Newtech SRL has announced KeraMagic, the first digital color printer to produce images on ceramic tiles.

The new printer is based on inkjet technology, incorporates grayscale Xaar 1001 inkjet printheads to carry out drop-on-demand jobs in a single pass

The KeraMagic is available is two configurations – the 350 mm width model and a 700 mm width model. It can print at up to 25m per minute at resolutions up to 360 dpi and with eight levels of grayscale.

The company says the KeraMagic can output a variety of fluids to produce tiles effectively in short-run volumes.

Newtech SRL will launch KeraMagic at Tecnargilla, which takes place in Rimini on 30 September to 4 October.

Via www.printweek.com

We previously reported that Xerox released a set of universal drivers for all printers, Mobile Express Driver. The drivers identify your location by sensing the subnet your computer is on at any given time and offering up the appropriate printers you’ve associated with it. If it’s your first visit to that location, they will automatically discover available printers and let you choose from a list. They also let you choose a default for each office you visit.

It turned out, HP also introduced its Universal Print Driver, the counterpart of Mobile Express Driver.

Now it is discovered that the two set of universal drivers are not so universal. “Mobile Express works only with printers that use the PostScript page description language. It won’t work with any other printers, including those that use HP’s popular PCL format. Meanwhile, HP’s UPD works only with HP-branded printers.” So says Robert L. Mitchel at ComputerWorld.com.

In a working environment with a variety of different printers he got to test the two drivers and this what he found out.

Xerox Mobile Express Driver

Pros: Generic printer driver allows printing to any brand of printer, not just Xerox products. Can automatically discover and print to both networked and direct-attached printers.

Cons: Works only with PostScript printers. Supports only a few basic printing functions. Extended features for non-Xerox products not supported.

HP Universal Print Driver

Pros: Provides consistent user interface for all HP-branded printers. Can find both networked and direct-attached printers that have been set up as shared printers. Supports more features on HP printers than does Mobile Express.

Cons: Supports only HP printers. Works only with networked printers with a valid IP address. Offers basic printing only.

So, neither of them was a remedy for the printing problems Mitchel faced. However, both tools are useful and one can make them play nicely together.

The SCX-4300 has a neat footprint for an office all-in-one machine, a little wider than a typical personal laser printer, but with very similar depth and height. The sides of the machine flare slightly at the top to accommodate the A4 scanner mechanism which, unlike the SCX-4500’s, sits across the laser engine from left to right, rather than from front to back.

The software supplied with the machine is Samsung’s standard coupling of its SmarThru 4 and Dr. Printer utilities. The first deals with scanning, copying and printing, as well as sharing images, while the second is a diagnostic website. The driver itself handles watermarks, overlays and various print quality settings, laid out in a logical and easy-to-navigate panel.

The SCX-4300 is quite a nippy little printer, completing our five-page text document in just 30 seconds, or 10 ppm. The text and graphics pages (five of them again) are even quicker at 11.54 ppm and when we printed our 20-page document, it took 1:21, increasing the speed again to 14.81 ppm. Samsung’s claimed top speed is 18 ppm, so for a printer maker that’s almost obscenely accurate.

A single page photocopy finished in 11 seconds, so you could get six or so pages per minute from the machine and a 6 x 4 in. photo took little more, at 13 seconds. Both these speeds are impressive, particularly for a machine being sold at around $200 – less minus delivery.

Print quality in most areas is good. Although the maximum resolution of the machine is just 600dpi, there’s little visible sign of jagged diagonals or curves in text. When you add greyscale graphics, the quality isn’t quite so good, with some striping apparent and not many visible grey shades.

The SCX-4300 uses an integrated drum and Samsung toner, capable of printing 2,000 ISO pages. With a typical cost of just under $80, this gives a cost per page of 5.4 cents including paper costs. This is a fairly typical cost for a mono laser device and for black print from a colour one, too, so you’re not paying extra because of the comparatively low purchase price of the all-in-one itself.

This is a good, straightforward multifunction printer which would be very at home in a typical SOHO environment. It’s quite quick, produces good text and passable graphics, though copies of graphics, particularly of grayscale shades, can be very patchy. Running costs are reasonable and if your budget is tight this looks like a good way of providing yourself with the main office print, scan and copy functions at reasonable cost.