By Andrew Liszewski
Once dot-matrix printers were replaced by inkjets, printer technology hit a long period of stagnation when manufacturers realized they could just sit back and make a killing by selling replacement ink cartridges. But Memjet hopes to shake things up with their new inkjet technology that’s able to print at 12 inches per second, which equates to about 60 full color A4 pages per minute. That speed, which is actually about twice as fast as color laser printers, is made possible by a page wide printhead dotted with 70,000 ink nozzles (about 17 times as many as current inkjet printer heads) dropping 700 million drops of ink per second.
It’s easily the fastest printer I’ve ever seen, and it’s not like it’s spitting out low-quality draft prints either. These are full color, 1600 DPI copies that look as good as what you’d get from the current crop of home inkjet printers. Minus all the waiting. And while they had a functional prototype on display, Memjet actually plans to license their technology to OEMs. One of the first companies to announce a Memjet-based printer was Lenovo oddly enough, and it’s expected to hit the market for around $5-600 later this year. As for actual printing costs, the Memjet technology does it’s thing for about 5 or 6 cents per page.
[ Memjet ]
