Xerox’s ‘Breakthrough’ Solid Ink Color Printers

May 8, 2009 - 2:43 am | 18 views

Technology.am (May 8, 2009) — Xerox today launched a new series of office printers that use solid ink instead of cartridges. But it comes at a cost $23,500.

xerox-office-printer The Xerox new ColorQube 9200 series is mainly targeted at high-end corporate users, and is designed to significantly reduce the cost of printing color pages.

The Xerox Phaser 8400, launched in 2004, also used solid ink. With a $999 price tag, it was considerably more affordable for small offices, but the technology never really took off. A review of the Phaser 8400N gave the printer a “Poor” rating and said the waxy, solid ink “scratches off more easily than does plastic toner fused to paper.”

But now Xerox has completely overhauled its solid-ink system, resulting in faster performance and higher print volumes. Each ColorQube 9200 model has four print heads and churns out pages at an impressive 38 page-per-minute (ppm) to 85-ppm range. The price-per-page breakdown is complex-you can read the specifics here-but Xerox’s specs do look impressive on paper. For instance, a page with heavy color coverage, such as a real estate flyer, should cost about eight cents to print, the company says.

Let’s hope Xerox will bring ColorQube to the consumer side in the near future.

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