In spite of the fact that laser printers have become affordable over the years, they won’t force out matrix printers from the market. Jet printers – another popular family of printers – won’t make it either. The reason lies in the printing technology: while laser and jet printers are so-called nonimpact printers (they don’t interfere with paper), the pins of matrix printers strike ink directly in the paper. To leave prints of letters on the paper is the function of impact printers, and it is necessary or desirable in many areas (for example, while preparing the documents or missives). One more reason of success of matrix printers hides undoubtedly in lower cost of consumables. Flexibility of matrix printers is also important. Quite often one device combines availability to print on the rolled paper and single sheets, in black-and-white or color mode – and only few preparatory operations are needed. Moreover, the matrix printing technology has stood the test of time, and such printouts could be of rather high quality. That’s why this market is still full of offers. Meet the short reviews of the popular dot matrix printers of the famous brands. (more…)
Panasonic KX-MB271 as a decent multifunction device can scan, copy and print. It is built around a monochrome laser printer engine that can print 18 ppm at a resolution of up to 600 by 600 dpi, with a claimed warm-up time of 15 seconds. The scanner scans at up to 600 by 1200 dpi and can automatically crop scans to the size of the scanned document.