NEW YORK: HP introduces a large format printer that produces colour and monochrome prints fast. Similar to office printers, many large scale printing machines for producing extra large prints of technical line drawings and maps and are based on LED technology and are conceptually similar to laser printers.
However, they’re generally slow and produce either monochrome-only or colour-only prints.
Hewlett-Packard says it has the problem licked with the PageWide XL 8000, a large-format printer that’s based on the company’s inkjet technology.
Think of the PageWide as a scaled-up inkjet printer but instead of a single print head that moves across the page, the PageWide has eight print heads stacked together across the entire 101cm (40in) length of the printer for fast single-pass prints.
HP claims that the PageWide can print in colour or monochrome up to 60% faster than the fastest monochrome LED printer on the market.
The PageWide uses HP’s pigment ink technology, which produces water resistant prints on a variety of media from plain paper to polypropylene and vinyl.
However, the print is not meant for outdoors as it will fade from constant exposure to ultraviolet light unless some form of lamination is applied first.
The PageWide is more suited to print architectural blueprints, large scale maps, technical and documents which are used indoors.
In terms of speed, the PageView can produce 30 A1- or D-sized prints per minute.
Not being a consumer product, the PageWide is actually sold in a package that includes service and customisation and as such the price ranges from RM270, 000 to RM300, 000.
The contract for consumables is based on a pay-per-use basis and customers only have to pay when they need replacements.
