A slew of new products now on offer from the big three<\/p>\n
Zatni Arbi, Columnist, Jakarta , zatni@cbn.net.id<\/p>\n
The week of Oct. 8 was a busy one for Jakarta's IT journalists
\nand printer makers alike. Canon held a press conference on
\nWednesday, followed by Epson on Thursday and Hewlett-Packard on
\nFriday. There is simply no space for me to go through each of the
\ngreat products that these three competing companies were
\nintroducing. I thought I would just give a rundown of what they
\nwere and hope that I will be able to test drive some of the best.
\nNew Printers<\/p>\n
Canon, which is reportedly still controlling the largest
\nmarket share of inkjet printers in Indonesia, tried to maintain
\nits dominance through the introduction of a new one as we entered
\nthe Q4. The S400SP is their new Super Printer that promises lower
\ncost of consumables. Its Super Economy mode uses one-fourth of
\nthe ink compared to the model that it replaced. The print result
\nwas grayish text, of course, but still very readable. Speed has
\nalso been improved, as this US$118 printer, which can also be
\nfitted with a scanner cartridge, is able to print 9 pages per
\nminute (ppm) in B\/W or 4 ppm in color.<\/p>\n
The ThinkTank, Canon's ink storage system that used to be
\nfound only in their mid- and high-end printers, is also used in
\nthis new printer.<\/p>\n
Epson introduced three new inkjet printers, namely, the Stylus
\nC60, Stylus C80 and Stylus Photo 810. The C80 is particularly
\nnotable, as it is perhaps the fastest inkjet printer today. It
\ncan print 20 ppm. It also uses water-resistant, lightfast and
\npigment-based ink instead of dye-based. It also has all the
\ncurrent print technologies developed by Epson, such as the Micro
\nPiezzo print head and the 3-picoliter Ultra Micro dot. Even the
\nlower end, the 12-ppm C60, can print with a maximum resolution of
\n2880 x 720. The $215 Stylus Photo 810, which has the same level
\nof maximum resolution and uses six color inks, is actually a
\nStylus Photo 895 with the ability to print photos directly from a
\ncompact flash. Clearly it is intended for the home digital photo
\nenthusiasts.<\/p>\n
HP also brought five new DeskJets and a new personal LaserJet
\nto the market. The inkjet printers were three DeskJet 900 Series,
\nDeskJet 656 and DeskJet 845. Common to DeskJet 920C, 948C and
\n960C are the PhotoREt 3 Color Layering Technology for realistic,
\nphoto-quality prints, ColorSmart 3 for automatic color adjustment
\nand a maximum resolution of 2400 x 1200 on premium photo paper.<\/p>\n
New to DeskJet 920C is the low-ink indicator. DeskJet 948C has
\nan optional duplex printing accessory that allows us to
\nautomatically print on both sides of a page. DeskJet 960C
\nfeatures HP's new Paper Type Sensor. With this sensor, the
\nprinter will detect what kind of paper we feed into it and will
\nautomatically adjust the print settings accordingly for the best
\nresult. Its maximum print speeds are 15 ppm for B\/W and 12 ppm
\nfor color.<\/p>\n
The LaserJet 1000 prints at 10 ppm speed with an estimated
\ncost of 2.5 cents per page and it has a duty cycle of 7000 pages
\nper month.
\nNew Scanners<\/p>\n
Epson also launched two new scanners two weeks ago. These were
\nthe Epson Perfection 1650 and Perfection 1250. These mid-range
\nscanners come with Epson's technologies such as Micro Step Drive,
\nSimultaneous RGB Scanning and Dynamic Range Control. The higher-
\nend 1600-DPI and 48-bit Perfection 1650, which has photo scanning
\ncapability, also features new technologies such as Matrix Charge
\nCoupled Device (CCD), On-demand Pixel Optimization and Precision
\nOptical Lenses.<\/p>\n
Hewlett-Packard's capable scanner, ScanJet 5470c, can scan
\nwith a maximum resolution of 2400 DPI with 48-bit color depth. It
\ncomes with active transparency adapter that allows us to scan
\nnegatives and films. More notable is that it can scan directly to
\nCD so that, if we have a CD-Writer, we can archive images on CD-
\nROMs. It also has a Photo-reprint button that will scan and
\narrange photos into wallet-sized prints or 4x6 inch size on a
\nsingle page. These two features, along with the use of HP's own
\nDual Sensor CCD technology, are also available in ScanJet 5400c
\nand the 1200 DPI ScanJet 4400c. The lower end ScanJet 2200c scans
\nwith a maximum resolution of 600 DPI with 42-bit color depth. It
\ncan scan 3-D objects as well.<\/p>\n
What else was there? HP also introduced three DesignJet
\nprinters for graphics professionals that require accurate colors.
\nThese were the DesignJet 10ps, 20ps and 50ps. HP also showcased
\nits first DVD-Writer\/CD-Writer, which will enable us to burn our
\nown DVDs and CDs. And, to top these all, HP also announced new
\nlines of business PCs, which we will look at next week.<\/p>",
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