What is the difference between HP OfficeJet 200 and 250 mobile printer?

Updated June 18, 2026

One function — and naming it settles the whole decision. The OfficeJet 200 is print-only, while the OfficeJet 250 is the all-in-one version of the same battery printer: Use your laptop, tablet, or smartphone to print, scan, and copy on the go, without having to connect to a network. Same travel body, same HP 62 cartridges, same battery. The 250 adds a scanner, a copier, a 10-page feeder, and a bigger touchscreen. So buy on one question: do you need to scan or copy on the road?

Most model-number pairs hide a murky mix of small changes. This one does not, and that is the useful part. According to HP's OfficeJet mobile printer specifications, the 200 is a single-function printer and the 250 is a print-scan-copy all-in-one, both running off the same in-box battery and the same Original HP 62 cartridge line. The shared base is real — HP pitches the 250 as a printer that lets you Print business documents anytime, anywhere, with a compact, portable all-in-one printer that fits into your car, backpack, or briefcase, and the 200 carries the identical travel design minus the scanner glass.

OfficeJet 200 — print-only

OfficeJet 250 — all-in-one

What stays the same is what fixes the cost-per-page on both: the cartridges. Owners and HP agree the supply line carries over — This printer uses Original HP 62 series cartridges that deliver the highest in-class page yields on the 250, and the 200 takes the very same HP 62 black and tri-colour set. There is no running-cost gap to weigh between them. RTINGS independent printer testing flags small mobile cartridges as expensive per page exactly when it scores cost-per-print, which is why a mobile HP is a travel tool first. If pages-per-pound is your real worry, the answer is not the other mobile model — it is a desktop machine, the kind we line up in our best office inkjet printers roundup.

What is the difference between HP mobile printer 200 and 250?

The 250 scans and copies; the 200 does not. Both are battery printers on the same HP 62 platform with the same travel body, but the 250 bolts a flatbed scanner, a copier, a 10-page document feeder, and a larger colour touchscreen onto that base. The 200 strips all of that out to stay smaller, lighter, and cheaper. Nothing else of substance separates them.

One model scans and copies while the other only prints, and that single line is the entire difference.

Read the two model names as one base printer with a removable feature set. The 200 is, in HP's own framing, Use your laptop, tablet, or smartphone to print on the go, without having to connect to a network — print, full stop. The 250 takes that identical sentence and adds three words: print, scan, and copy. On the road that gap is the whole product. One owner who works mobile rates the 250's feeder a standout — The 10-page document feeder has been a time-saver for me — a part the 200 simply does not have because it has no scanner to feed. If you only ever print, the missing scanner is not a loss; it is the reason the 200 is the smaller, cheaper buy.

Is the HP OfficeJet 250 a good printer?

For one buyer, yes: a mobile worker who must print, scan, and copy off a battery and cannot find another printer that does all three. Reviewers praise printing from phone and laptop anywhere. The catches are HP-grade setup friction, a battery that drains in days if left in, and cartridge-validation errors. As a travel all-in-one it earns its place; as a home printer it is dear to feed.

Take the praise and the pushback together, because both are fair. The headline win is mobility: one always-on-the-go owner says the ability to print from both my phone and laptop has been a game changer, and another prints over Wi-Fi Direct with No special driver or app needed. The catches are the kind a road buyer needs to know up front. The battery does not like to sit — an owner warns it discharges battery in a few days if it is not removed from the printer. And HP's cartridge validation can bite: after the setup ink ran out, one owner hit a message like "Cartridge problem, check the specified cartridge" that stalled the printer. Worth it for genuine field work; the wrong tool for a desk. For a desk-bound HP all-in-one instead, read our HP OfficeJet Pro 8125e review.

The power story is the same on both models, and it is the part a desk buyer underrates: HP rates the in-box battery to Charge within 90 minutes while the printer is turned off, with HP Fast Charge, a roughly 90 min top-up that is a virtue on the road and dead weight on a desk.

Touchscreen

Battery body

What ink cartridge for HP OfficeJet 250 mobile printer?

The HP 62 series — standard HP 62 or the higher-yield HP 62XL, in a black cartridge and a tri-colour cartridge. The print-only OfficeJet 200 takes the same HP 62 supplies, which is why running cost is identical across the pair. These compact cartridges are dear per page, so a mobile HP is a travel tool, not a cheap-to-feed home printer.

Two HP 62 cartridges feed both models, and that is the whole ink answer.

Honestly, the cartridge is the part that ties the two models together and the part that should temper the buy. Both the 200 and the 250 run the same line — This printer uses Original HP 62 series cartridges that deliver the highest in-class page yields in HP's words — split into a black tank and a tri-colour tank, with an XL option for more pages per cartridge. That sameness is why there is no cost-per-page difference to factor into the 200-versus-250 decision; the ink bill is set by the platform, not the model. The catch is the class itself: small portable cartridges price each page high, the pattern RTINGS cost-per-print testing keeps flagging on compact machines. A household that prints weekly will feed a desktop supertank for a fraction of the cost — the bottle-fed picks sit in our best office inkjet printers roundup.

Is the HP 250 worth buying?

It is worth buying only for genuine on-the-road scan-and-copy work, where it has almost no rival. If you only print on the move, the cheaper OfficeJet 200 does that same job for less. And if the printer mostly sits on a desk, neither mobile HP is the right buy — a desktop all-in-one scans and copies for far less per page and does not drain a battery between jobs.

Here's the thing: the worth-it question is really a where-do-you-print question. The 250 justifies its premium over the 200 only when you actually scan or copy somewhere without a desk — a job site, a client's office, a car. For that narrow brief it is close to unmatched, which is why its owners keep it. The moment the work is print-only, the math flips: the 200 is The OJ 200 is a true mobile printer. in a lighter, cheaper body, and you are paying the 250 tax for a scanner you will not use. The 250's edge is real but narrow — its feeder swallows 10 pages at a time for unattended copy and scan, the one job the 200 cannot do at all. Either way both share the portable's limits — manual duplex and a tray that holds only 50 pages. One 200 owner notes One downside is the manual duplex printing., and that The 50-sheet input tray is also a bit small for high-volume printing; the 250 inherits the same constraints. For a printer that lives at home, step to a desktop HP — our HP OfficeJet Pro 8125e vs 8135e comparison picks the desk all-in-one the mobile pair cannot be.

200 — print path

200 — compact body

Add it up and the OfficeJet 200-versus-250 question answers itself with one feature. The 250 is the 200 plus a scanner, a copier, a 10-page feeder, and a touchscreen, on the same battery, the same body, and the same HP 62 cartridges — so they print the same pages at the same cost-per-page. Need scan and copy on the road and the 250 is the obvious buy; print only and the 200 is the smaller, cheaper one to carry. And if the printer is really going to live on a desk, both are the wrong shape — a desktop all-in-one is cheaper to feed and built to stay put. That one distinction — mobile scan-and-copy versus mobile print-only versus a desk machine — settles every part of this comparison.