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1989-04-05
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JETSTREAM
==========
by NIAL GRIMES
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Jetstream
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Are you bewildered by the range of printers available? Is your
dealer more interested in his profit margins than your needs? Would you
like laser quality output at dot matrix prices ? Read on.
Over the past few years printer technology has changed very little. At
the top of the range the laser rules supreme with dot matrix and
daisywheel printers providing reasonable print quality at an affordable
price. Until recently inkjet printers were considered an unreliable, poor
relation of dot matrix technology. Inkjet printers have been rapidly
catching up with laser printers and modern day inkjets offer laser
quality output at very little above dot matrix prices.
The force behind this revolution has been, surprisingly enough,
Hewlett Packard, the leading laser manufaturer. The company recently
announced the latest in the popular DeskJet series, namely the DeskJet
500.
Installation
------------
The design is unlike any other printer you will ever see but is
functional and compact having a footprint of about 12x17"; not much
larger than your average 24 pin dot matrix.
Installation is simplicity itself, consisting of connecting the
power cable and fitting the ink cartridge. Each ink cartridge has a
claimed life of 500 to 1000 pages. Both serial and parallel ports are
provided ensuring compatibility with just about any computer you would
care to mention. No cable is supplied by Hewlett but most suppliers
bundle the cable for your computer with the printer. The only thing that
remains is to load the printer with paper. Paper handling is carried out
by a two tier tray system; put about 100 sheets of A4 in the lower tray -
the DeskJet will use it as required depositing the printed paper in the
upper tray. The inclusion of a paper tray really makes the DeskJet,
giving it the usability of any laser printer. One criticism that has to
be made is that of the positioning of the DIP switches; they are to be
found under the lower paper tray ! Fortunately you only need use these
very occasionally.
Features
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Three fonts are provided internally enabling many different varia-
tions using italic, bold, superscript, subscript and the pitch settings.
Fonts included are Courier, Letter Gothic & CG Times. Two of the fonts
are uniformly spaced while CG Times is proportionally spaced, requiring
specialist software to use it to the full. A range of font cartridges are
available if you prefer something slightly different: these range from
the highly readable Prestige Elite to the more cursive Brush and Dom
Casual.
One problem which initially plagued the DeskJet series was the lack
of any software support and it was for this reason that Hewlett released
two emulation cartridges; the first supports the IBM Proprinter series
which will be of interest to the PC community and the second supports the
Epson FX-80 which will no doubt be of more interest to ST & Amiga users.
Most major packages now support the DeskJet but if they don't a LaserJet
Plus driver will usually suffice. A 5¼" floppy containing a Windows 3
driver is included in the box - this seems rather illogical considering
the standard for AT class machines is 3½".
Results
-------
The output from the DeskJet is stunning, providing the clarity of a
laser printer for under a third of the price! None of the fading or
'banding' usually associated with dot matrix printers are present and of
course because the ink is sprayed onto the paper, no impact takes place,
making it about the quietest printer you are likely to come across.
Speed is quoted as being 240 cps (characters per second) draft, 120
cps letter quality and from what can be seen, it lives up to it. A page
of standard, letter quality text takes a little under 30 seconds to
print.
To a large extent print speed is dependant on the speed of your
printer driver and the configuration of your machine. A 300 dpi (dots per
inch) page printed from Timeworks DTP can take anything from 5 minutes on
a machine where the program is completely RAM resident to 15 minutes on a
single drive machine. A heavyweight such as Calamus DTP, renowned for its
speed, can print a page in well under 5 minutes.
Reliability
-----------
Critics need not be worried about the reliability of this, the next
generation of inkjet printers, as Hewlett have built the only unreliable
part, the jets themselves, into the ink cartridge unit. This means that
every time you replace the ink cartridge, you replace the jets. A by-
product of this is that colour kits are available to re-fill used
cartridges and add that touch of colour to your documents. One kit
available at the moment supplies four colour cartridges which, when used
in conjunction with a DTP package that supports colour separation, can
produce full colour output at 300 dpi! Those who are still apprehensive
of reliability will be pleased to hear that the DeskJet is supported by a
3 year warranty from Hewlett.
Conclusion
----------
All in all the printer offers excellent quality results at a superb
price. Anybody considering buying a dot matrix printer should definitely
take a look at the DeskJet series before they make a decision. The future
for the range looks rosey with more and more software houses writing
drivers for their packages. One thing is for sure, inkjet technology and
the DeskJet are here to stay.
Contact : Best Prices. Tel:- (0903) 700714.
Price : £399 including cable, carriage & VAT.