Now that HP has sufficiently disgraced the vision of Mssrs. Hewlett and Packard, they continued to gyrate wildly into odd business that no one wants. To wit: in a joint press release with Condé Nast, the company is offering two odd consumer-facing propositions. First, they’re going to charge you $5.99-$10 a month to subscribe to a replacement ink service, called Instant Ink. When your printer runs low, it will send a message to Meg Whitman who will personally ship you a new cartridge. Considering ink cartridges already contain less than $5.99 of ink and parts, it’s a bum deal all around but, also considering HP jacks the prices up on ink enormously, I suppose if you’re mad about printing this may work out. Oddly, I don’t see anyone spending $60-$120 on ink cartridges per printer per year (unless HP jacks up prices even more).

But wait! There’s more! Condé Nast, everyone’s favorite magazine producer that is fading into irrelevancy, is teaming up with HP to push magazine content to your printer whenever the publisher darn well feels like it. When you subscribe to Allure, Details, Epicurious, Glamour, Golf Digest, Self, or Wired, the C Nasty will send you pages of content that in thinks you should see. It’s like the Internet, but on paper!

Oddly this idea isn’t new. They tried it in 2008 and 2010 and also gave it a go with their Presto print service for the aged. However, this time they’ll get it right.

“Our work with Condé Nast creates a new channel for customers to access the content they want from some of their favorite publications,” said Stephen Nigro, senior vice president, Inkjet and Web Solutions, Imaging and Printing Group, HP. “And, when coupled with our scheduled delivery service, allows customers to get the content they want, whenever they want it.”

This is kind of like the gas station down the street offering you cheaper gas and then hopping in your car at night to drive it around the beltway a few times to keep your tank low. Condé Nast already spams the heck out of the world and wastes resources on their glossy lifestyle rags so why do we need more of their content printed on matte paper spooling out of our HP printers? And why is HP crowing this announcement in the same press release it notes that its ink is already wildly expensive? Perhaps we’ll never know.

Epson announced [JP] the Colorio E-820 for the Japanese market today, a photo printer and wireless keyboard set somehow designed like a computer from the 1970s or 1990s (at least when looking at the top menu). The newest in a line of similar devices, this 5,760×1,440dpi inkjet printer is suitable for printing both pictures and postcards without a PC.

Users can create postcards by choosing between 1,055 different pre-set designs and use the 7-inch LCD screen (800×480 resolution) to check their works before printing them. The keyboard is for adding comments, greetings, etc. to the pictures and postcards.

The device can be carried around using a handle and supports USB sticks, SDXC or microSDHC cards, xD-Picture cards and Memory Stick Pro cards.

Epson says the screen can be used as a digital photo frame, too (and throws in a remote control for that function).

The E820 is sized at 235×158×192mm and weighs 2.6kg. It will hit stores in Japan on September 15 (price: $718).

The very first generation of Google Cloud Print-ready printers have been loaded onto the trucks, and are en route to your local gadget shop. HP calls the technology ePrint, and it’s found on its range of Photosmart, Officejet, and LaserJet Pro printers.

You probably don’t need to be reminded about what Google Cloud Print can do, but a brief primer won’t take up too much of your time. The idea is simple, but mighty powerful, and leverages the power of the cloud. Using any number of Google’s Cloud-capable apps, including Gmail Mobile and Google Docs Mobile, users can directly print to a printer. No longer do you have to attach a document to an email from your phone, walk over to your desktop or laptop, log into your Gmail, download the attachment, and then print. Nope, just print directly from the phone. Of course, the printer could be in the next room or the next state; the Cloud doesn’t discriminate. (Google says it’s hard at work expanding Cloud Print to other applications, so expect to see it pretty much everywhere in the future.)

This generation of HP printers is the first that doesn’t require any special setup to be able to use Google Cloud Print. Just plug it in and off you go.

Here’s a game you can play at home or at the office. Go over to your printer. Is it an HP? If so, congrats, you’re part of the winning team! It turns out that HP has seen both the most growth and greatest market-share over the past year, comparing Q3 2009 with Q3 2010. Exciting, no?

No, not exactly. Sorry to have strung you long there.

HP’s biggest bump comes by way of laser printers.

Incidentally, I just played the game, and I have an old Canon.

What a terrible game.

The server will email the administrator a PDF copy of the document in question if a user attempts to do so.

The system can optionally inform the user by email that their attempt has been blocked, but without identifying the keyword in question, maintaining the security of the system.

See the problem here?

As Cory points out if an admin fails to engage this feature – or messes it up – there’s a pretty good chance a hax0r could get in and start mailing off “sensitive” materials to an outside address, which is a hoot. Considering most gear still uses its original default logins and passwords, I’d say the chances of this are pretty high.

Bottom line: printers are “loss leaders” for most companies. They make most of their money on the toner and ink which, in the end, can sometimes cost more than the printer is worth. Your goal, then is, to find a printer with inexpensive ink. Kodak has made great strides in this and Espson is a close second. You don’t really need to worry about pages per minute – most of these printers are fast enough to pump out a few pages between classes.

