Ink revolution - Liquid Gel hits South Africa

Colour printing is going to be a little different from September as Gestetner launches the first of a range of printers using Ricoh`s patented Liquid Gel technology.

This is the first revolution in ink technology since Canon brought out its single ink technology in the early 2000s

Colour is becoming a necessity in the modern office, but with colour prints costing up to eight times as much as black and white, it is often not an option for cost-conscious businesses. "This is all about to change - it`s a colour revolution where every business from the small home office to the large multi-national corporate will be able to use colour printing," Says Billy Shepard, Product and Marketing Manager of Gestetner.

Liquid Gel technology produces colour prints at virtually the same cost as black and white if the printer is in level colour mode. Level colour mode is a setting which allows the user to adjust colour ink consumption to reduce the cost of colour documents where only a dash of colour is required to make an impact. "Finally, it will be the communications requirement and not cost that determines whether a document has a full colour graph rather than a hazy black and white one," says Shepard.

Liquid Gel is a remarkable alternative to traditional colour laser and inkjet printing. The viscous ink is a fast drying, water resistant formula that reduces blurs and bleeding while producing laser-like quality prints on plain or recycled paper.

"Liquid Gel offers the best of both the laser and inkjet worlds. Another great feature is that the exceptionally wide print heads enable the producing of solid colour images of up to 3 600 dpi," says Shepard.

For extra efficiency, all Liquid Gel devices are designed with separate ink chambers that ensure ink is completely used up before a cartridge change. This combined with the zero-waste dual tank system, makes sure that there is no ink left over when replacement is required meaning economical use of consumables and improved total cost of ownership combined with a minimised impact on the environment.

The first Gestetner printer to incorporate the Liquid Gel technology is the GelSprinter, which will be available to the South African market in September 2007. This device will consist of a compact desktop unit to compete directly with similar products in the market.