HP OfficeJet Pro 9125e vs 9135e: What the Second Tray Really Buys

Updated June 18, 2026

HP OfficeJet Pro 9125e Wireless All-in-One Color Inkjet Printer

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HP OfficeJet Pro 9135e Wireless All-in-One Color Inkjet Printer

Cross-shop the 9125e and 9135e and the model numbers promise a ladder. There is one, but a short one. HP markets the 9125e as the office workhorse — The OfficeJet Pro 9125e is perfect for offices printing professional-quality color documents — and the 9135e sits one rung up. The brand puts the gap plainly: The 9135 adds a second tray and is a little faster. That is the whole upgrade. Our pick is the 9125e for almost everyone, because the second tray and the few extra pages a minute are the only things your extra money buys.

Everything that decides how an office printer feels to own — the print engine, the automatic document feeder, the duplex, the cartridge family, the HP+ ink lock — is shared. So the literal 9125e-versus-9135e question collapses fast, and the useful one takes its place: does your print volume justify a second paper tray, and can you live with HP's cartridge terms at all? That second question matters more than the first, and this page spends most of its time there.

HP OfficeJet Pro 9125e Wireless All-in-One Color Inkjet Printer

HP OfficeJet Pro 9135e Wireless All-in-One Color Inkjet Printer

At a Glance

One office engine, two trim levels

The 9135e changes two things over the 9125e: it carries two paper trays instead of one, and it runs a few pages a minute faster. Same engine, same feature set otherwise.

On the parts that print, scan, and feed paper, these two are the same machine. The 9125e is a full all-in-one — Fast color printing, copy, fax, auto 2-sided printing and scanning, auto document feeder, and a 250-sheet input tray. The 9135e carries the identical stack and stretches one spec: auto 2-sided printing and scanning, auto document feeder, and two 250-sheet input trays. Read the "At a Glance" table above and most rows are two copies of one column.

Speed is the second thing that moves, and only a little. HP rates the faster box at Print speeds up to 20 ppm color, 25 ppm black, a few pages a minute ahead of the 9125e's 18-color / 22-black rating. On a single page you will not see it; on a long unattended run you will. The 9135e also swaps the 9125e's 2.7-inch panel for a larger 4.3-inch touchscreen — pleasant, not decisive.

Step back and the shape of the decision is clear. The 9135e is not a tier above the 9125e the way a supertank is above a cartridge printer; it is the same printer with more paper capacity and a faster gait. If you run two paper sizes — letter in one tray, legal or letterhead in the other — the second feed saves real swaps over a workday. If you print one size from one tray, it sits empty and you have paid for it.

The cartridge lock they both spring

Both boxes are locked to genuine HP cartridges, and both push a 3-month Instant Ink trial that becomes a monthly fee. The lock is identical, so it cannot break the tie between them — but it should weigh on the decision to buy either at all.

Here is where the 91xx line stops being a printer story and becomes a cost story — and where both boxes are identical. These are HP "e" machines: the firmware ties them to genuine HP ink. On the 9125e the fine print is blunt — This printer is intended to work only with cartridges with HP chips or circuitry — and the 9135e enforces the same rule. There is no third-party-ink escape on either; a buyer hoping to run cheap aftermarket cartridges should rule out the whole series here, not pick between the two.

The subscription side compounds it. Both arrive on a 3-month Instant Ink trial that turns into a monthly fee unless cancelled, and the trap is what cancelling does. A Reddit explainer on this line reframes the deal honestly: you are paying for pages, not cartridges. The community warning on the 9125e is the consequence — the subscription cartridges stop working if you cancel, stranding ink you thought you owned. Independent running-cost work backs the broader point that cartridge printers are the expensive way to print: RTINGS' cost-per-print and page-yield testing and Consumer Reports' inkjet running-cost testing both put cartridge cost-per-page well above refillable tanks. We weigh that cartridge-versus-tank fork against these office machines in our inkjet printers comparison criteria.

So the cartridge tax is the same number whichever box you buy, and it is the number that dominates the cost of owning either over a couple of years. Choosing the faster, dual-tray 9135e does nothing to lower it. That is the strongest argument for not overpaying: you are spending more upfront on capacity, while the recurring cost that actually empties your wallet stays put.

Where both stumble

Neither earns a clean reliability pass, and the faults split by design. The 9125e's quirk is a 60-page output bin under a heavy-duty engine; the 9135e draws phantom errors and dual-tray jams. Both are heavy boxes near 26 lb.

The failure modes split by design across the pair. The 9125e's odd one is its output: an owner flags that The paper output tray only accommodates 60 pages on a printer rated for far heavier duty — a small bin under a big engine. The 9135e's recurring grief is phantom errors; an owner reports Then random error messages every now and then which halt any action, claiming a door is open when it is not, and its dual-tray design adds its own jam risk when the wrong tray feeds. A blunt minority verdict calls the 9135e poorly built; most owners land softer, but the warning is on record.

If you are coming from an older HP, the 9125e is the natural landing spot — an owner notes an OfficeJet Pro 9125 is the most direct successor to your 8715. And if you are already set on the 91xx office tier and weighing the trade, know that the volume math is the same for both: The sweet spot for OfficeJet Pro is over 100 monthly. Run fewer than 100 pages a month and you are overbuying on either, and the 9135e's second tray only deepens the overbuy.

HP OfficeJet Pro 9125e Wireless All-in-One Color Inkjet Printer

HP OfficeJet Pro 9135e Wireless All-in-One Color Inkjet Printer

So which OfficeJet Pro — or neither?

Because the 9125e and 9135e are one engine in two trims, "who should get which" turns on a single hardware question — do you need the second tray? — wrapped around a bigger one: are HP's cartridge terms tolerable for you at all? Here is how that resolves.

Buy the 9125e if…

…you print one paper size and want the office stack for less. For most home offices the 9125e is the right answer: the same ADF, duplex, scan, and fax as the step-up, the same color quality, and a lower price. You give up only the second tray and a few pages a minute — capacity and pace you will not miss on a single-size workload. It is also the cleaner upgrade path from an older OfficeJet.

Buy the 9135e if…

…you run real volume across two paper sizes. The dual 250-sheet feed is the one feature worth paying up for, and only when you use it — letter in one tray, legal or letterhead in the other, printing enough that swapping drawers mid-day is a genuine cost. The extra rated speed and the bigger touchscreen come along for the ride. If those conditions describe your desk, the 9135e earns its premium; if they do not, it is an empty tray.

Skip both if…

…you print lightly, or you want freedom from HP's ink. A few pages a week does not justify an OfficeJet Pro at all — an entry cartridge all-in-one or a refillable supertank is the calmer, cheaper buy, and we map that fork in our type-versus-type tradeoffs analysis. And if you plan to run aftermarket ink, neither of these will let you: the HP+ lock is identical across the pair. The 9125e and 9135e are for the steady office that prints over a hundred pages a month and accepts HP's cartridge terms — at that job, the cheaper 9125e is the default and the 9135e is the two-tray exception.