Low-End:

Kodak ESP 5250 All-in-one – $129 – Although it got bad reviews on the Kodak website, this cheap all-in-one got a fairly high score from Computer Shopper which is why I added it. I’m a fan of Kodak generally and it’s a good investment, especially if you’re not printing evey day. [Product Page]

Canon Pixma MP560 – $79 – Trying to find a sub-$99 printer worth considering is hard, but the Pixma MP560 seems to fit the bill. This all-in-one printer got good ratings and is now selling for $79 on Amazon. I chose this one over other models because Canon printers offer a bit more quality, even on the low-end. [Product Page]

Mid:

Kodak 7250 All-in-One – $199 – This all-in-one features wireless printing and the ink is cheap. My review noted that the UI was a little bit weird and the LCD screen was slightly fuzzy, but, on the whole, it was a good printer. [Product Page]

Epson WorkForce 520 – $129 – This Epson workhorse has a full scanner and a number of cool features like scan-to-memory card. Ink is fairly inexpensive and you can run a long time before changing the cartridges. [Product Page]

High End:
Samsung CLP-315 – $199 – Laser printer prices have fallen so far that it’s almost silly not to consider something like the CLP-315. I’ve used this model for two years now after writing a review and I think the real value comes in the speed and print quality. One caveat: toner for these babies can cost almost as much as the printer, which is why I’ve placed this in the high-end category. [Product Page]

Features:

• no need to install drivers to print
• print from any Internet-connected device
• scan and copy
• works with HP iPrint app
• MSRP: $99.99

Pros:

• control who can email print jobs with a whitelist of permitted senders
• variety of apps built-in allow printing stuff without a PC
• only 3.26 watts consumed while in sleep mode with WiFi radio on

Cons:

• drivers are required for scanning functionality
• scan-to-email requires configured email client on PC
• no Linux support (yet)

I generally don’t get excited about printers. The only printer I’ve ever really enjoyed was my original DeskJet 500. They just don’t make ‘em like they used to. Thankfully, though, Hewlett Packard is actually trying to innovate the home printer, and I think the D110a shows an awful lot of promise.

The D110a is a small form factor printer / scanner combo. It has 802.11n wireless networking, allowing you to print from any computer on your local WiFi network. It has support for the HP iPrint app, so you can print photos directly from your iPhone or iPod Touch or iPad. And it has a variety of apps built in that allow you to print things without ever turning on your computer: crossword and sudoku puzzles, maps, recipes, and more.

But the real feature of the D110a is that it comes with an email address. This means you no longer need to install any software on your computer to print: you simply email documents to your printer’s email address. The whole thing revolves around the new HP ePrint service. You can add multiple ePrint-enabled printers to your account there, review each printer’s print queue, and more.

The printer I’ve been using has the email address 99ibr28iacgr@hpeprint.com, which isn’t exactly memorable, but once you add it to your address book you won’t need to remember it too often (and you can always retrieve it from ePrint site). Each ePrint-enabled printer is assigned a goofy 12-character address primarily to make it somewhat more time-consuming to would-be miscreants to try to stuff unwanted print jobs down your printer.

Your printer is further protected by a whitelist of permitted senders. It’s trivially easy to add new addresses, and once added they can immediately begin sending stuff to your printer. I tried setting up a single-user group on my Google Apps for Domains account, so that I could have printer@skippy.net print to the D110a, but the way Google Apps handles those groups does not work with the ePrint service: all jobs sent to printer@skippy.net failed to print because it looked like more than one recipient was included on the message.

The printer will only print jobs if it’s the only recipient of the message. As explained to me by HP, this is actually a security feature, and it’s one of those “Oh yeah, I should’ve figured that out myself” situations. If I email a photo of my daughter to the printer and several family members, and then one of those family members hits Reply All, I don’t really want their reply printed out, do I?

I have not tried to manually spoof an SMTP transaction to see if I can send stuff to the printer. If that’s the kind of thing you want to do, knock yourself out. I’ve already changed my printer’s address, so the one displayed here is no longer being used.

Changing the address is super easy to do, which is helpful.

I’ve had no problems emailing documents to the printer. It accepts files up to 5 MB in size. As for supported file formats, from the ePrint FAQ:

What attachment file types are supported?
The HP ePrint service will print email attachments for the following file types automatically:

• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Microsoft Outlook
• Microsoft Excel*
• Text files (.txt)
• PDF
• Images (bmp, jpg, png, gif, tiff)

*It is strongly recommended that you preview documents in Excel before printing.

I’ve sent pictures from my iPhone and several computers using my GMail account. I’ve sent a variety of documents from my GMail account to the printer and have not had any trouble.

When you move beyond printing, things change on the D110a. If you want to scan, you need to load the drivers, which loads the print monitor utility to tell you you’re running out of ink. The printer’s touchscreen interface lists an option to “Scan to email”, implying that the printer can scan an item and email either a PDF or JPG to someone for you. Alas, this is only accomplished by using your computer as an intermediary. The item is scanned and sent to your computer where it is added as an attachment to a new email message in your email program. That’s great if you use an email program. I use webmail exclusively, and so don’t have an email client configured on any of my computers. The scan-to-email feature failed with a pretty obscure error message for me every time I tried it.

