HP has announced details of five new technical wide format printers that are aimed at the architect, engineering and construction (or AEC) sector. According to HP, these machines will reinvent large format printing and lead to world peace – OK, I made up the last bit but not the bit about reinventing large format printing – that really did come from the press release and I had to wade through the rest of it so I’ve earned the right to poke fun at HP.
The flagship model is the DesignJet T730 printer, also available with a scanner as the T830 multifunction printer. These are 36-inch or 91cm wide and use HP’s thermal inkjet printheads to offer print resolution optimized to 2400 x 1200 dpi. They can take both sheets and rolls and can produce high-quality A1/D-size prints in around 25 seconds.
Both are said to be compact and easily transportable – a useful feature that’s sometimes overlooked in this market – and there’s an optional rugged case for added protection at construction sites. They can be operated from the touch screen front panel or from a tablet using HP’s mobile printing app through the built-in WiFi.
There’s also a T930, a six colour printer that includes grey and photo black inks as well as CMYK. It has advanced security protocols so that it can be shared amongst a team. The T1530 is a dual-roll printer, also 91cm wide and with the six colour inkset. It also features an integrated 50-page output stacking tray, with the same security features. There’s also an MFP version of this with a scanner, called the T2530
These machines apparently meet the needs of blended reality, which seems to mean that even though people carry phones and tablets, they still like to print their large format documents. Thus there’s a new All-in-One app that enables easy printing and scanning to HP web-enabled printers and MFPs from both Apple and Android devices. It also offers a direct connection to online repositories, such as Dropbox, Box and Google Drive.
These printers should all be available by the end of this month.
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