Pint Size Printer
The Sun Herald
Saturday April 4, 1992
A PORTABLE computer printer no bigger than an egg carton is claimed to be the first major breakthrough in printer technology in 11 years.
The radical battery-powered printer takes up minimal desk space, weighs less than 1kg with battery installed, yet produces high-resolution output on plain paper to rival top quality laser printers.
And at $699 with battery, or $599 without, it is around one-third the cost of even a low-priced laser printer.
The new printer is the Citizen PN48.
It uses a new "thermal fusion" technology, which Citizen claims is the first major advance in computer printing since the first laser models were launched 11 years ago.
The fusion process uses a heated arrow-shaped head to fuse precise patterns of tiny ink particles on to the paper.
The particles are half the size of those used in other technologies, Citizen claims, resulting in finely formed characters and graphic images.
The technology incorporates advances in ceramic heat transfer, resin chemistry and microelectronics.
The PN48 looks an ideal partner for notebook or laptop printers, the fastest growing sector of the personal computer market.
This market is now dominated by CanonUs hot-selling BJ-10 bubblejet printers.
Bubblejets use extremely fine heated tubular heads to squirt tiny drops of ink on to the page.
With a resolution of 360 dots per inch-identical to that of the PN48-bubblejet output is also high quality, but the printing process is slow and the water-soluble inks can be prone to smearing in some conditions.
It can take three or four minutes to print a page of text on a bubblejet.
Citizen claims an average print time of one minute a page for the PN48, though in press demonstrations last week, some pages were taking closer to two minutes.
Printing times vary according to the amount of text or images on the page.
Citizen's Australian distributor, Melbourne-based Pantek, believes the appeal of the PN48 will go well beyond the portable notebook PC sector, which is still in its infancy.
Landau expects to sell significant numbers for use with desktop PCs, especially for the growing home office market.
He also sees opportunities in the corporate and government markets.
Desktop users can purchase the Citizen PN48 without a battery for $599 and run it simply off AC power.
If they later want to take the printer on the road with a notebook, they can purchase the battery separately.
Under battery power, the PN48 will print about 25 pages of text before needing a recharge.
It can be used to print high quality overhead-projector transparencies for business presentations as well as normal plain-paper printing.
The PN48 will work with DOS or Windows PCs and Commodore Amigas.
A Macintosh interface is said to be under development.
Ribbons will cost around $10 and are good for up to 70 pages, according to Pantek.
For further information, contact Pantek Corporation on (03) 696 3539.
© 1992 The Sun Herald
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