The company is initially aiming at reduced running costs for home workers and departmental use with the 1700, a low-end monochrome laser printer in USB and Ethernet variants. Producing 24 A4 pages a minute at 1200x1200 dpi, the printer comes with PCL 6 and -- on the networked version -- Postscript 3. The network version also includes remote Web-based management and the ability to email support with toner status and other variables, and when alerts occur. Prices are £139 (all prices ex. VAT) for the 1700 and £159 for the 1700n.
The other laser printer unveiled is the Dell Laser Multi-Function Printer 1600n. This combines a colour scanner and a monochrome laser-print mechanism that delivers 20 A4 pages per minute at a resolution of 600x600 dpi. Only available in a networked version, the 1600n also includes fax and copy functions and costs £259. Dell said a colour laser printer could be expected in the second half of the year, but gave no further details.
The new inkjet printer is the Dell Photo All-in-One Printer 922, a £67 device aimed at the low-cost domestic market. It produces 18 pages a minute in mono, 14 in colour, has one-button copy and scanning support, and will print borderless A4 photographs with Dell's own photo-quality paper. There's no integral fax, nor flash card slot – although Dell hinted that products later this year will address this.
The printer has a four-ink colour cartridge and a separate black cartridge, with an optional extra tri-colour cartridge for photo quality output: it also supports Dell's DIMS automatic ink-ordering service, which can link to a Web site and set up an order for you as the ink cartridges get low – although delivery still takes between three and five working days. While you're waiting, if the black ink runs out in mid-print the 922 can carry on by mixing a black from the colour cartridges for the remainder of the page. Sterling prices weren't given, but Euro-zone cartridge prices range from €15 for standard black to €32 for the high capacity colour. The printer comes with a mix of optical character recognition, art and photo manipulation software, including PaintShop Pro 8 on a 60 day trial.
All of the above printers were recently made available in the US, with Asian launches due later this year.
Talkback
At Christmas my company spent over £3000 on a dell system that included a 1600n printer. A big mistake. The printer kept showing a 'no paper' fault and after a lot, and I mean a lot, of hassle, botched repairs, promises of refunds, more repairs and even a story of 'the 1600n is no longer in production, we can't send you another one' Dell finaly agreed to replace it.
The new one arrived last week and promptly packed up with the same fault. So now , again, we have no printer, copier or scanner. The Dell help line staff are truly hopeless, they ignore you, keep you on hold, [I waited over 70 mins on one call] and nothing is done unless you keep on nagging at them. Surfing the net there are hundreds of complaints on numerous sites about Dell's poor back up, so we're not a one off problem. We've decided to box the whole system up and return it to Dell, rip up their finance agreement, cancel the direct debit and see them in court. Do yourself a favour : don't buy Dell!.