Exhibitions are very hard work, but can still be rewarding for those prepared to put in the effort, and Comdex/Spring in Atlanta has proved no exception, as Microbytes Daily writers discovered, turning up two challenging new items needless to say from Japan. If we are all going to be taking our holiday snaps on disk or memory card in future, we are going to need a means of getting hard copy from them, and Mitsubishi International sounds to be very close to the answer, although at the $18,000 price we are talking about a bureau service rather than a device for the home. The CHC-S445 uses dye-sublimation thermal printing technology to produce full-colour prints that the writer says look nearly like photographs. It offers 24-bit colour and 300 dot per inch resolution and can print right to the edge of the paper without leaving a border. It takes about two and a half minutes to print a 64-tone page, using 260,000 colours, and five minutes in 256-tone mode displaying 16m colours. It is manufactured for Mitsubishi the trading company rather than Mitsubishi Electric presumably by Shinko Electric Co and it hits the US next month.
Rather more accessible to the average buyer is the Citizen Watch Co PN48 Notebook Printer, which measures 11.5 by 3.5 by 2 and weighs 2 lbs 8 oz so you can tuck it into your briefcase alongside your notebook computer yet it offers what is described as near laser-quality output for just $550. The printer uses a new technology called thermal fusion, which condenses laser printing technology into a single process, according to Citizen. The writer says that the output is of high quality, producing a fully formed character without smearing and that operation is very quiet. The PN48 prints on plain paper, including envelopes and labels and is claimed to be software compatible with Citizen GSX, Epson and IBM emulations. The printer will be available next month in the US, and the $550 price includes an AC adaptor and battery recharger, battery pack, ribbons and a case.
