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Office colour on a budget:
Vendors come to market with sub-$500 offerings
Lisa Wichmann
By now, many medium to large businesses have some colour printing capability, so for the past several years, vendors have targeted much of their marketing efforts at small and home-based offices.
For instance, the new C500n laser from Lexmark Canada Inc. is billed as a "high-quality" colour printer at a value cost. With an estimated price tag of $449, it can serve as the primary printer for users requiring large volumes of black and white (it outputs 31 pages per minute (ppm) monochrome). In colour, it processes eight ppm.
"SMB [small and medium businesses] are asking for ways to print professional, high-quality colour documents in house..." said Paul Rooke, president of the company’s printing solutions and services division.
Though the C500n is suited to single users, it also comes with standard networking, to allow sharing by several users in a small workgroup.
With 1,200 by 600 dots per inch quality, it’s well equipped to print vivid colour photos and graphics, according to Lexmark. The printer became available in Canada in June.
Hewlett-Packard Canada Co. has zeroed in on the small and home office as well, with the launch earlier this year of the HP Officejet Pro K550 inkjet printer. While many inkjet printers are geared toward the consumer photo market, the K550 is targeted at the office.
It outputs laser quality speeds of up to 12 ppm black and 10 ppm in colour. It also provides colour printing for 30 per cent less than a laser, according to Hewlett-Packard. Cost per page is 7.7 cents for colour, and as low as 1.5 cents per page for black. Price starts at $229.
In terms of consumables, the device prints up to 2,350 pages before requiring replacement of the black cartridge, and 1,200 in colour. The ideal users of the printer are people who want a colour printer to add a professional touch to documents, but won’t be printing a lot of photos, HP reports.
For its part, Oki Data Americas has come to market with the C3400n, which was announced in June. "We developed the C3400n for small offices that require colour that is highly impactive and professional, but do not print large volumes or have large budgets," said Gus Piccin, general manager of Canadian operations for Oki Data Americas.
The printer delivers speeds up to 16 ppm in colour and 20 ppm in black-and-white. Oki’s high-definition colour technology combines microfine toner to produce bright glossy images on regular office paper, Oki reports.
It's the smallest colour printer ever produced by Oki Printing Solutions, so it’s well suited to small offices. Cost per page is 14.7 cents colour and 2.3 cents black and white. It became available in July, at an estimated street price of $439.
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