LATEST NEWS:
Technology advancements in laser printing have significantly contributed to the development of variable data presses. In fact, several of today’s leading vendors of digital presses such as Xerox, Xeikon and Nexpress, base their technology on toner-based laser printing. FLAAR has developed a new resource for variable data and short run presses, geared to provide the proper information for those investing in this technology. For more information, please visit our site at www.variable-data-digital-press.org. As we develop our program we will be adding downloadable reviews on variable data technology and equipment.
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News from DRUPA 2004
Nicholas Hellmuth has been at DRUPA trade show in Germany for 10 days inspecting laser printers, LED desktop printers, and copiers. We especially liked the Oki LED printer that can print banner length prints. HP has a multi-function copier that is comparable to a Xerox or Canon copier. Xante had a stand but Xerox did not show much from Tektronix.
We will do our best to update this laser printer site during the course of the summer. However we tend to update our FLAAR Reports 'Laser compared with Inkjet Printers' and the FLAAR Reports on laser printers more frequently than we can update the hundreds of pages on the web site.
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Three additional thermal printers at FLAAR.
Our first Canon bubble-jet printer arrives, 24" imagePROGRAF W-7250.
On the same day two more thermal printhead machines arrived at FLAAR: HP DesignJet 120nr and a 60" HP DesignJet 5500. In the adjacent art department on campus, they got another different HP inkjet printer for their students, to replace their Epson. FLAAR is adding three new staff to write reviews of the new printers, so to look for them later this year.
During summer 2004 we will be updating our FLAAR Reports in PDF format. These PDFs get updated before the web site pages, so if you find only older models on the web pages, don't dispair. By the end of June we will have hopefully updated the reports. These reports are free from our university if you fill out the Survey Form.
The biggest question is "should I buy a laser printer or an inkjet?. So we have an entire report on this situation. Last year the answer would have been "go inkjet" because of quirks in laser printer toner technology.
But at DRUPA printer trade show in Germany we saw the latest laser and LED printers from Oki and Toshiba. These are giving traditional HP and Xerox Tektronix serious competition.
We have heard that new black-and-white printers are available so look for updates during the summer.
We apologize that this site got out of date during 2003, but that is because we were concentrating on inkjet. Now we are returning to update our comments on laser and LED printer technology.
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Few people realize that Epson also makes a high quality laser printer. Seemingly this is more readily available in Europe than in the US.
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This is Nicholas at the left and Elsa, one of the 15 employees of the FLAAR testing and evaluation facilities at Francisco Marroquin University. They are holding images from the Toshiba laser printer/copier.
The photo in the background is a panoramic photo by Nicholas Hellmuth of Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. Professor Hellmuth can teach you how to do photos like this. His course is available anywhere in the world via the Internet. You do not have to be a student at a university. Just download the photography course description.
Elsa is the web designer for this site, in charge of updating the usability and design. She is working with one of the dual-processor Dell 3.x GHz Precision Workstations. FLAAR recently completed an independent evaluation of the Mac G4 and the Mac G5 compared with five different models of PC computers. You can obtain the results of this study at no cost from our university. Just fill out the survey form; you can also ask for up to 6 free reports on wide format printers applications.
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To see the whole FLAAR office, check out www.CTPID.ufm.edu.gt. Our other facility is at Bowling Green State University, visible in QTVR view on www.wide-format-printers.NET. |
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The majority of the e-mails that come to us are from people asking
"what color laser printer should I select?"
 This
is why our reviewer visits all the major graphics and computer trade
shows in the USA and Germany. We inspected lots of laser
printers at Graphics of the Americas (late January, 2004). We will
do our best to update this site as soon as possible.
If you are tired of ink jet expenses, if you need to produce multiple
copies (which is rather slow on an ink jet), then you would do much
better with the new generation of color laser printer.
Pictured here, a top of the line 11x17 inch color laser printer
from Tally. Tally makes industrial strength printers, but the one
we got four years ago failed recently. Until we can get it running
again we give it poor marks.
The
new generation of 1200 dpi laser printers
offer photo-realistic quality for desktop publishing, repro shops,
graphics studios, and pre-press shops as short-run presses and even
to produce initial photographic proofs. 12 cents a page sure beats
$5 a page proof cost. But which laser printers have these capabilities?
Surely not older HP or IBM laser printers, they are traditionally
for ordinary business offices, simple letters or at most pie charts
in color. But what about newer HP color laser printers?
Over
the last four years major technological advances have transformed
the once humble laser printer. Quality today is easily obtainable
(if you are clever enough to know which laser printer or copier
to select), quality which was unobtainable with an old-fashioned
laser printer or copier in the 1990's. To help people figure out
which are the better brand names and better models, FLAAR is working
on evaluating the Konica-Minolta(QMS) color laser printers, the Tally color
laser printers, the Xerox Tektronix. So far we can't find a fuser
repair unit for our Tally printer, which is upsetting.
We
are moving into covering the new dual breed of copier-printers with
a color controller or RIP. If you already have a digital color copier
you can add special PostScript RIP software and turn your old copier
into a fully modern printer. In some cases the same software can
even run your wide-format printer! You will not find this new class
of laser printers at Office Depot. If you want to be able to print
photographs and graphics, you need to go to a company that is aware
of the needs of graphic artists, designers, photographers, and digital
imaging specialists.
Because older laser printers are still available used on E-Bay, as a service to our readers we are maintaining our pages on older equipment. If you are only looking for a general review on laser printers per se, you can find these primarily in our reports in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. Look for the link to laser printers on www.wide-format-printers.NET. |
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