HP Unleashes New High-Speed Printing Platform

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.designtechnica.com/talkback62.html' target='_blank'>http://news.designtechnica.com/talkback62.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Today, HP addressed that need by announcing the fastest family of inkjet printers in the world. Unusually, at volume, these printers should actually be the least expensive. Estimated cost to print from these printers is under $.25 per 4x6” photo, which is approximately $.05, less than what it costs to have prints printed from a development service. Until now, it has generally been more expensive to use a home printer for photo-quality prints. At fourteen seconds per 4x6” photo print, the product is twice as fast as previous generations of printers. This speed improvement also holds for regular text, generally outputting a page at twice the speed and half the cost of the older generation of printers."</i><br /><br />DesignTechnica has an article written by Rob Enderle that discusses HP's new printing platform. At a cost of $1.4 billion, this is a big bet that HP is placing. On the surface, it looks like a big win - much faster print speeds (HP's have always been the slowest on the planet), cheaper printing through increased ink conservation, and single-colour cartridges for less expensive. It's about time HP figured out that individual colours are the way to go. All in all, these new printers look good on paper - I'll be interested to see how they perform in real life. $1.4 billion dollars is a lot to live up to.

[Philip Colmer]

Very nice ... I particularly like the improvement in the head-cleaning process.

A few thoughts:

1. I hope that HP have abandoned embedded chips in their ink cartridges. We have started to boycott HP inkjets at work after being bitten by cartridges that no longer worked because they were past their "best by" date.

2. It doesn't sound like any of these models include the ability to print onto a CD/DVD surface, which is something of a must-have for me. Hopefully they will continue to grow the range over time, but I hope they find a way to make it clear which models are using this new technology - unless they all start using it?

3. I like the thought of the wireless network interface on the printer. I currently have to turn my main PC on so that my wife upstairs can print over the wireless network. Sure, there are solutions but a printer with a built-in interface is likely to support things like printer status over the wire, which an add-on solution might not support.

I'm happy with my Canon printer &amp; Epson scanner for now, but if HP were to release a new model that had the CD/DVD capability, I might be persuaded :lol:.

--Philip

[Jason Dunn]

2. It doesn't sound like any of these models include the ability to print onto a CD/DVD surface, which is something of a must-have for me. Hopefully they will continue to grow the range over time, but I hope they find a way to make it clear which models are using this new technology - unless they all start using it?

Do ANY HP printers have the ability to print onto a CD/DVD? Or Canon for that matter? This is something I've been curious about...

[Philip Colmer]

Do ANY HP printers have the ability to print onto a CD/DVD? Or Canon for that matter? This is something I've been curious about...
This is very strange ... in the UK, the Canon PIXMA iP5000 can definitely print onto CD/DVD, but the US model doesn't appear to have that capability. I've come across this before - I seem to remember that one printer manufacturer in the US has a patent that prevents other printer manufacturers from offering the feature. A quick Google search finds an article on AnandTech's forums that supports that.

Some people have found out how to put the Canon printers into service mode &amp; reconfigure them (shades of DVD regional settings here!), but you've got potential hassle over getting a CD tray and suitable printer drivers. Other people are buying UK models from companies like Expansys who supply US mains adapters for them.

It is a weird world we live in.

--Philip

[Jason Dunn]

This is very strange ... in the UK, the Canon PIXMA iP5000 can definitely print onto CD/DVD, but the US model doesn't appear to have that capability. I've come across this before - I seem to remember that one printer manufacturer in the US has a patent that prevents other printer manufacturers from offering the feature. A quick Google search finds an article on AnandTech's forums that supports that.

That supports my theory as well - Epson must have a patent (though it's stange it's not worldwide) and that's why no Canon or HP printer can print on discs...and which is also why HP came up with their LightScribe technology.