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HP Invents A New Way To Print
Sushant Bhatia writes "Forbes is reporting that HP is introducing new technology in its inkjet printers that should help the company and consumers save time and money. If successful, the strategy may alter the economics of the printer market. The new inkjet platform, which will initially be geared toward the high end of the market, will incorporate the print head in the printer itself rather than in the ink cartridge. It means cheaper prints for consumers (about 24 cents per photo print) and faster output. HP says it has more than halved the time it takes to print a 4-inch-by-6-inch photo, to 14 seconds. The press release from HP has details on the new technology."
Print-head-in-printer has been around for a long time. The advance they've made is using photolithography for more of the construction process.
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now if they could just lower the price on ink cartridges. 45 bucks to refill my ink is a bit steep.
-- Yes, I work for the government, and yes I am watching you.
I blame Carley for this concept seeing the light of day. If she hadn't left the company so abruptly, such innovation technology would have been soundly buried, the employees sacked, and the tech developed by a competitor. Instead, HP is producing equipment based on this!
It used to be that you could count on HP to produce absolutely nothing of interest and sap up every failing tech company on the market. What is the world coming to?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
HP makes their money off of ink, not printers. My prediction is that this will allow them to produce cartridges more cheaply, but they will still charge as much for them.
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...is to not print at all. I haven't had a printer for a decade now, and those two or three times that I've missed it were easily remedied by a trip to a Kinko's or some such similar service.
I have to believe that with the greater reliance on web and email for communications, along with bigger and better monitors, that most of the rest of you will cease missing their printers as well within the next few years.
So HP invented a new way to print, just it time for nobody to care.
Nice article about the new system and printer here.
How is this "inventing" a new way to print? Hasn't Epson been doing this for years in their printers?
I know when I replace my printer cartridge on my Epson I just replace the ink, unlike the old HP I used to have where I replaced the head every time.
Of course, this might be a new thing for HP to sell new printers, as when the ink dries in the head the whole printer has to be replaced. One of the downsides that we've always had to deal with in an Epson.
-Alyred
Being able to produce your own photos inexpensively from your digital images could worry businesses that print photos for you. If this tech hits the mainstream it could change the digital photo industry.
Voice your opinion!
Which is how every OTHER manufacturer of inkjets makes their printers. Way to innovate, HP.
So now with HP printers, it'll be just like epson: "Your print head is clogged? Throw away the printer". At least with HP if the 'head' clogs you throw away the cartridge and replace it with a new one.
So now will the whole printer expire instead of just the ink cartridge?
Most of the complaints against HP printers surrounds their replacement cartridge prices. Looks like, from the Forbes article that the new ones will be in the $10 price range. Curious to see how they turn this into their new cash cow. (Maybe 6 really, really low-capacity cartridges?)
I had an Epson in 1998 that had that. The print heads clog up when the ink dries in them. Now you have to buy a new printer instead of new cartriges, awesome.
The thing I liked about HP Inkjets was that the Printheads didn't die in them, since they weren't part of the printer....so much for that :(
Epson has had print heads in the inkjet printers for a long time. That's why the ink cartridges are only $7 retail (I got a dozen for ~$15 on ebay).
Canon used to have theirs seperate from the little ink wells so that you could replace the heads independent of each other.
The 'heads' are just micro-voltage actuated valves. The ones built into cartridge heads have short lifetimes (hence why you shouldn't refill more than 3 or 4 times). The quality of heads in the Epson are much sturdier, but then you waste alot of ink trying to purge clogged valves.
I used to work on a LARGE printer (printed directly to custom cardboard boxes). The printheads were made by Marsh printing (~400 just to have them repacked) and was bigger than my fist. (can you see me clenching).
Anyway, not a new idea. Just a 'new specific implementation'.
Come on! "New Way to Print" my ASS.
This is just corporate newspeak saying "we are taking over the technique our closest competitors have been using since 1995".
Single ink tanks&co arent innovative in any way. The same with permanent printing heads. It was just HPs idea of product marketing up to now to maximize running costs by making everything disposable.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
From everything I've seen, ink jet technology is more expensive, slower, produces lower quality, and less durable printed pages. With the cost of laser/LED (Okidata uses LED instead of laser) technology so low, why would anybody, especially in a professional setting, consider ink jet?
I don't respond to AC's.
