This category has always been sort of strange. Initially,
manufacturers sold wide-carriage versions of all their printer
models, but the low-cost versions never sold well. Usually,
people want higher speed if they want a wide-carriage dot
matrix. In addition, these users are not as concerned about
print quality, so 9-pin print heads are usually just fine.
For these reasons, finding a slow, low-cost, wide-carriage
printer is difficult. Wide-carriage, 24-pin dot-matrix printers
are also rare. Most of low-cost wide-carriages or 24-pin
dot-matrix printers are sold by obscure companies. The recommended
printer in this category is the Epson FX-1050 (street price
is around $419), a 9-pin wide-carriage dot matrix that prints
at speeds up to 166 cps.
Inkjet printers may be crowded out of the market. HP completely
dominates this market. Most other printer companies have
tried to sell inkjet printers, but only Hewlett-Packard
has succeeded. The DeskJet models start at a street price
of around $675 and can print at 300 dpi, and the output
is practically indistinguishable from that of a laser printer.
Although the printer can be upgraded like a laser printer
memory can be added, font cartridges are available, soft
fonts can be downloaded into memory all these products are
unique to the HP DeskJet. The commodity prices of HP LaserJet
laser printer memory and font products are not available.
This fact, coupled with the high operation costs and the
temptation of a true laser for approximately $250 more,
may eventually confine inkjet printers to the portable market.
The Hewlett-Packard Printer Control Language (HP-PCL) is
a character-oriented printer language that a vast majority
of lower priced laser printers understand. These printers
dominate the PC market and have a significant presence in
the Mac market, where they are run in graphics mode.
The Personal HP-PCL laser is the newest category of printer
and threatens the top of the inkjet printers by printing
faster and producing better output. The entry-level street
price also can be as low as 5899. The first printer in this
category is the HP LaserJet IIp. The paper tray holds only
50 sheets of paper, and it has one font cartridge slot instead
of two. But, the IIp has all the fonts of an HP LaserJet
IId, plus the capability to rotate the portrait fonts to
landscape fonts. The IIp comes with 512K of RAM and the
capability to upgrade to 4.5M, just like the more expensive
models. The front panel is much easier to use. The IIp's
only drawback is speed it prints 4 pages per minute. The
IIp has to be the most exciting printer currently on the
market. By the time this book is published, however, competitors
will have been released.
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