Interestingly, the built-in web server on the D110a provides a “Web Scan” feature, allowing you to scan a document without installing the drivers. This is, of course, way too geeky for the average user to try (let alone find), but it’s there if you need it.

For a hundred bucks, the D110a is a solid little printer. Being able to email documents to your printer is a surprisingly useful function. If you don’t mind loading drivers to use the scanning feature, it’s an even better deal. More ePrint-enabled printers are coming from HP in the months ahead, too, so if the D110a doesn’t do it for you, keep your eyes open.

Product Page: HP Photosmart D110a

A step forward in data security: Toshiba today announced what it claims to be the world’s first technology that makes it possible to automatically wipe sensitive data from self-encrypting drives when a system is powered down or the HDD is removed from the system. Dubbed Wipe, the solution automatically invalidates the security key that was used to encrypt the stored user data.

Toshiba is especially aiming at users of printers and photocopiers that have storage devices on board. The goal is to make it easier and safer for IT departments in companies to protect sensitive data every time these devices get scrapped, sold, re-purposed or when they are being returned after the leasing period is over.

Wipe will first arrive in Toshiba’s upcoming 2.5″ 7200rpm SED HDD model, which was announced last month.

The Hewlett Packard DeskJet 500 was the first printer I bought with my own money. I spent a lot on it, but it was an investment: it was a new era of inkjet printing, and my hand-me-down Okidata dot matrix printer just wasn’t going to cut it any more. I was a freshman in college, cranking out papers for class, and marveling at the quality of the letters on the page. I have absolutely no memory of how much replacement ink cartridges cost back then, but I do know that it was a fraction of the cost of the printer itself — unlike today, where a new printer can be had for only marginally more than buying replacement ink cartridges!

The HP DeskJet 500 was a workhorse. It never failed me in college, or beyond. I printed a lot, and never had a paper jam. Ink cartridges seemed to last forever, as I printed off revision after revision of essays about the Hobbesian State of Nature. I dabbled at “desktop publishing” with fliers and brochures for family events. Everything I threw at the DeskJet 500 printed. Everything.

I never had trouble installing printer drivers. It worked with DOS, Windows 3.1, and I think I even used it during that summer when I was tinkering with OS/2 Warp. I recommended the DeskJet 500 to everyone I met.

I have never owned a more reliable printer.

Zink stands for “zero ink.” It’s the name of a company that has created a new way of printing that uses, yes, zero ink. It’s all in the paper, hoss.

The paper has three layers of cyan, magenta, and yellow crystals layered over each other. You roll the paper through Zink printers, which then heat specific areas of the sheet, creating an image.

The first version of Zink’s technology was hobbled in that the paper was too big, only 2×3 inches. Version 2.0 is beginning to trickle out, but will appear more widely in the first quarter of 2010. Paper size goes all the way up to 4×6 inches, big enough for printouts of your photos (if you still print out photos!).

More on this come CES, when we’re running around all day talking to 1 million people at the same time.

If you thought that the whole point of the common digital photo frame was to make old-school photos a thing of the past, it looks like you were wrong. I was wrong too, so let’s take comfort together in our wrongness. If the folks at iMo have their way, we’ll look at a digital photo on their digital frame and say to ourselves “I want that photo on some sort of card stock and I’ll stop at nothing to get it!”

So here we have the iMo Photo Frame Printer – an 8-inch 800×600 digital photo frame that prints out 4×6 photos pulled off of memory cards and USB sticks.

If you had one of these in your house and some guests came over for dinner, they’d probably spend some time looking at the photos on the frame while you’re cutting up vegetables. After you bring the vegetable platter into the living room and set it down on the coffee table, you could say, “Oh, wanna see something cool? It prints them out too.” And probably eight out of 10 people would go some form of ape-shit, then remark how far along technology has come.

You’ll eventually need to break the news to them that the frame costs $200 and the ink cartridges cost $20 apiece for 36 printouts, which means each printed photo costs almost two dollars. But tell them that as they’re going out the door. Don’t tell them that before dinner. They’d spend the entire night wondering how much you get paid because, man, that’s an expensive printing frame.

iMo Photo Frame Printer [ThinkGeek]

Yup, that gigantic Dell box contained a huge color laser printer. But to my pleasant surprise, the 100 lbs 5130cdn isn’t nearly as boring and mundane as I thought it was going to be. I really don’t know if it’s the fastest printer in the world like Dell claims, but I do know that this printer could be a serious weapon in the hands of a comic book pirate. (I would like to think they exist)

Disclaimer: I don’t know jack about business-level printers. When Dell first asked me to look the world’s fastest color laser printer, I thought it was going to be a desktop model like Best Buy sells. Nope, the 5130cdn is a full scale, business printer with a monthly load throughput capacity of a 110,000 pages. This printer is serious business but for $1,549 I would expect nothing less.

