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HP Launches New Range of LaserJet Printers in India

2008-02-27

HP India has expanded its laser printer portfolio with the launch of two mono lasers, HP LaserJet P1505 and HP LaserJet P1505N, and two multifunction lasers, HP LaserJet M2727nf and HP LaserJet M2727nfs. Targeted at small and medium businesses (SMBs) and enterprises, the price range starts from Rs. 9, 999/- to Rs. 55,000/-.

The roll out is part of HP's Print 2.0 strategy, an overall strategy designed to accelerate the company's ability to capture a significant portion of the 53 trillion pages expected to be printed by 2010.

"We believe in growing, expanding and leading the laser printer market in India. HP is optimistic about the robust economic growth in India and expects this to fuel business demand for its Laser Jet printers," said Samir Shah, Director - Commercial and Enterprise Printing, Imaging and Printing Group, HP India Sales Pvt. Ltd.

"Through HP's Print 2.0 strategy, we are providing SMBs and enterprises in the country with the most comprehensive set of printing hardware, services, solutions and tools that make it easier and more affordable for the segment to create, consume, manage and print business content in the way they want; whether in-house, online, in retail or through a print service," added Shah.

The HP LaserJet P1505 and HP LaserJet P1505N are amongst the first mono laser printers in its class to exceed the speed of 20 ppm. The printers deliver a print speed of 23 ppm and a first-page-out time of 6.5 seconds with HP Instant On technology. HP said the low-end laser printers provide customers with manageability features usually found in high-end LaserJet devices.

These network-enabled printers feature intelligence built into the toner cartridge that provides alerts when the toner is low and can issue daily printer usage data. The new chemically prepared toner used in the range produces bold, crisp text and sharper images at fast speeds. The HP LaserJet P1505 is priced at Rs. 9999/-, while the HP LaserJet P1505n, which is also adapted to the Linux platform, is priced at Rs.14,999/-.

The HP LaserJet M2727 NF and HP LaserJet M2727 NFS, ideal for SMBs and enterprises with unmanaged IT environments, are full-featured Multifunction Printers with built-in networking, duplex printing, network ready scanning/ faxing and a print speed of 27 ppm. HP's Instant On technology helps boosts productivity by delivering the first page in 8.5 seconds from PowerSave mode. HP's Instant On Copy technology means no more wasted time waiting for the copier to warm-up.

The HP LaserJet M2727 series also features a Scan-To function that allows users to scan a document and email it directly from the printer. The HP LaserJet M2727NF is priced at Rs. 45,000/- while the M2727NFS is priced at Rs. 55,000/-.

Source:itnewsonline.com

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Practical advice when buying a multifunctional printer

2008-02-25

A multifunctional printer combines a printer, scanner, copier and sometimes also a fax-machine into the same machine. This is very convenient as it frees up valuable space on your desk and also saves money as the all-in-one machine costs less than three or four separate machines cost.

The printing quality of all printers has improved considerably in recent years, and at the same time prices are getting lower. Colour printouts are no longer a luxury reserved for the most advanced printers. If you own a digital camera, there are even printers that can read directly from the memory card, making it unnecessary to first transfer the pictures to your computer.

Type of printer

The main categories are: - laser printers and ink-jets. Laser and LED/LCD printers produce very high quality text and graphics, the only difference being that the latter two use liquid crystals or light-emitting diodes rather than a laser to produce an image on the drum. Ink-jet printers also produce high-quality text and graphics by spraying ink at a sheet of paper.

Ink jets

Ink-jets work by spraying ionized ink onto sheets of paper. This is achieved by using magnetized plates which direct the ink's path onto the paper in the desired pattern. Becoming increasingly common is the two-cartridge system which involves one black and one colour cartridge with cyan, magenta and yellow.

This can produce 16 million different colour combinations. The most common system today is to use two ink cartridges, one for black and one for cyan, magenta and yellow. This results in waste of precious ink as the cartridge needs to be replaced when just one of the colours is used up.

The best choice is a printer with separate ink tanks for each colour as this reduces the amount of ink wasted. The downside is that these printers tend to be a bit more expensive than those only using two ink-tanks. Today there are printers with new pigment-based ink that gives archive-constant printouts that are water resistant.

Ink-jet printers are capable of producing high quality print which almost matches the quality of a laser printer. As a rule, ink-jet printers tend to be somewhat cheaper than the laser variety. They also make better portable printers due to the fact they use much smaller mechanical parts. They are however considerably slower. Another negative point is that high quality paper is required to avoid smudging - a problem that doesn't exist with laser printing.

Laser printers

Laser printers operate by shining a laser beam to produce an image on a drum. The beam effectively alters the electrical charge of the drum, which is then rolled through a toner. The charged areas of the drum pick up the toner using electro-magnetism. A combination of heat and pressure then transfers the toner onto a sheet of paper.

