A high-speed output of both colour and monochrome printer news has
flooded the printer market.
Lexmark, Canon, IBM, Epson, Xerox and printer industry leader
Hewlett-Packard have each launched new printer products in the last
few weeks.
Lexmark on 29 October rolled out three new monochrome laser
printers and two colour systems.
The Lexmark E320, E322, and E322n (networked), are low-cost
monochrome printers offering features formerly found in only
higher-end Lexmark printers. Priced to compete with low-priced
inkjet printers, the E320 with its $299 (£205) price tag typifies
the new E-Series printers from Lexmark.
All three E-series printers run at 16 pages per minute (ppm).
Advanced toner settings and toner-level sensing technology can save
companies as much as 50% on costs by allowing the user to reduce
the amount of toner used.
The E320 with 4Mbytes of memory starts at $299; the E322 with
8Mbytes of memory starts at $399, and the E322n with 16Mbytes of
memory and built-in networking card retails for $599.
Lexmark is also looking to save customers money on colour printing
with new C750 and C910 colour printers. Running at 20ppm, the C750
delivers up to 1200dpi print quality, and single colour black print
jobs cost no more to print than a similar job on a monochrome
printer. The C750 ranges in price from $2,999 to $4,899.
At 28ppm, the 2400dpi-capable C910 can deliver a 100,000-page
monthly duty cycle. The C910 starts at $3,999.
The current leader of the printer market, Hewlett-Packard, has also
introduced a range of new printers for small and medium-sized
businesses.
The HP Colour Inkjet Printer cp1160 offers two-sided printing,
infrared connectivity for synchronisation with handheld devices and
support for both Windows and Macintosh operating systems. Pricing
for the cp1160 starts at $399.
The HP cp1700 also offers two-sided printing and large format sheet
printing. Another version of the cp1700 offers support for Adobe
postscript files. The line starts at $499.
HP's Business Inkjet Printer 2600 ships with an embedded Internet
Web server to enable printer management from any Web browser, and
starts at $999.
The company also recently rolled out three inexpensive inkjet
printers for printing digital photography, the HP Photosmart 100,
1115 and 1315.
Canon has also joined the printer roll-out, introducing a new
inkjet printer designed for printing photographs from digital
cameras. The Canon S820D printer connects directly to two new Canon
PowerShot digital cameras and retails for $399.
The lowest-priced of the new breed of digital photography printers,
Epson's new Stylus Photo 820 offers six-color printing of 4x6in
photos at 720dpi and costs under $100.
Xerox, meanwhile, has launched its Phaser 5400 monochrome laser
printer for cost-conscious businesses. The 5400 can produce 40ppm
and is network-ready. It sells for $2,149.
IBM introduced the first high-speed laser printer, the IBM 3800
printing system, 25 years ago this month. In commemoration of the
3800, IBM has introduced its Infoprint 4100 printers.
Infoprint 4100s, which start at $420,000, are designed for
high-volume commercial printing environments that produce marketing
catalogues, brochures, on-demand books with photographs and
high-volume billing statements.
This wide range of printer offerings is indicative of a mature
market, said Jennifer Thorwart, a printer analyst with IDC.
"The printer market has become so competitive and mature that
companies have to compete in new ways," she said.