I managed to get the printer set up after some issues with Windows 7. For some reason, this brand new printer doesn’t ship with Windows 7 drivers, instead I had share the printer on another computer and then the print speed wasn’t up to spec. But once Dell gave me the right drivers and assured me that I got a pre-production model and the retail version will have the compatible drivers, I was off to the races.

The printer is rated at 47ppm in both mono and color and I found those numbers to be accurate. With just a random text-only PDF, I was able to get about 39ppm when printing over a wireless network and exactly 47ppm via a direct USB connection. Even when the document has a splattering of color, the speed isn’t noticeably affected.

But let’s say you want to print a full-color comic book for some random reason. Just how fast is it then? Well, the 5130cdn managed to spit out the 38 pages in 1:38 as shown in the video above. Trust me, that’s fast considering each page is a full color image around 800KB in size. Try that with your inkjet and see what you get.

Dell has of course loaded this printer with a ton of new technology to get these results. It’s the first Dell printer to use ColorByDell, which is a total print quality solution that improves color saturation, sharpness, and print quality. Plus, the printer has a Cost Per Page of 1.04c per page for black and white, and 7.72c for color.

The 5130cdn is available starting today for $1,549, which includes a 3 year next business day on-site service contract. Let me warn you though, if you do buy this monster, its shipping weight is 120 lbs on a pallet and your wife won’t like it if it sits in the living room all evening.

Dell Launches World’s Fastest Color Laser Printer

3 New Commercial Printers Help Customers Boost Productivity & Lower TCO

ROUND ROCK, NOVEMBER 10, 2009 – Dell today announced three new commercial workgroup printers to help businesses of all sizes increase productivity and lower their total cost of printing. Printers available today include the Dell 5130cdn, the world’s fastest single function letter (LTR) size color laser printer, the Dell 7130cdn, Dell’s first LED color printer with tabloid size printing capability; and the Dell 3330dn, a single function monochrome laser printer for high performance class black and white printing. These new printers will be launched and available in Europe and the Middle East on November 24.

The Dell 5130cdn can print up to 47 single-side and 37.6 double-side LTR pages per minute (ppm) in both mono and color, making it the world’s fastest LTR size single-function color laser printer.  The 5130cdn also premiers ColorbyDell, a total print quality solution that delivers improved color saturation and image sharpness and outstanding print quality. This is enabled through a combination of a powerful new image enhancement algorithm, advanced toner technology and improvements in print engine design. The Dell5130cdn also brings significant energy and cost savings by using a new toner formulation that fuses at a lower temperature, enabling a remarkable Cost Per Page (CPP) of 1.04c for black and white and 7.72c for color print outs[i]. With a maximum duty cycle up to 110,000 pages a month, the Dell 5130cdn provides outstanding reliability and is available today in the US from $1,549 with 3 Year Next Business Day (NBD) Onsite Service after remote diagnosis[ii].

To help companies reign in the costs of their color printing, Dell also announced the availability of Dell ColorTrack Pro—a remote administration tool for IT administrators to centrally monitor and control access to color printing on the Dell 5130cdn. Designed for workgroup environments, Dell ColorTrack Pro manages user access at the server level, to more easily control printing and toner costs.

“With a school district as large as ours, it’s important that we provide students, faculty and staff access to quality technology,” said Tim McNeese, Information Systems Director of Williamson County Schools. “After installing the new Dell 5130cdn printers, we noticed a big difference in the quality and speed of the printouts. The great value and high production rate helps our schools run smoothly and collaboratively,” he added.

The Dell 7130cdn is Dell’s first LED-based color printer with the ability to print up to tabloid-size, high quality Pantone® approved color prints, for more accurate color reproduction. With its ability to bring professional quality color printing in-house with lower costs and improved printing options, the Dell 7130cdn includes a rich feature set, including numerous paper handling options, a powerful processor and enhanced memory. This allows the printer to print the first page (First Print Out Time) as quickly as 6.5 seconds in both mono and color. The Dell 7130cdn is available today in the US from $2,799 with 1 Year Next Business Day (NBD) Onsite Service after Remote Diagnosis[iii].

“Dell’s new commercial printers add to a compelling portfolio of business color and mono printers for organizations of all sizes,” said Keith Kmetz, Vice President of Hardcopy Peripherals Solutions and Services at IDC. “The Dell 5130cdn revolutionizes speed and usability. And its user-friendly appeal makes it attractive to organizations looking for high quality color output at a low total cost of ownership,” he added.

On the black and white printing front, Dell announced the Dell 3330dn, a single-function black and white performance printer that can print up to 40 pages per minute (ppm), with a monthly duty cycle up to 80,000 pages. Built for high performance printing needs, the Dell 3330dn packs work-horse reliability, and includes paper drawer and memory expansion capabilities that grow with increasing business demands, all in a compact desktop size. The Dell 3330dn is currently available from today in the US from $599 with 1 year Advanced Exchange Service.

“Dell has always focused on efficiency, reducing costs and increasing productivity for businesses of all sizes, and today we have extended that same winning formula to the printing world,” said Mike Arterbury, Global Director Commercial Software & Peripherals at Dell Inc. “Our portfolio of printers provides customers with valuable and affordable choices and lower cost of printing, saving them time – and real money!” he added.

