THE NEWS IN PRINT

Fuji Xerox Corporation has celebrated its 30th year into laser printing with the launch of DocuPrint C1110B and DocuPrint C1110. These are colour laser printers that are aimed at SOHOs and SMBs.

Unlike other printers, the printer without the suffix is a higher model. C1110B is the base model while C1110 comes with 640MB memory, Ethernet capability and multiple language options.

The printer is compact and is almost cubic in shape. Each side is around 40 cms.

The printing speed is a lot slower than its competitors. It prints around 16ppm for monochrome and 12ppm for colour. Other printers stand at least 10+ppm than the C1110.

The absence of a PictBridge port and other media slots is appalling and will definitely make it non-competitive in the market.

Here's a video that shows the external looks of the printer:

The price of C1110 and C1110B are not reasonable either. The base model has an estimated price of £150 while the top one is £225. Sales people will definitely have a tough time trying to sell this pedestrian colour laser printer at a steep price.

Things happen out of the blue when it's least unintended. When I created my wedding album last month, I was in need of a printer that can print on my printable blank DVDs. I tried my HP F380 and Canon Pixma MP610 but was unsuccessful. Searching the internet didn't provide any favourable results. I went out to my local electronic store and the sales person suggested that I try out Epson Stylus RX590 as he had good results with it. I often don't trust salesman in electronic stores, but desperation led me to purchase it. Unexpectedly, CD printing was grand and have become a great fan of this printer. My experience led me to introduce the printer here. Here it goes.

As most of the modern Epson printers, the RX590 has a micro-piezo print head. This printer does more than just print; it's an all-in-one printer. It has a six compartment ink cartridge with Intellidge technology which optimizes the flow of ink and hence consumes lesser ink, and results in cheaper cost per print. Like most other photo printers, it can function as a stand-alone printer and has all the bells and whistles like PictBridge port, USB, memory card reader, LCD screen and others. 4"� X 6"� photos are printed at 13 seconds a piece while A4 printing for both black and colour are at 30ppm.

The printer comes with a pedestrian photo editing software: Epson Creativity Suite which can perform certain photo editing functions but nothing palpable about it.

One leading feature in RX590 is its ability to print directly on CD and DVD surfaces. The software actually provides a wizard to ease the pain of printing on media surfaces.

The RX590 is priced at £150 which is decent and a good buy if you are looking to print on CDs along with other usual activities that we normally do with an AIO printer.

Brother has launched a new series of colour laser printers in the market. DCP 9000 series is built around HL-4000 series and MFC-9000 AIO series printers. These printers are targeted at small offices and the 9000 series consists of the base model DCP-9040CN and high end DCP-9045CDN.

The DCP-9000 series belongs to the all-in-one category but Brother insists that the series is copier-printers.

Printing speeds are moderate at 21ppm and copying speeds at 16ppm for both black and colour. They provide copy reductions and enlargements ranging from 25% to 400% with increments of 1%. They feature built-in Ethernet capability.

The 9040CN comes with a dual line LCD display and 64 Mb memory for caching. The 9040CN comes with a 35 page automatic document feeder while 9045CDN can feed up to 50 pages. 9045CDN has other exciting features like USB and PictBridge capability to print directly from storage devices. It also has the most preferred feature in today's world: automatic duplex printing. It has a five line LCD display and 128 Mb memory.

These new Brother printers are not exactly cheap if you consider the small workload it can handle. The 9040CN is priced at £529 and is available in the market now while 9045CDN has a price tag of £629. A price difference of £100 and loads of features in the enhanced one, offices should most likely go in for the higher model. 9045CDN will be made available in the UK market before the next year.

I love to read small snippets by marketing folks; a few lines that contain the punch of Muhammad Ali. Here's the brief description about Samsung ML3471ND, the printer I want to introduce today - The ML-3471ND laser printer combines high performance with fast speed and economical reliability to give you more output for less. You will benefit from the low maintenance and high productivity, allowing you to get more done faster and easier while guaranteeing quality.

Here's a printer with minimal features but optimum for most offices around the world. It spits out prints faster than most printers in the market today and more importantly; it's attributed with low maintenance cost.

The ML3471ND is a monochrome laser printer. It has an integrated 400Mhz processor and 64MB memory for quick transactions and the output is evident in the speed of the prints. It can deliver 35 pages per minute and initially takes 9 seconds to spit out the first print. For draft copies and paper saving initiative, full duplex mode is provided. The economy mode in this printer cuts the toner usage by 40%. The standard yield per toner cartridge is 4000 pages and can extend up to 10,000 pages.

It's not necessary to mention that a laser printer is a network printer but this one is doubly network capable. It can handle connections through an Ethernet network as well as an optional Wi-Fi capability for mobile users.

The ML3471ND is available for purchase in retail market as well as online. It has a price tag of £350 inclusive of VAT.

I was under the impression that we are in the age of miniaturization. Maybe not!

Giant objects have drawn crowds for all the right and wrong reasons. Starting from the giant men from Japan to the giant pizzas, people have admired the audacity such creations. Giant Robot was a top draw when I was young. HP has a gigantic printer in its quiver which probably sends shivers down my spine. The HP Scitex TJ8300 weighs close to 3 tonnes which is heavier than a fully grown elephant.

The Scitex TJ8300 is an industrial printer which can print posters as big as 1.65m X 3.7m. It does a lot more; the object of this post is not to talk about the features on the printer but its massive size.

Look at the person standing next to the printer. That should give you an estimate of its enormous gigantic size.

This image has a PC mounted on the gigantico. Mobile printers mounted on PCs could have been a reality but vis-à-vis is scary.