Sometimes laser printers are called page printers. This is because entire pages are sent to the drum before the toner is even applied. This makes for very quick printing times, and the supply cartridges tend to last a long time so they can handle large print jobs. Some cartridges can print up to 15,000 pages before needing to be replaced. Another big plus point for laser printing is their resolution, with some having a DPI (Dots Per Inch) of 2,400. With resolution enhancement this figure can be even higher.

Laser printers are a must for very high quality picture printouts. In addition to that they can also print an almost unlimited variety of fonts. Laser printers used to be very expensive, but now the prices for the lower range models are merely double that of a simple inkjet printer. For colour laser printers, the prices are a little higher.

It is worth noting that there are also two other types of page printers that fall under the category of laser printers - LED and LCD printers. This is somewhat misleading because they don't actually use laser at all, although the print quality is very similar. The print process is almost identical, but LED printers use Light Emitting Diodes to charge the drum, and the other uses Liquid Crystals.

Resolution

The resolution is expressed in pixels (points) per inch -the higher the resolution the finer the print quality.

Compatibility

Which operating system can the printer work with? (Some printers can handle both Windows, Macintosh as well as Linux operating systems). 

Scanner

The primary function of a scanner is to allow the direct transfer of graphics and printed text to a computer system. The process involves dividing an image into a grid of boxes. Each box is known as a 'bit', and combined the grid is referred to as a 'bit map', that is stored as a file that can then be viewed on a computer screen.

Resolution

The quality of the scan is determined by the optical resolution the scanner provides. The resolution refers to the sharpness and clarity of an image, represented in dots per inch (dpi). The more dots per inch, the higher the resolution and the clearer and sharper the scan. For example, 600 dpi means that there are 600 dots across and 600 dots down, so there are 360,000 dots per square inch. Typically, scanners support resolutions of from 72 to 600 dpi.

Colour Depth

Another factor to consider is the colour depth capacity of the scanner, which allows the scanner to distinguish the range of different colours and shades in the documents to be scanned. Each point in an image is called a pixel (short for picture element), and different scanners read the pixels in varying intensities of bits. The greater the bit depth, the more colours or greyscales can be represented, and the greater the resolution. For example, a 24-bit colour scanner can represent 2 to the 24th power (16.7 million) colours.

Technology

Flatbed scanners On a flatbed scanner, the document to be scanned is placed on top of a glass surface. Flatbed scanners are generally considered the most versatile, as they enable you to scan a range of documents or objects regardless of their size or thickness (e.g. magazines, books, maps, charts, etc).

Sheet-fed scanners On a sheet-fed scanner, the document is pulled through the scanner. These are suitable for scanning single sheets of paper, however, the materials that are scanned need to be detached from the book or magazine. These scanners look similar to a portable printer, where the item to be scanned in is fed into the scanner.

TWAIN

Scanners are generally sold with specific operating software that controls the scanning process and adjusts the scanned image. In most cases, this software, called a TWAIN driver, is easily installed on your computer and allows you to use the scanner with other applications.

Copier

The copy speed and resolution are generally the same as the printer speed and resolution.

Reduction/enlargement ratio

Digital copiers are capable of a much larger zoom range (both reducing and enlarging) than analogue machines. A few enlarge as high as 800 percent, but the majority enlarges to 200 or 400 percent.

Fax

Fax machines provide an easy way to send documents over phone lines. Faxing is a faster option than regular mail and an affordable alternative to overnight delivery.

A fax machine scans each outgoing page and converts the images into a series of light and dark dots. This pattern is then translated into audio tones and sent over regular phone lines. The receiving fax machine "hears" the tones, pieces the grid together, and prints the total compilation of dots. The result is black and white copies of the original pages.

Modem speed

The majority of fax machines transmit at speeds of 14.4 kbps or 33.6 kbps. 14.4 kbps means a sending time for a single page of six to ten seconds, and about three seconds per page with 33.6 kbps.

The high speeds are only available when transmitting to machines that have the same protocol, but the machines are equipped with a fallback mechanism that lets them send and receive at 9.6 kbps to ensure backward compatibility.

Memory

Memory enables a fax machine to store incoming or outgoing pages without relying on paper. The amount of memory required to hold a page depends on the density of the image. In general, you can expect 512 kilobytes to hold about 20 pages to 25 pages.

Speed dials

This indicates how many fax numbers you can store in the memory of the fax machine.

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Vital Tips for Document Scanning Software Buyers

2008-02-25

The requirement to save paper and control the management of workflow documents and images continues to be driven by two main methods: managing costs through efficiency and managing environmental concerns through technology. The need is therefore continuous and ongoing, to ensure the correct acquisition of document scanning software with functions which fit the purpose. This summary highlights some important considerations when buying such software.

Categories of Document Scanning Software

Document scanning solutions fall in to one or more of the following categories by function. These are

1) Ad-hoc scanning of individual documents into computer files.

