The Hindu Business Line : New inkjets challenge lasers in corporate printing arena

NEW IMPRESSIONS: (From left) Mr Ashwini K. Aggarwal, Country Business Manager, Business Imaging and Printing, Hewlett-Packard India Sales Pvt Ltd; Mr Chin-Eng TEE, Product Manager, IPG Asia Pacific, H-P Asia Pacific and Japan; and Mr David R. Spencer, President, SpencerLab, at a press conference in New Delhi on Tuesday.

Bangalore April 3 Lasers were for fast, dry and sharp prints. Inkjet outputs was slow and sometimes soggy, albeit colourful. Or so we thought. Till now.

The new range of "Officejet" business desktop printers from Hewlett Packard that has just reached India, defeats conventional wisdom about the different selling points of wet inkjet and dry laser printing technologies.

Inkjets can be as sharp, and even faster than the fastest laser printers in any given class — as Tuesday's launch models in Delhi showed.

New range

HP which claims 92 per cent of the high-end inkjet multi-function printer market in India, unveiled two `all-in-one' - printer-scanner-fax-copier machines: the Officejet Pro L 7580 and the L7380, both of which deliver 34 pages of colour per minute; 35 ppm in monochrome.

This makes them arguably the fastest desktop multi-function inkjets in the market, nudging the speeds that lasers attain. The 2400 by 4800 dots-per-inch resolution is also something only lasers attained. The pricier 7580 (Rs 16,999) has additional network printing capability as well as Pict Bridge — the industry name for technology that allows users to download and print directly from digital cameras, without having to use a PC.

Both models print and scan on two sides of the paper at the same time. The 7380 is offered at an MRP of Rs 13,999.

Slightly higher print speeds up to 36 ppm are attained by the two print-only models also being offered in India from this week: the Rs 8,499 K5400dn and the Rs 6,499 K5300. The resolution and duplex (both sides at once) printing capability is similar to the multi-function models.

Comparison

Independent US-based printer test house and consultant, Spencer Labs has conducted a detailed comparison of the new HP deskjets with competing laser printers.

Results presented in Delhi at the national launch on Tuesday by the Lab's President, Mr David Spencer, seemed to show that inkjet technology had now matured to outperform laser printers for speed, cost, reliability and productivity.

HP's India's Country Business Manager, Ms Ashwini Aggarwal, speaking to Business Line, on the telephone from Delhi, said the small business and the emerging `micro biz' sector would find value for money in the new line's per page print costs of 32 paise for black and white and twice this for colour, which is about 30 per cent cheaper than laser

Will potential customers face a or dilemma when it comes to deciding if an inkjet or laser is the printer for them? Not quite, says HP. "Donon mein dum hai!" (There life in both) seemed to summarise their take on the laser-versus-inkjet debate. But they would say that, won't they - straddling both worlds quite nicely, with their dual product line.

The four HP Deskjet Pro printers are being unveiled in a roadshow that reaches Mumbai on April Bangalore on April 5 ; Kolkata on April 9 ; Hyderabad on April 12 and Chennai on April 26 .

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New inkjets challenge lasers in corporate printing arena