freudent@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Eric Freudenthal) (04/03/91)
I have used both the current generation of HP ink jet printers "Desk Jet" with 300 dpi and also the old lo-res (100 dpi?) versions from hp & diconix. The old versions, which had roughly the same resolution as an Epson FX-80, do clog up and are a royal nusance. On the other hand, my local Ethical Society and several friends have the new h-res (300dpi) printers and absolutely love them. No clogs. No mess. Low power. No clogs. No warm-up. Small footprint. No paper jams. No maintainence. (the entire print head, jets and ink are a single plug-in unit) I think that it actually is more appropriate for home and small office use than an laser because of the simpler and cheaper maintainence as well as the wider acceptable environmental specs. It also seems to cost about the same per sheet as a laser printer ($0.025/page). What I don't understand is why the darn thing costs sooo much (about $400 in NYC). It seems to be about as simple as my Epson fx-80 (which I hope will someday retire so that I can buy an inkjet). The only part which I would expect to be expensive is the ink jets themselves, but they are disposable ($13 including enough ink for a ream of paper). I think HP could take over the entire inexpensive printer market by pricing these machines more reasonably. If you are doing desktop publishing, I STRONGLY recommend that you get some sort of resident font support (either the newest version with the important fonts in ram, or whatever font cartridges you need). Otherwise, your computer will need to compute entire pages and ship them over (literally) bit by bit, which takes a very long time. Eric -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Eric Freudenthal NYU Ultracompter Lab 715 Broadway, 10th floor New York, NY 10003 Phone:(212) 998-3345 work (718) 789-4486 home Email:freudent@ultra.nyu.edu