“Dell’s complete lineup of laser printers provide customers with outstanding value, world class reliability and ease of use to help them achieve more with less, with minimum downtime and complexity,” said C. K. Lim, General Manager of Dell’s Global Imaging Business.

Dell printers are available direct from Dell and from Dell’s more than 50,000 partners worldwide.

Printer Specifications

	5130cdn Color Laser Printer	7130cdn Color Laser Printer	3330dn Mono Laser Printer
List price	US$ 1,549 (includes 3-yr NBD On-site Service after remote diagnosis)	US$ 2,799 with 1-yr NBD Onsite Service after remote diagnosis	US$599 with 1-yr NBD Advanced Exchange after remote diagnosis
Consumables type	Separated toner and drum unit	Separated toner and drum unit	Separated toner and drum unit
Print Speed (Letter)	Up to 47ppm in both mono and color (Actual print speed will vary with use)	Up to 35ppm (actual print speed will vary with use)	Up to 40ppm  (actual print speed will vary with use)
Duplex Print	Standard	Standard	Standard
Max. resolution	Up to 1200 dpi x 1200 dpi	Up to 1200 dpi x 1200 dpi	Up to 1200×1200 dpi / 2400 IQ
User interface	160 x 64 Mono Graphics backlit LCD text	128 x 64 Graphics backlit LCD text	4 line backlit LCD (text and graphics)
	3-button + 5-way cursor keypad	6-button cluster	20 buttons keypad
	1 LED: Status (green, yellow & red)	1 LED: Status (green, yellow & red)	1 two-tone LED
Processor	800 MHz	1 GHz	466 MHz
Connectivity	High-speed USB 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet	High-speed USB 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet	USB 2.0 (Hi speed), Parallel, 10/100 Ethernet
Print Language	PCL® 5c, 5e/6 Emulation: 81 fonts Adobe® PostScript® 3: 136 fonts	PCL® 5c,  PDF direct v1.4 , Adobe® PostScript® 3 Adobe® PostScript® 3	PCL® 5e, PCL 6, PCL XL, HBP (GDI), XPS (GDI) and PostScript® Level 3 Emulation
Paper input (std/max)	700 / 2900 sheets	600 / 2100 sheets	250 / 850 sheets (550tray+MPT)
Paper output (std/max)	500 / 1000 sheets	400 / 400 sheets	50 sheets
Multi-purpose input	150 sheet	100 sheet	150 sheets
Max. monthly duty cycle	Up to 110,000 pages	Up to 150,000 pages	Up to 80,000 pages
Size (W x D x H)	22.1” x 20.0” x 17.0”	25.2” x 26.2” x 15.7”	10.2″ x 16.6″ x 14.53″
Weight	99lbs (45kg)	145.2lbs (66 kg)	31.15 lb.

Related Links:

For more details, please go to www.dell.com/printers

Hewlett-Packard: NUH-UH! You’re a big fat liar, Kodak! We’re the cheapest cost-per-page.

Kodak: Pfffft!

Hewlett-Packard: Stop it! I’m telling! Hey CrunchGear! Kodak is being mean!!

CrunchGear: What? Huh? Don’t make me stop this car!

Full disclosure: Hewlett Packard’s PR team asked us to compare the HP C6380 against the Kodak ESP 7 with the intent of showing HP’s superior quality, in addition to evaluating the cost-per-page comparison. No gifts or money were given to me. I didn’t get to keep the printers, only the photos I printed out.

I’ve long been a fan of HP printers, and when I was a lowly sales clerk at an office supply store all those years ago I would almost always recommend the HP DeskJet 600C over the competing Epson and Canon printers (I told you it was years ago!).

My personal preferences aside, I am a rational adult, and able to read the fine print on marketing websites. So let’s take a look at the claims made by both parties, and see what caveats and exceptions exist. Then we’ll dig into the subjective aspects of both printers.

Kodak throws down the gauntlet
Kodak has a fancy website, www.printandprosper.com, at which they will calculate for you how much money you’re wasting with your non-Kodak printer. According to this site, the HP C6380 costs $221.20 extra per year over the Kodak offering.

There’s a big ol’ asterisk after that number, and the fine print links to www.kodak.com/go/inkdata, which allows us to drill down to the U.S. detail report.

HP pushes back
The Truth About Printing is HP’s response to the Kodak advertising campaign. It’s a marketing effort, too, so don’t expect to see a lot of nitty-gritty numerical analysis without some clicking.

Instead of trying to fight on the cost-per-page issue, which they’ll pretty clearly lose, HP instead claims that their product is superior. Some of the features that HP touts will be pretty compelling to most users. Individual color ink tanks, for example, mean less waste. Some HP features, like Bluetooth printing from iPhones direct to HP printers, are of interest to only limited subsets of users.

