SAN FRANCISCO, CA — HP was demonstrating a soon to be released inkjet printer that rivals both other inkjet and color laser printers in terms of speed. We received a demo of the unit from Larry Tracy, Manager, Business InkJet, at the Macworld/iWorld Media Preview Reception.
HP Officejet Pro X551
One unique feature of the HP Officejet Pro X451/X551 is that it uses HP PageWide Technology, so rather than moving a printhead back and forth across the page, the printhead and ink cartridges are instead the width of an entire page, with a maximum print speed of 55 ppm for the X451, and 70 ppm for the X551. The ink also uses pigments, instead of dyes, the practical offshoot being if you get the page wet, the ink won't run. The ink cartridges are about US$100 each, with the black printing about 9600 pages, and each of the three color cartridges printing about 6000 pages. This comes out to a cost per page between US$0.067 and US$0.068.
The Officejet Pro X451/X551 will be priced between US$500 and US$800, depending on the model selected, and be released in Spring 2013.