More To Portable Printers Than Meets The Eye
Sydney Morning Herald
Sunday July 12, 1992
PORTABLE printers are not always what they appear to be. There is a belief among printer manufacturers that, like portable computers themselves, portable printers are not always bought to be moved - at least not very far.
People with restricted space often prefer portable printers just because they are small. Others want to share a printer between several desks or offices and merely want to avoid a hernia carting the beast around.
There will be quite different priorities here than for someone wanting to print insurance quotes on the passenger seat of a car or on a client's dining room table.
Because of the different degrees of portability and, subsequently, quite different requirements, some vendors - Kodak is one of them - offer a couple of portable printers.
Kodak's Diconix 701 is a small desk printer. The emphasis is on paper handling, print quality and speed rather than extreme light weight and power conservation.
Its sibling, the Diconix 180si, is the one built for the road. Lightweight and remote power capabilities take obvious precedence over resolution, speed and so on. It can be powered from rechargeable batteries (that fit very neatly into the printer platen), a car cigarette lighter socket or the mains. Most importantly, it will print while charging.
Other vendors, however, are trying to meet both sets of requirements with one machine - or even worse, design for one market, but still try to sell to the other.
Canon's Little Squirt is proof beyond any doubt that more sales go to the small, semi-portable market than to the truly portable market. But be warned a very small printer for a desktop job can be a risky purchase.
Both the BubbleJet and, more recently Citizen's PN48 show that it is possible to get resolution from a small printer that beats many desktops. With Windows 3.1 drivers and Window's TrueType Fonts, they can produce just as many fonts as any Windows -dependent desktop printer - even lasers. With the Citizen, in particular, the quality of even the finest scripted print is amazing.
The big let-down, though, is speed. Waiting three minutes or more for a page that has a few fonts but no other graphics is, in my book, not on. The BubbleJet is faster but still slow by desktop standards.
Also, the limited paper handling could be a problem for some users. All three of these desktop printers will print A4 cut sheet and envelopes without a problem, but further than that they do not go. The Canon is the only one of the three to support a cut-sheet feeder.
So where there is a demand for true portability, a portable printer that doesn't add double figure kilos to the weight of an expensive lightweight notebook is a must. But be sure to buy a true portable printer, not just a small printer.
For inter-office portability try the printer out on a typical job and see how long it takes. Bigger may be better. The Diconix 180 costs $585, the 701, $935. Kodak is on (03) 350 1222. The Canon BJ10ex costs around $600. Canon is on (02) 805 2000. The Citizen's PN48 costs $599 without battery, $699 with. It is distributed by Pantek, (03) 696 3539.
© 1992 Sydney Morning Herald
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