Brighten up your business with the HP LaserJet from Tarsus

Tarsus Technologies, the value-add distribution arm of JSE-listed MB Technologies, is keen to show off the latest colour printing solution developed by HP. The HP Colour LaserJet (CLJ) 4600 series has burst onto the business scene offering quality and high-speed colour.

The HP 4600 series uses a new colour laser "in-line" print engine and marks HP`s first venture into the single-pass colour page printer market, producing 16 pages per minute in colour or black and white.

"Retailing from R29 999, the CLJ 4600 will replace the CLJ 4550," says IPG manager at Tarsus Technologies, Traci Maynard. "Thanks to the front-loading cartridges featured in the CLJ 4600, which are stacked one on top of the other, colour is delivered to the media in a single pass, also at a rate of 16ppm."

HP has added several innovations to its print technology.

Firstly, through automatic colour calibration and cleaning the printer is able to maintain colour uniformity to ensure consistent print quality. When switched on, the printer automatically calibrates colour density and then tests and adjusts it again after every 1 000 pages or eight hours. This 75-second procedure is also performed when a print cartridge is replaced.

Secondly, adaptive halftoning locates and increases the digital halftone frequency at the edges of text or graphics to ensure even colour and smooth, crisp edges.

Finally, the effects of colour plane mis-registration are reduced by "trapping", which is the intentional overlapping of adjacent colours.

Designed for high-volume and high-quality business colour printing applications, the CLJ 4600 meets the needs of general office users in groups of up to ten and handles print jobs like brochures, spreadsheets, newsletters and presentations with ease.

"The HP Colour LaserJet 4600 series includes an option with a network card standard, a duplex option standard, and additional in-out paper tray for bigger print jobs as an option, as well as one with an additional hard drive to store larger data files," explains Maynard.

In conclusion, Norman Fox, an industry analyst for independent peripherals and supplies consultancy ePr, sums up the introduction of the HP CLJ4600.

"The announcement by HP of its first in-line colour laser printer is one that both the industry and users alike have been waiting to hear. For the industry they now know what they have to do if they are to stop the new HP from increasing its share of the colour laser market. All the recently announced 16ppm colour laser printers from various manufacturers have very similar specifications. At the end of the day, it is brand that counts. Here HP has an advantage that it can add to the other benefits the CLJ-4600 offers the user such as smaller footprint, easy user access to the smart supplies and fewer of them plus a high monthly duty cycle. The CLJ-4600 is a very user friendly business colour laser printer that will persuade the corporate market to embrace colour printing."