This could make it easier to have alternative vendors for these new cartridges. Unless HP has some devious plan. I actually did read the FA and did not see reference to it...
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Canon has a printhead that is seperate from the ink carts, but also replaceable if it gets fouled up, thus allowing you to replace only the parts that need it.
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine." -- RFC 1925
HP used to promote their printer-head-in-cartridge system for years because, honestly, it was a great idea - instead of having to repair your printer every year or two because the print head had worn out you got a "free" print head change every time you changed cartridges. I honestly thought their way of doing this was better than the rest. This turnabout is just plain dumb IMHO, it'll make cartridges cheaper but the printers themselves will be of lesser quality, meaning when they start having print head problems people will just replace the entire printer.
Damien
Except that people use printers diffrently now than they used to.
The biggest change is that you really can print photos at home now. Ten years ago that wasn't practical. People like having physical copies of their photos for an album, and you just can't replicate that with a screen. There are services that let you do it online, but a lot of people like the control that they get from having it right there: they can choose the paper and do a lot of tweaking right at home.
In addition, new kinds of paper have opened up new opportunities to use your printer: bumper stickers, tee shirts, even tattoos. You can't get those at Kinko's.
So I'd hardly say that nobody cares. In fact with the digital cameras many people care more than ever. (Not to mention that most schools still won't accept your homework on a CD-ROM.)
Wow, this sounds all nifty keen, but its still using aging printer technology as the core...
Now if you're looking for a new way to print, this guy at the office was showing me something. Its a long transparent stick, with a blue line down the center on the inside. He moved it across a flat, thin, rectangular peice of processed tree matter, and voila! Words were being printed on it! Technology amazes me sometimes...
-FL
I have a Canon BJC-600 that is over 11 years old, and has a seperate (replaceable) print head, and 4 individual ink cartridges.
ELEVEN years ago Canon made this printer, yet Epson and HP love to brag about innovations such as seperate cartridges, permanent print heads, and the like. Meanwhile most HP cartridges come with the print heads clogged for you already (save you the trouble of printing anything) and Epson does you the service of gouging you on the cost of "economical" individual cartridges.
Better still, the Canon has printed many thousands upon thousands of pages, the ink is cheap, refills are cheaper, and it still works fine...oh and its ELEVEN YEARS OLD. I wouldn't hold my breath for an HP to last eleven days.
-> do not pay executives $42 million just for quitting, this should lower cost per page by at least 2 or 3 cents
-> do not hire executives who just came from worldcom, this will easily lower cost per page 5 or 6 cents
-> do not build DRM chips into ink cartridges, which can obviously lower the price per page by 10 cents
-> use the money saved by lowering executive pay to hire some actual engineers, so that the company, you know, actually might build some products
How is this "inventing" a new way to print? Hasn't Epson been doing this for years in their printers?
Heck: The first inkjet printer I ever dealt with was back in the early '70s, when they had just been invented. It was a prototype with a spinning drum holding the paper, a carriage with the ultrasonic-driven spitters, and three bottles hooked to the carriage by flexible tubes.
Quite an advance at the time. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It's not the fact the print head is in the printer, it's the fact that the print head has 3,900 nozzles allowing it to print width swaths at a time.
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...the whole printer when the head dries out, you just have to submerge the printer in rubbing alcohol and hope it doesn't catch fire when you plug it back in.
Trends, huh? Just like their making the printers with bizarre hump shapes so you can't set anything on top of them. The wide black mouth of the 5550 printer gapes and laughs, like some sort of plastic ink-guzzling sinister giant clam: "Yes, you have IRREVOCABLY lost this desk space!" This is an example of outright poor design: form defeating function. Canon is at least as bad.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
so what? other manufacturers have been doing this forever.
also, there is a much higher chance of the nozzles getting clogged on a built-in head system (people with cheap lexmarks and canons know what i'm talking about). I actually prefer having the printhead on the cartridge - you'll never have to throw the printer away if the jets have been clogged with dried ink.
It is possible to clean them out sometimes by running some isopropyl through the heads instead of ink, but i've run in to several printers that got caked up so bad that nothing would clean them.
I wish that the printer manufacturers would make the HEADS and the CARTRIDGES easy to replace. On most of them, you have to take the carriage assembly half way apart to get the heads to slide off.
on a side note, I don't think that inkjet market is going to change direction any time soon - they make most of their money on cartridges. As long as you'll be able to buy a printer for $39 at wallyworld, ink will not be cheap.