Devil in the details
Way back when I was selling HP DeskJet 600C printers, the leading contender was the Canon BJC-600. The HP printer used a tri-color ink tank, while the Canon used separate tanks for each color. At the time, I let my passion for HP products influence my salesmanship, and I steered many a customer toward the tried-and-true DeskJet, even though the Canon afforded a more economical long-term outlook. If you use a lot of blue ink — because your company logo is solid blue, perhaps, — the separate ink tank design will allow you to replace just the blue ink when it runs out. When you run out of blue in a tri-color tank, you end up throwing out perfectly good ink just so you can insert a new tri-color cartridge to replenish your supply of blue.

The HP C6380 uses five separate ink tanks: cyan, magenta, yellow, photo black, and regular black. When you run out of one, you only need to replace that one. The Kodak ESP 7 uses two ink tanks: a five color tank and a black tank. If you exhaust all of one color, you’ll need to replace all five colors, regardless of how much may be left of those other colors. It may well be cheaper to replace the five color tank every time, but is that the kind of wasteful behavior you want to encourage, let alone participate in?

The other major difference between Kodak and HP is the kind of ink they use. Kodak uses pigment based inks, while HP uses dye based inks. Both produce great results most of the time, and ink type alone probably shouldn’t be a determining factor when selecting a photo printer, but there are some differences that are worth exploring.

Objective tests
Did you know that the ISO — the International Standards Organization — actually has tests for photo printers? ISO standard DIS 18935 is “Determination of indoor water resistance of printed colour images”. The test basically involves submerging a photograph in water for 60 minutes and seeing what happens.

So what happens? The Kodak pigment based printer ink is susceptible to water. A single drop of water on the photo is enough to remove substantial amounts of pigment, effectively ruining the photo. The HP ink, which is dye based, is not affected by the drop of water at all. No amount of smudging or scrubbing resulted in any blemishes.

The Kodak print is on top, and you can clearly see the blemish left from smudging a single drop of water. The HP print, below, shows a slight streak, but that faded as the water dried.

Submerging both photos in water for even a minute is enough to see the damage that can occur. The Kodak paper curls pretty badly. And the pigment suffers from water as just described. The HP paper retains its form, and resists the adverse effects of water.

The Kodak print, at the top, curls pretty badly after only a minute in the water. The HP paper stays firm, and holds its shape.

Subjective tests
I printed a lot of photos from both of these printers. The truth is that the output quality of each is superb. There are modest differences that result from pigment versus dye based inks. To my eye, the pigment based inks generally produce deeper blacks, but as a result they tend to lose some details in the dark portions of photos. For example, the photo in the top of this post: the Kodak printer is black, and when printed on the Kodak printer it looks sharply black. The same photo printed on the HP doesn’t look quite as black, but I can see more reflection on the surface of the printer — a detail which is lost in the Kodak print.

I actually like the HP print better. I like seeing the details in the photo. As an amateur photographer, I like knowing that some of the nuance I see in the lens will be reproduced in the print out. My lovely wife prefers the Kodak print, claiming that the colors are sharper. Who am I to argue with my wife?

I found the Kodak Windows driver to be much better than the HP, though. This has nothing at all to do with cost per page or output quality, but should be a concern when selecting a printer. I hate printer drivers that take over your computer, and ruin your life with popup reminders about your printer. The Kodak driver had a much smaller footprint, and was much less invasive.

For the average user, both printers include software to touch up photos before printing them. For the sake of completeness, I polluted my system with these applications, so that I could include their utility in my discussion. Both did a perfectly fine job — basically just auto adjusting the color levels, which you can do yourself in Photoshop or the GIMP. The Kodak touch-up process was remarkably faster, though. It brightened up the photos and sent them off to the printer in no time at all. The HP software churned and churned, finally showing a slightly enhanced version of the photo, which I was prompted to save as a copy before sending to the printer.

A word of advice: please show your family members how to use some dedicated photo editing software — Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, GIMP, Acorn, heck even Picnik — so that they can adjust colors and crop photos on their own, without using the half-baked software usually included with the printers.

The Bottom Line
As I’ve said several times, I like HP printers. I buy HP printers myself. It’s just something I do, the way my dad only buys Ford automobiles. My preference for HP does not prevent me from recognizing good stuff from other vendors, though. The Kodak ESP 7 — and presumably most of the other Kodak printers on the market today — is a perfectly acceptable printer. Were I to receive one as a gift, or if it were the only printer available for me to buy, I’d be completely satisfied with it. Output quality is good, print speeds are impressive, and the overall featureset is noteworthy.

I’m as leery of Kodak’s marketing claims as I am of HP’s rebuttal claims. Cost-per-page is an important consideration when buying a printer, but it’s not the only consideration. If cost-per-page were the only thing that mattered, we’d all print our photos at the nearest drug store, or Wal-Mart.

It prints really small adhesive photos for you to stick on your Trapper Keeper. Through the power of “magic” it uses ZINK, which means “Zero Ink” — that’s just a fancy way to say it requires special, expensive, hard-to-find paper. That’s how they get you, those crafty printer companies.

At any rate, cheap portable printer, eh?

PZ310 Mobile Photo Printer [Dell.com via CNET]

Canon has also released some PIXMA all-in-ones and SELPHY compact photo printers. Real winner is the ES40, a $149 printer that looks like a child’s radio. The best part? It talks to you!

