Lasting prints Hewlett-Packard's new Designjet 90 printer is geared for small and medium-sized businesses that demand low-cost, high-quality office printing. Ideal for graphic designers and professional photographers, the Designjet 90 is priced at $9,888 and delivers consistently rich colours with fade-resistant quality. A study by Wilhelm Imaging Research found that prints made with HP No 85 ink cartridges and HP Premium Plus papers can be displayed indoors under glass for 82 years before noticeable fading and staining occurs. The Designjet 90 can easily print postcard-size images, full-colour pages or banner-style pieces with an A2+/C+ size tray and roll-feed capability of up to 18 inches. It supports both Macintosh and Windows computing environments, and provides output speeds of up to four minutes per page for A3+ sized glossy media.
Print right Create high-impact, professional documents and marketing materials with the affordable and network-ready Color LaserJet 2600n printer from Hewlett-Packard. Priced at $3,888, the 2600n is supported by both Windows and Macintosh operating systems, and can handle a maximum monthly volume of up to 35,000 pages. Powered by a 264-megahertz processor with 16 megabytes of memory, it can print up to eight pages a minute for both colour and monochrome jobs. It has a maximum paper input capacity of up to 500 sheets. HP LaserJet print cartridges include advanced toner formulas that are designed together with HP-engineered fuser technology in the printer to provide crisp detail and consistent, sharp colour, whether printing with plain or HP speciality paper.
Colour spin The new YP-F1 series of portable MP3 players from Samsung Electronics puts another spin on flash memory-based devices in this crowded market. Borrowing a gimmick from the mobile phone arena, the beetle-shaped YP-F1 features an interchangeable shell design. This allows users to personalise the device with a choice of six colours: black, blue, burgundy, red, white and silver. The Samsung player is available in 512-megabyte (YP-F1XW shown here) and 1-gigabyte (YP-F1ZB) versions - for $1,480 and $1,880, respectively. It measures 29x63.5x15 millimetres and weighs 32 grams. The YP-F1 series trumps Apple Computer's iPod Shuffle because it comes with a liquid crystal display that shows the name, track number, equaliser setting, battery gauge and elapsed playback time.
Sounds good A high fidelity, or hi-fi, system is meant to reproduce sound with the least amount of static. Sony claims to have taken this audio performance up another notch with its new series of Aiwa CD Micro HiFi systems, led by the XR-DB30. Thanks to Aiwa's dB Engine technology, the XR-DB30 takes audiophiles on a powerful music journey where the best sound quality can be enjoyed with all the right bass, mid and high frequencies guaranteed. Aiwa speakers with dB Engine have stronger speaker magnets, a bigger speaker cabinet, and front bass reflex duct. The speakers produce more powerful sounds without any deterioration in quality, while the bigger cabinets create richer and more dynamic bass sounds. The front bass reflex duct produces rich and profound low-frequency sounds. The XR-DB30 is priced at $1,480.
Latest call The latest premium mobile phone from Samsung Electronics, the clamshell-format Anycall E728, is set for release in Hong Kong this week. Priced at around $4,000, the tri-band E728 is a sharp upgrade from the E708 because of its superior megapixel camera and flash, MP3 player and ring-tone functions, video recording and Bluetooth connectivity. The dark grey-faced E728 weighs 90 grams and measures 91x45x23.3 millimetres. It offers up to 4.2 hours of talk time and 180 hours of standby time. The E728 enables users to view the title of the song playing, sound effect, volume and the rhythmical movement of sound waves on its external colour screen. It is capable of storing up to 20 songs with its 88 megabytes of internal memory. Users can download ring tones via the Samsung Fun Club.