--- sig moved for great justice.
Canon's Replacable Print Head
I don't know why on earth one would want a permanent print head when you can get one that is both removable and separate from the ink.
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My Canon iP6000D has the best of both worlds - separate print heads and ink tanks. Keeps the ink relatively cheap ($10-13/tank), and when the print heads wear out or clog up, they're replaceable. Shameless plug - I've used both Epson and HP printers before the Canon...I won't be swiching back.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Epson and Canon have had their heads integrated into the printers for YEARS.
Actually, I preferred the old HP way of having the heads in the cartridge. Why? Heads get scratched. They get clogged. They wear out. Instead of buying some insanely expensive and hard-to-replace printhead, all you have to do is swap out the cartridge and you're printing like new. It's the same thing with HP's lasers...The imaging drum and the toner cartridge are in the same package. It might increase the price of the carts a little, but maintenance isn't as big of a deal. Besides if you want to max out your drum life, you can always refill the toner.
I guess all HP's announcement means is that their inkjets will suck even more. As it is I am quite displeased with Epson and Canon products (take a guess...printhead problems), but now I guess HP can join the team. My experience with inkjets have completely driven me away form the technology. I'll gladly shell out $600+ for a laser printer that I never have to worry about over an inkjet that prints blank pages or lines if it decides to work at all. Besides a toner cart capable of printing 1000's of pages only costs, what, just double what a little inkjet cart prices out at?
Even if you need color, the lasers have dropped through the floor. At work we just picked up an HP3550 color laser for under $1000, and that's with networking. Granted, HP really screwed the pooch and provided not an INTERNAL JetDirect like I expected, but rather included an external USB print server with no price break, but at least it prints nice.
I thought things were supposed to get BETTER after Fiorina was ousted
-R
Normal capacity cartidges, $99.9 for a replacement print-head when the ink dries up in it...
I own an HP K60 and it has performed well, until recently when the printer started refusing to print, with the message "scanner failure". Why the failure of the scanner should render the entire printer useless is one obvious design flaw, but the worst part is after doing research, it became obvious the problem was dirt on a sensor deep in the printer. Someone had posted a solution to this problem on HP's support forum and they removed it. The process simply pointed out where to unscrew a few screws and blow out an area with compressed air, but apparently HP didn't want anyone knowing the solution to the problem was that simple. That sucks, and for that reason I'm not buying any more HPs, not to mention their software is lousy. I recently replaced the K60 with a Canon MP780 and have been very pleased. Plus it has a separate, replacable print head, so I'm not sure what the big deal of this article is in the first place.
They will just jack up the ink price further to make the final price even again. Makes me think the whole reason the head was on the cartridge was to make thirdparty cartridges difficult to make or copy.
We should all be exclusively using laserjets anyway, why is anyone happy the inkjet technology has a new lease on life?
Where I work we have a $2,400 HP color laser printer. I also have experience with a color laser printer at a local university that I'm sure cost about twice that much. Both are absolutely worthless for printing photos. Any $50 inkjet photo printer can kick their ass for photo printing, not on speed or cost but on how the prints look. The worst inkjets I've ever seen didn't print photos as badly as the laserjets do.
Graphs and charts? Sure, go color laser, if you can afford the initial investment which will be around $500 at a minimum. Laserjets are great with big blocks of color, and cheaper over the long run. But a $99 Epson inkjet that uses Ultrachrome inks will get you an archival quality photo print with incredible color gamut and accuracy, and should last 70-200 years depending on what paper you use. If you print 8x10 or larger most of the time it's also cheaper than using a commercial photo printing service.
For monochrome and non-photo color business printing, laserjets all the way. For home and business photo printing there really isn't an alternative to inkjet besides dye sublimation, and dye-sub printers are expensive and very inflexible, plus studies show that dye-sub prints fade almost as fast as most inkjet prints.
It's all about using the right tool for the job.
Epson has been doing this for a long time, and so has canon. Epson print heads are permanent, and cannot be removed while canon uses disposable print heads that are however separate from the ink cartridges
Just another crappy blog
If you want to know how HP really became [incorrectly] known as the origin for all laser printers, I'd suggest reading this page. It covers the Canon CX print engine, and the things HP did right that gave them the marketshare they now have. Notice that some of the things they did right are opposite from what they're doing now.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.