2) Desktop batch scanning of documents to network files or to a document management system.

3) High-volume, multi-user scanning of documents to document management system.

4) Automated indexing of documents from multifunctional printers, network scanners or distributed capture.

5) Applications which automate data entry tasks using handprint recognition and dynamic Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to capture data from images.

Which Scanning Software Features?

The key to the best practice and most efficient document scanning is to specify as many automation features as possible to eliminate manual indexing and at the same time make all documents fully searchable.

An excellent way to achieve this is with barcodes. Barcodes can be recognised with a very high rate of speed and accuracy and a minimal possibility of false positives.

Another way is via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) which can be used to read indexes from machine print on scanned images. It's not as quick as barcodes, and the recognition rate is not as high, but it has the advantage with documents that were not designed with scanning in mind.

An efficient user-friendly interface design will also save you time in setting up, training staff and supporting the document scanning application. Clearly, staff will respond better to any work pattern changes with a more efficient interface for their daily work. For this reason the user experience must be a paramount consideration.

Other Key Scanning Software Features

Features and areas requiring attention and comparison between software brands are:

License Type: Is the license server or workstation based? Do any monthly page limits apply?

Platforms: Presently, almost all batch scanning system is limited to the Windows user environment.

Export Capabilities: How is index data exported? Keywords can be used to organize images into logical folders and filenames on a network, for example. Alternatively it can be exported to delimited text files for import into other software systems. Or again, it can be added directly to an ODBC or OleDB database.

Scanner Support: Almost all scanners support TWAIN drivers. These days, ISIS drivers are also supplied with most document scanners available. Real-time image enhancement on scanned images is supplied by Kofax - native support for Adrenaline image processing boards.

Multifunctional Printer Support is provided by automatically processing images from a drop folder operating in the background. Any networked MFP, digital copier, scanner or fax machine can scan images to a network folder. These applications process these images without any user intervention. Usual practice is to use printed barcode coversheets to index documents prior to scanning. This means more flexibility, in that any user can scan and index files.

File Type Support: PDF is an overall standard, but it is useful to specify additional file types, and check what is supported by the software. It is useful to know that PDFs can create a hidden text layer that is overlaid on the scanned image, letting the viewer search, highlight and copy the OCR text while viewing the image. This function is very desirable.

All pricing options depend of course on the selected optional features and page count limitations, if any. Setup cost depends very much on the desired level of service. It is possible for knowledgeable users to install and configure most scanning software systems. However there are many advantages to having experts to guide you through the process to ensure the fullest available automation and workflow efficiency. The biggest cost in batch scanning is without doubt the indexing process, and proper automation is vital to getting the most return from your investment document scanning software.

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Inkjet and Laser Multifunctional Printer Buying Tips Recommendations

2008-02-25

You have decided to buy a printer. With the great amount of models to choose from in today's printer market, are you confused about which one you should get?

Wondering which printing technology is right for you? Should you go for an inkjet printer or a laser printer?

Inkjet Printers

Inkjet Printers can be categorized as 3-color inkjet printers, 4-color inkjet printers and photo printing inkjet printers. The 4-color inkjets are the most popular ones in the industry. 4-color Inkjet Printers usually hold two ink cartridges (one for black and one for color). Some hold two additional ink cartridges to separate the colors and have one ink cartridge for each color (black, cyan, magenta and yellow).

3-color Inkjet Printers are usually equivalent to the low-end 4 color inkjet printers with the exception of holding only one ink cartridge at a time. So you need to switch the ink cartridge to change between black and color. The 3-color inkjet printers are no longer popular as the 4-color inkjet printer prices are continually dropping.

The photo printing inkjet printers are a bit more complicated than the first two. Many of the 4-color inkjets print photos with good quality and most photo printing inkjets carry the same features as 4-color inkjets with just a few special photo printing features added such as directly printing from the digital camera. Most of the photo printing inkjets use additional colors such as light cyan light magenta, green, and red to provide true photographic quality outputs.

Laser Printers


Laser Printers have two different technologies for black & white (monochrome) and color printing. Among the laser printers, monochrome laser printers are the most popular ones in the industry. In general, laser printers are a lot faster than inkjet printers. Laser printers are quite popular as they offer fast printing, good print quality and low cost per page. They use toner cartridges instead of ink cartridges found in inkjet printers.


Whether it's for home offices, businesses or home users, we can say that Monochrome Laser Printers offer the best balance between print quality, price and speed Color Laser Printers are generally designed for offices where a lot of graphics or photographs are being printed. If you are a home user, probably you will not need a color laser printer. The high-end laser printers are capable of printing good quality photographs but still none can reach the true photo quality of high-end inkjet printers.


Once you choose between monochrome and color laser printer, you can decide whether you need a personal or workgroup laser.

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