L e x m a r k ' s wireless g a m b i t 'The next big thing in inkjets is wireless: declared Jeff Willard, vicepresident of worldwide marketing for Lexmark's consumer printer division.
become a concern and Lexmark has both dye-based and pigment-based ink
He made the statement during a global media event the company held at its Lexington, KY headquarters in late March. Lexmark gave journalists from the Americas, Europe and the Asia-Pacific a sneak peak at its entire 2007 inkjet
75 years, while the Evercolor 2 pigment inks have a permanence rating of
printer product line made up of a dozen new models, including inkjets and inkjet-based three-in-one and four-in-one multifunction devices. The first round of products was launched in mid-April, and the fall lineup will be
sets that have long permanence ratings. Its Evercolor dye inks are rated at 100 years. Also, to address the digital photography market, some of Lexmark's new line will sport multi-function card readers, colour LCD screens and six-colour photo ink sets.
Lab tours
announced in August. Alarge part of the event was devoted to lab tours. Here, we were able to see Throughout the event, wireless inkjet printing was Lexmark's inescapable some of Lexmark's research labs in action, including the quality control area, message, and Willard gave a snapshot of the reasoning that led the a colour lab where researchers subject prints to accelerated fading using very company down this product development path. He said in 2007, sales of bright light sources, a soundproof chamber where printer noise is studied notebook computers are projected to grow by 23 percent, and wireless and a chemical analysis lab where RoHS compliance is monitored. RoHS adoption will grow by 31 percent. Meanwhile, printers are expected to grow refers to a directive adopted by the European Union in 2006, which restricts by a measly two percent. the levels of certain hazardous substances in the manufacture of electrical Notebooks mean computing can happen anywhere, and people are moving and electronic products. These include nasties such as cadmium, hexavalent around the house, he noted, but connecting wirelessly to devices like chromium, lead, mercury and two polybrominated compounds used in flame printers is still complicated and expensive. So, by developing a line of retardants. Because Lexmark uses a variety of suppliers for its printer wireless inkjets that are easy to connect to and affordable, Lexmark expects components, it needs to maintain a constant testing program to ensure that to revive the printer market by catching the double wave of mobile and the final product that bears the Lexmark name is RoHS compliant. wireless. Three quarters of the inkjet products the company will introduce The spring lineup this year will have 802.11 wireless capability. What does affordable wireless printing mean? In the spring line up is the Z1420: Lexmark's entry-level wireless (supports 802.11g) inkjet. Output is Z1420. Selling for US$79.99, Lexmark is billing it as the least expensive an impressive 24 pages per minute for black and 18ppm for colour with wireless inkjet on the market. The most affordable three-in-one Lexmark resolution up to 4800 x 1200 dpi. This model will take an optional photo announced is the X4550, which has an SRP of US$119.99. To make it easy, cartridge for six-colour image printing. The company also introduced the Lexmark has taken a menu-driven wizard approach, which walks the user Z1320—no WiFi, but the lowest priced printer in the spring line-up. X4550: Lexmark's entry-level WiFi-enabled three-in-one multifunction through the steps of wirelessly connecting to the printer or multifunction. In the past, Lexmark's printer models have been a patchwork of designs, printer. The rated output is 26 ppm for black and 18 ppm for colour with but this new line-up sticks together as a recognizable family — and an maximum resolution of 4800x1200 dpi. This model also accepts a photo attractive one. The main printer bodies are made of a glossy white plastic cartridge for six-colour printing, and has a multi-slot memory card reader for with silver coloured end caps and accents, or brushed aluminium on higherend models — Holy iPrinter, Batman! (and yes, Lexmark does ship Mac drivers with its printers). Beneath the pretty skin are a number of technology improvements. On low-end models, the colour printhead size has been increased from 0.1 to 0.25 inch, and on higher end models, the swath goes from 0.25 to 0.5 inch, which translates into faster colour printing speeds.
PC-less photo printing. The copy portion permits a resizing range of 25-400 percent, and a one-touch button allows PC-less copying. The scan portion supports 48-bit colour scanning and the unit also comes with optical character recognition software. Below the X4550 Lexmark also has the new X3550 three-in-one (WiFi is optional through an add-in module) and the X2550 three-in-one (no WiFi, no card readers and slower print speeds).
With more people printing photographs, the issue of print permanence has
By David Tanaka
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