Canon SELPHY ES40 Compact Photo Printer
The Canon SELPHY ES40 Compact Photo Printer is the latest addition to the SELPHY line which has become synonymous for producing high-quality photos, being portable and easy-to-use. The SELPHY ES40 is ideal for printing images of a child’s first birthday or a loved one’s retirement party which can be distributed to attendees for a keepsake as they leave. The voice guidance system, large 3.5-inch LCD screen and Easy Scroll Wheel allows for printing and navigating through menus and images to be more intuitive than in previous models. Users will now have more opportunities to personalize their photos with new frames and clip art available under the Creative Print function as well. The estimated retail price of the SELPHY ES40 Compact Photo Printer is $149.99.

CANON U.S.A. ANNOUNCES THREE NEW FEATURE-PACKED PIXMA PRINTERS AND A VOICE-GUIDED SELPHY COMPACT PHOTO PRINTER

Lake Success, N.Y., August 19, 2009 – Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging, today announced two new PIXMA Wireless1 Photo All-In-One (AIO) printers, one new PIXMA Inkjet Business Printer with PgR technology and a SELPHY Compact Photo Printer with a new voice guidance system. The versatility of these machines provides users with many options, whether working in the home office to print business documents or putting together an album of the latest family vacation.

Developed with the idea of making photo printing easier, the new Canon SELPHY and PIXMA products have several innovative features. The SELPHY ES40 Compact Photo Printer includes a voice guidance system which provides step-by-step instructions for printing and adding graphics to images without having to rely on a manual. The PIXMA MP990 and PIXMA MP640 Wireless1 Photo AIO printers utilize the Auto Photo Fix II feature to help users get the most out of photos and help to correct many common photo errors, such as underexposed images. To enhance those near perfect memorable photos from either a sunny beach wedding or a child’s graduation taking place in a dark auditorium, Auto Photo Fix II can assist with features such as Multi-Zone Exposure Correction, improvements in overall face detection, scene analysis, plus brightness and saturation correction.

With PgR technology on the Canon PIXMA iX7000 Inkjet Business Printer, business owners will be able to produce professional-looking documents in-house while also reducing overall printing costs by printing documents on plain paper. Small businesses will be able to print high-quality color business and marketing documents on low-cost plain paper as large as 11″ x 17″ or 13″ x 19″ without having to leave the office. Using a clear ink working in tandem with five LUCIA pigment inks when printing on plain paper, consumers will no longer need to worry about oversaturated and wrinkled documents.

“In today’s economy, consumers are searching for versatile and easy-to-use products at a reasonable price without sacrificing overall quality,” said Yuichi Ishizuka, senior vice president and general manager, Consumer Imaging Group, Canon U.S.A. “The addition of these new PIXMA and SELPHY printers will provide consumers and businesses with many different choices when making a decision and can be confident that they will receive a high-quality, durable product.”

Canon PIXMA iX7000 Inkjet Business Printer
For business owners seeking an in-house solution for their overall printing needs, Canon’s PIXMA iX7000 Inkjet Business Printer has a wealth of advanced features to help streamline productivity. With advanced paper handling, such as Auto Duplex Printing, a three-way paper feed, an extra large paper cassette and the use of PgR technology, business materials can be produced on plain paper to help reduce overall production costs. Added features of this printer include built-in Ethernet connectivity making this the perfect shared device for a small office.

For the first time, Canon will be providing special solution templates designed for use exclusively with this printer through Canon Inc.’s Creative Park Web site, where business owners will be able to find templates to print menus, sales offerings and other office-related signs from the comfort of the office without having to take a trip to the local print shop. The PIXMA iX7000 will deliver high-quality documents at approximately 10.2 ipm for black-and-white and approximately 8.1 ipm for color2. The estimated retail price of the PIXMA iX7000 printer is $399.993.

Canon PIXMA Wireless Photo All-In-One Printers
With the introduction of the Canon PIXMA MP990 and MP640 Wireless1 Photo AIO printers, Canon has once again taken high-quality and ease-of-use to a whole new level. These stylish printers, with built-in Wi-Fi1 capabilities, are designed for use almost anywhere without sacrificing the overall décor of the home or home office. To print vibrant and long-lasting photos with superior quality, both printers use the ChromaLife 100+ ink system plus have a maximum color resolution of 9600 x 2400 dpi4. For the advanced amateur ready to take their hobby to the next level, the inclusion of a gray ink tank on the PIXMA MP990 helps produce superb black-and-white prints in addition to vibrant color prints. The PIXMA MP990 can also scan both film and slides, allowing users to reproduce and preserve memorable moments from the past. The integrated Easy-Scroll Wheel, for easy navigation through menus and images, is further enhanced by a large 3.8-inch LCD screen on the PIXMA MP990 and a 3.0- inch LCD screen on the PIXMA MP640.

