HP’s Smart Tank 5101 drops to $170 for back-to-school — and includes 2 years of ink free in the box
If you’re tired of buying ink cartridges every few months, this is a good time to switch to a cartridge-free tank printer. Right now, the HP Smart Tank 5101 is $170 (was $260) at Amazon, and comes with 2 years of ink already included in the box.
For home, dorm room, home office, and small businesses printing a mix of monochrome and color documents and photos, it’s an ideal pick. Particularly as HP‘s ink tank printers tend to have larger tank reservoirs compared to rivals like Epson‘s EcoTank range.
Today’s top HP printer deal
Should you buy it?
✅ Buy it if…
You want to save on running costs because bottled ink is much cheaper than inkjet cartridges and you get four bottles free in the box. We recommend ink tank printers if you’re chiefly printing documents and photos.
❌ Skip it if…
You’re mostly printing text documents – a high-volume laser printer is a much better option for sharper, bolder on-page text.
Why we recommend it
Having tested HP’s Smart Tank line alongside the Epson EcoTank, Canon MegaTank, and Brother INKvestment range, we strongly recommend ink tank printers over traditional inkjet models that use cartridges.
The pitch for tank printers like the HP Smart Tank 5101 is straightforward: instead of buying ink cartridges that run out every few hundred pages, you refill four visible ink tanks from bottles, and each bottle lasts dramatically longer. HP estimates the included set of ink bottles is good for roughly 6000 pages.
Setup leans on HP’s Smart app, which walks through Wi-Fi connection and initial configuration with guided, step-by-step prompts rather than dropping you into a printer’s typically clunky onboard menu system. Once connected, illuminated smart buttons on the printer itself are meant to guide you through common tasks like printing, scanning, and copying.
Print speed is modest rather than fast — HP rates this around 12 pages per minute for black-and-white and 5 pages per minute for color in normal mode, with the higher-quality “best” setting slower still. That’s typical for tank printers in this price range, and fine for everyday home printing, but not the machine to reach for if you regularly print large batches of documents quickly.
Price Context & Historical Value
This isn’t the cheapest the 5101 has ever been – back in 2024, it dropped to an all-time low of $140 direct from Amazon. However, it’s cheaper now than any third-party seller has sold it before brand-new ($180 was the price back in April 2025). Typically, we see it selling at around the $190 to $250 mark when not on sale. The highest price it’s been sold for is $280. Right now, it’s also available for $170 at Best Buy, too.
The Catch: What to know before you buy
A few honest caveats worth flagging: some reviewers have reported software quirks and occasional paper jams with this model, and if you print only occasionally rather than regularly, the ink in an inkjet’s print head can dry out and clog between uses. This is best suited to households or small offices that print often enough to make the low cost-per-page actually pay off.
For more options, see our guides to the best home printers and best ink tank printers we’ve personally tested.
If you’re tired of buying ink cartridges every few months, this is a good time to switch to a cartridge-free tank printer. Right now, the HP Smart Tank 5101 is $170 (was $260) at Amazon, and comes with 2 years of ink already included in the box. For home, dorm…
