (1GB and 2GB for $5 and $10, respectively).

More: Faster than a bullet? ZTE is going full speed ahead with the Gigabit phone

On Boost, you get the choice of two plans: Unlimited Gigs and a 2GB data. The Unlimited Gigs option starts at $50 a month ($30 for each subsequent line) for unlimited talk, text, and data. The 2GB plan is $30 a month (with autopay enabled) for unlimited talk and text, and includes the option add an extra 1GB or 2GB of data for $5 or $10 a month, respectively.

Regardless of which Boost plan you choose, Boost Mobile subscribers with the ZTE Prestige 2 can roam in Mexico. Todo Mexico Plus is available with a monthly plan for $5 additional per month, and includes unlimited calls to Mexico and Canada and international texting. While traveling in Mexico, you get up to 8GB of data, unlimited calls to the U.S. and in Mexico, and unlimited international text.

The Prestige is available online and in select Best Buy stores starting today for $80.

Demystifying artificial intelligence: Here’s everything you need to know about AI

Crazy singularities, robot rebellions, falling in love with computers … artificial intelligence conjures up a multitude of wild what-ifs. But in the real world, AI involves machine learning, deep learning, and many other programmable capabilities that we’re just beginning to explore. Let’s put the fantasy stuff on hold — at least for now — and talk about this real-world AI. Here’s how it works, and where it’s going.

More: Is the AI apocalypse a tired Hollywood trope, or human destiny?

What is artificial intelligence?

coward_lion/123RF

Today’s AI systems seek to process or respond to data in human-like ways. It’s a broad definition, but it needs to be as broad as possible, because there are a lot of different AI projects currently in existence. If you want a little more classification, there are two types of AI to consider.

• General: The purpose of general AI is to mimic human behavior as much as possible. Developers actually care about the Turing Test, and the goal is to make a system as life-like as possible. That also makes it less useful, however, and often unable to specialize. General AI systems are good for showy demonstrations and sales — Siri and Cortana are prime examples — but they are inherently limited because of their interaction requirements.
• Narrow: Narrow AI is focused on a specific problem or situation, and designed to analyze data and form conclusions far more efficiently than humans can. An automatic translator that converts Spanish to English can be considered a type of narrow AI, or software that analyzes stock options and recommends investment ideas. These aren’t very flashy and are usually confined to simple interfaces, but they are far more useful in a practical sense.

AI can also be classified by how it operates, which is particularly important when considering how complex an AI system is and the ultimate costs of that software. If a company is creating an AI solution, the first question must be, “Will it learn through training or inference?”

• Training: These AIs are designed to learn and improve over time, and will adjust their data sets and certain parts of their processes to become more efficient. This takes a lot of processing power, so most training features in commercial AI are very simple.
• Inference: These AIs are designed to look at data and draw conclusions in careful steps. For a casual example, an AI might infer, “To answer this question, data for yesterday’s game scores must be found; searching list of reliable sports data sets; comparing to favorite teams listed in settings; reporting scores in audio.” But they have no or little ability to change by themselves over time. This takes far less processing power (and lower costs).

There have been books and books written about what specific features AI must include to be truly AI, and unsurprisingly, no one really agrees on what these features are; every description of AI is a little different. But there are several examples of successful AIs in our current landscape worth looking at.

Demystifying artificial intelligence: Here’s everything you need to know about AI

Crazy singularities, robot rebellions, falling in love with computers … artificial intelligence conjures up a multitude of wild what-ifs. But in the real world, AI involves machine learning, deep learning, and many other programmable capabilities that we’re just beginning to explore. Let’s put the fantasy stuff on hold — at least for now — and talk about this real-world AI. Here’s how it works, and where it’s going.

More: Is the AI apocalypse a tired Hollywood trope, or human destiny?

What is artificial intelligence?

coward_lion/123RF

Today’s AI systems seek to process or respond to data in human-like ways. It’s a broad definition, but it needs to be as broad as possible, because there are a lot of different AI projects currently in existence. If you want a little more classification, there are two types of AI to consider.

• General: The purpose of general AI is to mimic human behavior as much as possible. Developers actually care about the Turing Test, and the goal is to make a system as life-like as possible. That also makes it less useful, however, and often unable to specialize. General AI systems are good for showy demonstrations and sales — Siri and Cortana are prime examples — but they are inherently limited because of their interaction requirements.
• Narrow: Narrow AI is focused on a specific problem or situation, and designed to analyze data and form conclusions far more efficiently than humans can. An automatic translator that converts Spanish to English can be considered a type of narrow AI, or software that analyzes stock options and recommends investment ideas. These aren’t very flashy and are usually confined to simple interfaces, but they are far more useful in a practical sense.