In order to improve the users overall printing experience, both printers feature advanced paper handling, Auto Scan Mode5, and the Easy-WebPrint EX6 software. The easy-to-use Auto Scan Mode helps to simplify the scanning process by identifying, scanning and saving an original in the correct format with the touch of one button. Advanced paper handling features include Auto Duplex printing, to help consumers save their paper supply by up-to-50 percent, and a two-way paper feed which makes it fast and easy to change paper types and sizes. The Easy-WebPrint EX software can help make printing documents from the Web a simple operation. The software comes with an Auto Clip feature where users can select a specific part of a Web page to print rather than having to print the whole page, helping to conserve paper supply. The PIXMA MP990 will create a 4″ x 6″ photo in approximately 21 seconds7, and has an estimated retail price of $299.993, while the PIXMA MP640 will create a 4″ x 6″ photo in approximately 20 seconds7 , with an estimated retail price of $219.993.

Canon SELPHY ES40 Compact Photo Printer
The Canon SELPHY ES40 Compact Photo Printer is the latest addition to the SELPHY line which has become synonymous for producing high-quality photos, being portable and easy-to-use. The SELPHY ES40 is ideal for printing images of a child’s first birthday or a loved one’s retirement party which can be distributed to attendees for a keepsake as they leave. The voice guidance system, large 3.5-inch LCD screen and Easy Scroll Wheel allows for printing and navigating through menus and images to be more intuitive than in previous models. Users will now have more opportunities to personalize their photos with new frames and clip art available under the Creative Print function as well. The estimated retail price of the SELPHY ES40 Compact Photo Printer is $149.993.

Windows 7 Operating System
Canon is pleased to announce that its PIXMA inkjet printer products will be compatible with Microsoft’s new Windows 7 operating system. According to Microsoft, this operating system has new features to make everyday tasks easier and faster. Please stay tuned for updates regarding driver downloads and a full list of compatible Canon products.

So that fake USB Chainsaw from the other day is indeed fake. Hence the fakeness. It’s instead an eye-opening ad campaign aimed at educating the public about the wastefulness of printers.

Instead of buying a USB chainsaw, you can download a little program that plays the sound of a chainsaw whenever you print something.

That’s supposed to remind you that paper is made from trees — trees that have to be cut down in order to make paper to go in your printer.

I’m all for going paperless, but I’d rather have an actual USB chainsaw than a program that makes a chainsaw noise the five times per year that I print something. I know it’s wasteful, you know it’s wasteful, and the fact that toner cartridges cost more than what I paid for my laser printer is enough to keep it sitting on my desk doing nothing for the next ten years.

[via Wired]

If you’re really organized or you’re looking for a sweet new rig for computer camp, though, here’s what’s coming from HP:

The HP Pavilion dv2z — seems to basically be a customizable version of the already-available dv2 (see Devin’s review). You can bump the CPU from an AMD Neo up to a dual-core AMD. Starts at $599, available starting tomorrow.

The HP Pavilion dv6t — a 16-inch notebook focused on entertainment. “A separate numeric keypad allows faster data entry during class.” Again with the back-to-school buzzkilling, HP? An entertainment notebook with a sweet 10-key pad for nerding out. Fun! Available now, starting at $649.

The HP Pavilion dv6z Artist Edition 2 — like the already-available dv6z but with “the winning design from the 2008 HP MTV Notebook Design Contest.” Available tomorrow, starting at $949. The dv6z starts at $579, so you’re really paying for that design there.

And finally, the HP Pavilion dv3t — thin and light 13.3-inch notebook weighing just under five pounds and starting at $649. Available now.

HP also announced a few new printers, just in case students’ spirits hadn’t been fully crushed with back-to-school talk yet. You can read about them at the link below if you’re a glutton for punishment.

HP Gives Students a Head Start with Sleek, Affordable PCs and Printers [Press Release]

Do you see that USB port right there? You know, the one on the back of my D-Link DIR-825 802.11n router? Well apparently Mac users can now use that port to share things like USB thumb drives, printers, etc, using D-Link’s SharePort software. (Windows users have been able to do this for some time.) Well, theoretically Mac users can now use SharePort, seeing as though the installer refuses to work on my pre-unibody MacBook. Why would it be easy, right?

In a perfect world, a world where installers actually work, this would be quite useful. There’s only one printer in the house, some HP all-in-one model, so it’d be quite useful to plug it into the D-Link and be able to access it from all the computers in the house.

And yes, I understand wireless printer sharing isn’t exactly new, but just think of it as a bonus for shelling out ~$150 for a router.

Cheap color printing has long been the holy grail of grade-schoolers everywhere*. As you well know, Dad or Mom usually has a copier at work. This copier, at least in my day, was used to make multiple copies of hand-drawn comic books. These comic books are then sold at school for five or ten cents each. If those grade-schoolers parents had had a color copier, however, the entire situation would change. They could sell the comics for 25 cents.

That’s why Xerox’s new color copier is so great. It uses cubes of solid ink and half-page of color would cost about three cents – down from the standard 8 cents or so for most other printers. That is, of course, ignoring the fact that the machine will cost $20,000.

News in the printer industry is limited to a few things. Design is one, size is another. Then there’s price for color prints. Every year or so you get someone crowing about cheap color printers, which is fine by me. I just wish these ColorQube printers didn’t cost as much as a house in Detroit.

* Note: This may apply only to me and my friend Richie.