HP Leaps Ahead With Low-Cost Multifunction Laser Offering

Hewlett-Packard&'s new Color LaserJet 2800 All-in-One series includes the vendor&'s first multifunction color laser printer that costs less than $1,000. The printer is affordable enough for small businesses yet hearty enough for larger ones, and it has a monthly duty cycle of 30,000 pages per month.

This single device lets solution providers circumvent copy-machine resellers and helps them claim all the profits associated with creating a digital office solution for themselves, because they can outfit their clients with all the printing, copying and faxing functions they need. HP&'s all-in-one unit is also much quicker to set up and takes less time to install than separate peripherals.

The top-of-the-line model in the series, the Color LaserJet 2840, costs $999, and it will handle color copying, scanning, printing, black-and-white faxing and direct digital-photo printing. A less-expensive model, the 2820, is priced at $799. It has no memory card slots, no fax capability and a lower paper-input capacity.

Consumables for the series are affordable. A 5,000-page black toner cartridge is priced at $79, and a 4,000-page color cartridge costs $95. Lower-yield 2,000-page color cartridges cost only $70 apiece, but color printing costs nearly twice as much per page when using them so solution providers should try to steer customers clear. The printer can handle paper up to 8.5 x 14 inches in size, and duplex printing is standard.

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To help keep costs down, the HP Color LaserJet 2840 uses four-pass printing technology. Color pages therefore take about four times longer to print than black-and-white ones. Fortunately, monochrome printing is fast, so copying (at least in monochrome) is more or less as fast as any other copier. The Color LaserJet 2840 prints in color at up to four pages per minute (ppm) and in black and white at 20 ppm. The first page of a color job is ready in about 29 seconds, and the first page in monochrome appears in just 18 seconds.

The HP Color LaserJet 2840 supports 600 x 600 dpi but includes image enhancement technology that simulates 2,400-dpi resolution. The printer has a 50-sheet automatic document feeder, a 250-sheet paper input tray and a 125-sheet output bin. It comes standard with 96 Mbytes of memory, expandable to 224 Mbytes, and also includes a 10/100 NIC and a USB 2.0 port so solution providers can easily put this printer on a network or connect it directly to a PC. The Color LaserJet 2840 also features an integrated memory card reader that supports seven different memory card types for direct photo printing of JPEG images. The photo card reader can be password-protected to prevent users from printing non-business material.

The multifunction 2840 unit includes a built-in flatbed scanner with a hardware resolution of 1,200 dpi and an enhanced resolution of 19,200 dpi. It can scan a maximum size of 8.5 inches x 11.7 inches from the flatbed and 8.5 inches x 15 inches from the automatic document feeder. The device can copy in monochrome at up to 20 ppm and can reduce or enlarge images from 25 percent to 400 percent original size. Faxing is monochrome-only at 300 dpi.

The LaserJet 2840 is easy to set up. It measures 19.6 inches wide x 29 inches high x 37 inches deep and weighs more than 75 pounds, so a solution provider will probably need a hand getting it in place. After removing bits of tape and packing materials, the reseller must first install the imaging drum and four toner cartridges; this is done with the power turned on, so that the installer is guided through the process as the toner cartridges are loaded one by one into a carousel in the top part of the printer. The printer is ready to use after the paper is loaded and the software is installed. Once set up, the printer is configured using a Web-based management utility that works with both HP and non-HP printers. The solution provider can check the status and settings of the printer from any PC on the network.

As for channel program support behind the new multifunction devices, Gold and Platinum partners in HP&'s PartnerOne program can receive additional rebates and market-development funds, and demonstration units. In addition, they work with designated HP Partner Business Managers to create joint business plans twice a year. Margins vary greatly based on the size of the deal.

HP Financial Services&' Budget Stretcher lease program can be used by VARs to help their customers finance the purchase of up to $250,000 in new equipment or services on a lease term of 27, 39 or 51 months.