Inkjet-Printer: Heavyweights From Canon, Epson and HP

Introduction

Once upon a long time ago (in the 20th century), inkjet printer manufacturers had well-segmented ranges that differed little from one brand to another. Their machines printed out pages in color at a speed and precision proportionate to their price.

The 21st century has revolutionized all of the fanfare.

Technological Limits

The manufacturers have now reached their limits. At the end of 2000, their devices for the non-professional market managed at best 12 pages a minute (Epson Stylus 880) with a resolution of 2400 to 2800 dpi. Now, in late 2003, these values have been doubled. In fact, these new figures - more than 20 ppm and 4800 to 5760 dpi - have been obtained for the last year. Along with that, the size of the drops has fallen from 10 to 2 picoliters on some of the current models. Here again, this drop size has been available on general-market products for a whole year.

But Canon, Epson and HP still had to revise their ranges. The question is, how do you do this when the technologies have not evolved?

To answer this question, each of them finally decided to set off on a new track.