AI can also be classified by how it operates, which is particularly important when considering how complex an AI system is and the ultimate costs of that software. If a company is creating an AI solution, the first question must be, “Will it learn through training or inference?”

• Training: These AIs are designed to learn and improve over time, and will adjust their data sets and certain parts of their processes to become more efficient. This takes a lot of processing power, so most training features in commercial AI are very simple.
• Inference: These AIs are designed to look at data and draw conclusions in careful steps. For a casual example, an AI might infer, “To answer this question, data for yesterday’s game scores must be found; searching list of reliable sports data sets; comparing to favorite teams listed in settings; reporting scores in audio.” But they have no or little ability to change by themselves over time. This takes far less processing power (and lower costs).

There have been books and books written about what specific features AI must include to be truly AI, and unsurprisingly, no one really agrees on what these features are; every description of AI is a little different. But there are several examples of successful AIs in our current landscape worth looking at.

Free yourself! How to unlock your phone from the icy hands of your wireless carrier

Your two-year contract is finally up, and you want to save some money by bringing your phone to a carrier with lower rates. Sadly, odds are that your phone is locked to your carrier, which prevents you from jumping ship and using your phone on another network. Thankfully, legislation and the FCC made the process of unlocking your phone easier than ever. More importantly, it superseded an earlier decision made by the Library of Congress that interpreted cellphone unlocking as a violation of copyright. Cellphone unlocking, in other words, is legally permissible.

More: How to avoid early termination fees and switch phone carriers like a pro

Just because unlocking your phone is legal doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy to do, though. To that end, let’s dive into what you’d want to do if you were to unlock your phone and break free of your two-year cycle with your carrier.

What you’ll need

Before you set your mind on unlocking your phone, you’ll need to keep in mind that doing so isn’t a fast process by any stretch of the imagination. Unlocking your phone can take several phone calls and hours of work. In addition, unlocking your phone before you leave your current carrier would be wise, as the incentive to help you through the process won’t be as great.

With that in mind, there are a few nuggets of information you’ll need:

• The account holder’s name and account number.
• IMEI of your device.
• Your phone number.
• The account holder’s social security number or password.
• A finished contract and/or device payment plan.
• Overseas deployment papers, if the nature of your inquiry involves you being in the military and wanting to unlock your phone before your contract is up.

Now that you have that information by your side, let’s see how each carrier handles unlocking your phone.

HP DeskJet 3755 review

Research Center:
HP DeskJet 3755

There’s that old saying that “bigger is better,” but everyone knows that’s not always a given. Sometimes the opposite is true. That’s the case for Hewlett Packard’s diminutive (for a printer, at least) DeskJet 3755 ($70 MSRP).

The Wi-Fi-enabled 3755 isn’t the fastest, nor is it the quietest inkjet all-in-one (AIO) printer on the market. But it is the smallest multifunction unit that you can currently buy, according to HP, and that will sway a lot of consumers, particularly those who don’t like big computing peripherals taking up space.

Features and design

Besides the price, what draws us to the 3755 is the size. It’s a compact unit measuring 15.86 x 6.97 x 5.55 inches with the input and output trays retracted. Paper is fed through the rear-mounted, 60-sheet input tray, and the output in the front-bottom can hold up to 25 sheets. It only weighs 5.13 pounds, so its small size and light weight makes it a good choice for when space is tight.

Les Shu/Digital Trends

Les Shu/Digital Trends

Les Shu/Digital Trends

Les Shu/Digital Trends

The controls are sparse. It consists of a small single-digit monochrome LCD that also displays icons to indicate error conditions, Wi-Fi Direct connection, wireless status and signal strength, and ink levels. Surrounding the LCD are buttons and indicator lights to connect to Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi Direct, and HP’s Web Services. The setup poster that’s included in the box is scant help, but you can download a 114-page user’s guide that provides great detail on how to use the functions.

HP’s 3755 is targeted toward casual users, and it’s reflected in the capacity of the standard (65) or high-capacity (65XL) ink cartridges. The standard black pigment ink cartridge has a yield rated at about 125 pages, while the tri-color dye-based ink cartridge is rated to yield about 100 pages; the inks cost about $13 and $14, respectively. Frankly, that’s not a lot of prints out of a cartridge.

