Hewlett-Packard has designed a digital Inkjet Web Press especially for newspapers, book publishers and commercial print shops.

The printer costs $2.5 million and for the price it can print full-color, newspaper-sized pages. The goal of HP was to drive down the cost of small-volume printing by enabling the publishers to customize their content to specific audiences.

For instance, a book publisher could use the digital press to print small volumes of currently out-of-print books. Commercial printers can print personalized ads on bank statements, telephone bills and other transactional documents.

Newspapers would be able to print different editions with targeted advertising. HP believes there is huge potential for individualized newspapers. And while it is hard to beat the low cost of analog presses, however HP is stressing the importance of the flexibility of the Web Press to personalize content.

No newspapers have ordered the press as of yet, however one US paper will be testing it and will produce fourteen different versions of their paper each day with the new printer.

One printer can be used for a variety of things, publishers from books to newspapers to magazines could team up to share printers in order to further cut costs, so perhaps it is the start of a solution for the future of print.

Mcor Matrix have made 3D printing a great dal more affordable in terms of costs and materials. The new 3D printer called the Matrix takes standard sheets of printer paper (A4 size) and deposits regular old PVA glue in a pattern determined by the design. Another sheet of paper is added, and a tungsten carbide blade cuts away the excess paper.

Using paper also allows the Matrix’s models to be fashioned with a blade, rather than a laser, which also keeps costs down. After the models come out, they can be sanded, painted and finished just like they were made of wood.

The machine should be available soon, but the price of the units is undecided. Whatever they cost, though, the inverted business model of the company is refreshing. Instead of the scam operated by the 2D printer industry, where the printer is almost free but the ink costs more than unicorn sweat, the Matrix runs on glue and paper, two cheap commodity items. Even a hefty up-front investment will appear cheap after enough time.

Here’s what the printer can do with paper and glue:

Color

All color lasers self-regulate for color consistency by performing regular calibration routines. The process helps to ensure that the twenty-fifth copy of your brochure will look basically the same as the first. High-end printers recalibrate after 40 or 50 copies; less-robust printers do it after printing several hundred copies. If your printer will be for an in-house graphic design or publications department, however, or if you have to make a sample for an outside printing service, you should look into the availability of color-matching utilities. You will know if you need these more-sophisticated tools — your users will ask for them.

Another contributor to color quality is the toner you use. Every printer vendor recommends sticking with its brand-name consumables to maximize print quality and fidelity. The third-party replacements you see at office superstores sure are cheap, though. What’s the trade-off?

In short, you’ll have to decide whether color variation tolerance or low cost of ownership is worth more to you. If you choose remanufactured cartridges, keep in mind that many third-party vendors offer an exchange rather than a refund if you are dissatisfied with their product.

Next Steps

Once you’ve decided on a printer, study the buying process to make sure you’re covered if something goes wrong. You should also confirm the return policy at the store where you’re making the purchase, to ensure that you can bring the printer back if it doesn’t meet your needs. If you purchase the printer from an online vendor, make certain ahead of time that you won’t get stuck paying a restocking fee. Also, don’t expect to be able to recoup the cost of shipping the printer back.

The color laser printer market continues to offer more, better, and even greener products. According to a recent IDC report, color lasers at the highest end will reach 45 ppm by next year, though 20 to 30 ppm remains the sweet spot for print speeds until at least then. Continued competition in the consumables market will help keep operating costs in line — if you’re willing to forgo brand-name toner. Eco-friendly choices include recycled laser paper and toner cartridges, two-sided printing options, and lower power-consumption levels. The upshot is, whatever your need might be — speed, versatility, or a lower cost to operate — it’s a great time to buy.

We started a discussion on what your next laer printer should be like, and we’ve covered first aspect of a printer – the speed. Now we’re moving on to

Resolution

Today you are hardly to worry about a printer’s optical resolution. Even the least expensive color laser printers have a true, optical resolution of 600 by 600 dpi, which is suitable for most mainstream business needs. Many vendors apply enhancement algorithms to emulate higher resolutions, and some offer true 1200 x 1200 dpi resolution.

An equally important factor in your buying decision should be the cost per page to operate the printer. All printer consumables come with a page-life specification that tells you how many pages the unit will print, based on a sample set of printed pages. Your mileage will vary, depending on what you actually print.

The lowest-end color lasers have smaller toner cartridges that usually last just a few thousand pages. They cost a lot to replace, but if you use color occasionally, then you won’t be changing the cartridge often. If you print a lot of color, you need a machine whose toner cartridges have longer page lives; they cost less per page and, of course, don’t have to be replaced as frequently.

Paper

Another significant difference among color laser printers is how they handle paper — how much, and of what size. The main paper tray on the vast majority of inexpensive (sub-$500) printers tops out at 250 sheets. Often you don’t get an option to add an extra paper tray. Another potential drawback is that such printers usually can’t handle anything larger than legal-size paper — and in a few cases, the only way to print legal-size documents on such models at all is through the manual-feed tray. In fact, lately we’ve seen a few lower-end printers that skip legal-size paper entirely in their standard configurations.

As you go up the price scale, you’ll find paper-tray capacities of up to 600 sheets for midrange printers and nearly 1200 sheets for higher-end units. Paper trays on these models almost always accept both letter- and legal-size paper. Wide-format printers will take tabloid-size paper, which could be handy if you want to print booklets or other, more-sophisticated documents in-house.

To be continued.