World smallest, lightest printers unveiled here

CONFIDENT in Davao City's growing market for quality printers, Fuji Xerox Printer Channel (FXPC) first launched in the city its new products -- the new DocuPrint series -- touted as the smallest and lightest models in its class.

The product launch was held on November 22 at the Marco Polo Hotel with Vincent Sim, FXPC general manager for Asean, in attendance.

"Davao City has a huge market for quality printers, that's why we decided to launch our new products here after Singapore," he told Sun.Star Davao during the launch, attended by the company's business partners in the city.

He said the new DocuPrint series of A4 Sled (self-scanning light-emitting diode) printers -- the monochrome DocuPrint P105b and M205b and the color printers DocuPrint CP105b, CP205 and M205 -- are designed to meet the demands of home users, small office home offices (Soho) and the small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

Sim said these new products, ranging from single function to multi-function printers, are very affordable with "higher reliability and better performance."

"With the launch of this new series, Fuji Xerox has broadened its range of printers by catering to the unique requirements from Soho and SMB customers," he said.

The new DocuPrint series will be using Fuji Xerox's award winning self-scanning LED (Sled) technology, which was previously available only in high-end office machines. Touted as the "printers of the future," Sim said these Sled printers will allow for compactness without compromising the reliability and print quality of the products.

"At Fuji Xerox, we have observed a shifting trend by the Soho/SMBs and home users from purchasing inkjet printers to laser printers. The shift can be largely attributed to higher printing speeds and lower cost of ownership. I am very confident that our new products will address the printing needs of our customers," he said.

The Sled technology, according to Sim, is a product of several years of research and development to address problems confronting conventional LED printers that cannot produce high print quality due to fluctuations in light-emitting elements, resulting to unevenness in color density.

"Fuji Xeros had managed to overcome this problem by developing a 1,200 dpi resolution Sled that is supported with another proprietary technology called Delcis or digitally enhanced light-emitting elements," he said.

Sim said Delcis enables precise integrated control of all light-emitting elements using a single high performance Asic or application specific integrated circuit.

With these technologies, Fuji Xerox has adopted lenses with uniform optical characteristics to create a high resolution LED printhead (1,200 x 2,400 dpi), which allows for compactness without compromising the printing quality.

With Sled technology, Fuji Xerox received in 2009 the Technology Award from the Imaging Society of Japan's Technology, for superior technology and innovativeness.

"We continue to develop technologies for printers that will define the printer market in the future," Sim said. "In 1997, we developed the world's first laser printer and in 1994, we rolled out the industry solid ink printer." These technologies are still the mainstreams for printer industry. With Sled, the company aims to further the future of the printer technology.

With the new products also comes the EA-Eco (Emulsion Aggregation) toner, which offers significant energy saving and environmental benefits when used with Fuji Xerox printers.

"Carbon dioxide emission can be reduced by more than 35 percent during its manufacturing process and up to 25 percent on printing process, cutting the carbon footprint that will affect the already fragile Erath," Sim said.

At the same time, he said energy power consumption during printing can be reduced by 40 percent as compared to other Fuji Xerox toners.

The color models in new DocuPrint series also included two single-function printer models (CP105b and CP205) and one multifunction model that integrate copy, scan and print functions (CM205b). These printers, according to Sim, offer 1200 x 1200 dpi print quality. The CP105b is also the smallest color printer in its class, measuring a mere 394x304x234mm.

Sim also boasted of their new after-sales initiatives, introduced for the first time in the market.

He said all new printers come with 1 + 2 years warranty program, meaning for the first year, customers will enjoy a standard warranty, in which spare parts and labor costs are covered by the company.

The warranty program is extended to cover an additional two years of limited warranty -- where customers need to pay only for the labor cost while Fuji Xerox continues to cover all spare parts.

On top of this, Sim said the company is also offering another industry first: it guarantees one-hour service time.

"By offering these two new after-sales initiatives, I am positive that customers can now enjoy a peace of mind while benefiting from the highest print quality and ease of use," Sim said. ( Nelson C. Bagaforo)