The high-capacity cartridges up the yields to 300 pages for both the black and color cartridges, and are priced at about $26 and $31, respectively. Despite being XL cartridges, those are still low yields. For the infrequent print jobs, it’s fine; otherwise, you’re betting off with a higher-yield printer. HP does offer its Instant Ink program for the 3755, a subscription service that automatically sends you replacement ink before the printer runs out – a handy service if you anticipate printing more than a few occasional pages.

Setup and performance

Setup is quick. The 3755 comes with a setup disc, yet it prompts you to perform the setup by downloading the latest drivers from HP’s support site. We opted to use the optical disc, but if you have a computer that lacks an optical drive, at least there’s another setup option.

More: Home printer buying guide: How to choose the best printer

We connected to the printer via Wi-Fi, but you can also connect using a USB cable. If the printer is on a wireless network with Internet access, you can use HP’s ePrint cloud service for remote printing or printing from a mobile device.

The setup process installs a basic scan utility. Unlike a flatbed scanner that you lift the top up, you have to manually feed a page, one at a time. Testing the scanner, we obtained scans with accurate colors and saturation. Optical scan resolution is only 600 x 600 dpi, so don’t expect to scan a small photo and blow it up to print at a larger size.

It is the smallest multifunction unit that you can currently buy.

Copying was painfully slow – even slower than printing. Additionally, you are limited to just a maximum of nine copies at a time. And, as with scanning, because it doesn’t have a document feeder, pages must be individually fed. Forget about copying from a magazine, book, or other bound source

In HP’s defense, the company doesn’t claim the 3755 is a speed demon. They rate the maximum print speed at up to 8 pages per minute (ppm) in monochrome. In our testing, we achieved only 4.8 ppm for a monochrome Microsoft Word document, and an even slower 2 ppm for an Excel document with mixed black and color elements. Remember, for the market the machine is intended for – the occasional user – the slow speed may not be a negative. On the positive side, output quality on both text and images is very good, and the printer offers interpolated resolution of up to 4800 x 1200 dpi.

More: Connecting a printer to Windows 10: Tips and troubleshooting

HP lists photo printing as one of the 3755’s capabilities, and it’s pretty good at it. The problem, again, is speed and ink capacity. After we completed our standard print speed tests, there was barely enough ink remaining to print photos. A modest amount of photo printing will drain the cartridges ridiculously fast. And because the printer is slow, it will take a while to print a photo. If photo printing is a must, you should consider something else.

Our review unit was very noisy when feeding paper, although once it started printing, the unit was as quiet (or loud) as the average inkjet machine.

HP DeskJet 3755 Compared To

Canon Maxify MB5420

Brother MFC-J885DW

Epson WorkForce WF-2660

Brother MFC-J4420DW

Brother MFC-J870DW

Epson WorkForce WF-7510

Samsung Printer Xpress C410W

Dell C1765

Canon Pixma MG6320

Seiko SLP 450

HP OfficeJet 7410

HP PhotoSmart 8050

HP Photosmart 7760

HP 1100D

HP DeskJet 9670

Our Take

The DeskJet 3755’s main positive attribute is its small size. It’s attractive, and it should fit in most space-constraint places, like a student’s dorm room desk. It does have some significant drawbacks, but, depending on your usage behavior, the negatives are either acceptable or deal breakers.

Should you buy it?

We lean toward no, only because there are models that don’t cost that much more (some cost even less) but offer better functionality and more features. With that said, the 3755 is a niche printer that fulfills a certain need. If you live in a 300-square-foot New York City studio, for example, the 3755 is pretty attractive when space is at a premium.

To be honest, if you anticipate printing a moderate level of volume, or photo printing, you will probably be better off with a more robust model form HP or another vendor.

Are there better alternatives?

The DT Accessory Pack

AmazonBasics USB 2.0 A-B cable

$5

HP 65 Black and Tri-color ink (Two Pack)

$21.69

HP Instant Ink 1-month enrollment

$3

If you are just looking for the least expensive AIO, there are cheaper models. The Epson Expression XP-330 is one example, with a street price around $45. HP’s own DeskJet 2130, at $50, is another. Again, what the 3755 has going for it is the size, and it makes excellent prints. For the buyer, it depends how much you value size.

How long will it last?

The 3755 is an inexpensive model and has a modest duty cycle. HP states the monthly duty cycle at 1,000 pages, but if you truly print that many pages every month you’ll burn through ink cartridges and pretty much push the machine to its limits and directly impact the expected lifetime of the device.

If your need is to print moderately long print jobs fairly often, don’t expect the DJ 3755 to survive more than a few years. With more modest use, however, it should last three or four years before you’ll be looking to replace it.