The world of printers have remained nothing revolutionary… you have a cartridge with a small nozzle that darts back and forth across a piece of paper squirting ink on it, and that has largely remained the basic principle of printers since it was invented. Barring new technologies such as laser and ink-less printing, printers haven’t evolved much.
Today we will take a look at the four latest printers to come out from manufacturers worldwide; some of them retain their resemblance to traditional printers, others have branched out to areas no printer dare to dream of, and I hope you will enjoy it.
Casio PCP1000 and PCP-200
This behemoth from Casio sports a 7-in and 3.5-in LCD screen respectively. At first glance it looks like a really huge monitor attached to a keyboard which can spew paper. But it is in fact a printer, with a huge screen and an integrated keyboard that understands Japanese. The final piece of the puzzle is an integrated card-reader that accepts nearly all major formats including xD Picture Card.
What this means is that the PCP-1000 allows you to view, edit and print directly from the printer, and the generous LCD screen allows you to do this easily without the use of a computer. The PCP-200’s lesser screen makes this proposition much harder though, and you’re better off plugging this into a nearby computer. I’m not exactly sure why you would want a full sized keyboard to go with such a device though, but I am guessing it allows you to add text right into the picture itself, which if it’s easy enough, can give everybody a chance to add quirky comments directly on the picture before printing it out.
Samsung Bordeaux
Samsung went back to the drawing board and redesigned every single component such that the new Bordeaux printers are the thinnest printers in its class. There will be two launch models; one is the ML-1631K (on the left) and SCX-4501K (on the right). The one of the left is a mono laser printer while the latter is an all-in-one job. However, the printer is yet to launch so no DPI or PPM information is available. However, I’m pretty sure having one of these near a stylishly designed decor will help the office image. Model not included.
I don’t know about you, but Samsung has a tendency to color coordinate their gadgets, from monitors to keyboards and now printers. An all-Samsung desktop is probably a real sight to behold.
Ricoh Hotspot
Ricoh enters the wireless printer market with their new Hotspot laser printers, which is aimed at office users who want the flexibility of having access to the printer allowing any device with wireless access to print. However to do so, users have to upload the file via web browser into the printer or to send the file via email to the printer’s email address, so technically anybody with access to the email address can print, which could be a good thing functionality-wise but bad for security.
The monochrome model will be retailing for $1700, while pricing information for the color model is unavailable yet, but expected to be higher than the monochrome (obviously). However, the problem is that this kind of capability has been around for a long while, albeit requiring some software tinkering to get everything in place. I suppose Ricoh makes this easy, but you will have to pay a price premium for it.
Bonjour SCX-4500W
Apple’s favourite new printer, the Bonjour Swan, is now available. It’s a multi-function printer by Samsung that prints using monochrome laser, scans and also does copier functions and is now equipped with WiFi as well as Ethernet, supporting Windows, Linux as well as Apple computers. It also supports all the major printing protocols meaning it will be a breeze to set this up in your office.
The printer simply turns on and you will be able to detect it wirelessly and install the drivers. The printer retails for about $300 and looks really neat with the all-black Samsung-esque exterior.
Monochrome laser printers are a must-have for many home offices (SOHO) nowadays; the superior text printing capabilities and fast speeds mean that it is well suited for this kind of environment, which is usually less on graphics and more on text. Better, color laser printers though are usually out of the budget for most home offices, and a cheap inkjet colour printer is often more than sufficient to meet all your needs.