Guide to future printers and new interfaces 

Here you will get information about future printers and new interfaces of printers. Buy Quality Printers at Discounted Prices! Also Compare prices on all Laser Printer options and products.

The advocates of paperless environments had predicted the 1 death of the printer. Concepts such as e-mail, e-paper, e-books and digital collaboration have certainly taken us closer to a paperless work culture. However, the printer is here to stay. The dot-matrix printer, once the norm, is outdated. It is limited to billing and accounting applications.

The future lies in laser printers.

Currently though, inkjet printers rule when it comes to photo-quality printing.

The past few months have seen the emergence of a new breed of inkjet printers called 'photo printers'. Earlier, a user needed to download images from a digital camera to his PC before taking a printout, a photo printer connects directly to a digital camera supporting this feature, allowing you to get your prints straight from the camera.

What's more, their light weight and compact size allow complete portability. HP's Photosmart 130 and Canon's CP100 are two such printers. The availability of specialised photo-printers such as these is all the more relevant because of the current boom in the digital camera industry. Due to falling prices, more and more people are now buying digital cameras instead of normal film-based ones, and a whole range of models are available from various vendors that cater to enthu-siasts and professionals both. 

Not too long ago, laser printers were expensive, and out of reach for the average SoHo user. Even with its long-term benefits and convenience, price proved to be a stumbling block. However, the past few months have seen significant reduction in the prices of laser printers, bringing a wide range of options that suit the requirements of various kinds of users-from SoHo to large cor-porates that require networking capabilities, storage and paper management-built into the printer.

New interface For Printers 

These future printers with new interfaces will rule the market. With the rapid growth in the usage of mobile devices such as handhelds and mobile phones that are capable of word processing, a need for printing the documents directly from these devices has led to the development of wireless printing solutions. And today we have many vendors coming out with printer models that support cutting-edge technology such as IrDA and Bluetooth.

IrDA is an acronym for Infrared Data Association. IR devices work using infrared technology, and hence don't require any cables to connect them to the printer. Using such printers, one can print directly from a mobile device supporting IrDA interface without the need of any cables or even a PC. The only & shortcoming is the line of sight restriction.

As the devices work using infrared rays, there should not be any obstacles between communicating devices. Some HP printers with IrDA support are HP DeskJet 340, HP LaserJet 5MP, HP LaserJet 6MP, HP 2100M and HP4050N.

Bluetooth-enabled devices 

Bluetooth is the latest addition to the ever-increasing plethora of interfaces available for printers. Bluetooth is a low-cost, low-power, wireless radio frequency technology that allows various electrical devices to communicate with each other. These devices operate in the 2.4 GHz ISM (industrial, scientific, medical) band.
 

Advantage of using Bluetooth devices 

One of the advantages of Bluetooth over IrDA is that close proximity between the communicating devices is not required, distances of up to 10 metres are allowed. Also, Bluetooth does not suffer from any line of sight restrictions.

A fascinating aspect of Bluetooth-enabled devices is their ability to communicate with each other spontaneously when they come within each other's range. Thus, a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone can be configured so that it can automatically print out all its stored messages using a Bluetooth printer as soon as you enter your office without any manual intervention.

Another advantage of using Bluetooth is its support for point-to-multipoint communications. Thus, a single printer can simultaneously connect to both your cell phone, as well as your computer and any other Bluetooth-enabled device within its vicinity. The HP 995c Bluetooth printer is one such inkjet printer with built-in Bluetooth support.

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