NEC Corp and Canon Inc have each come out with small entry-level laser printers, which print at between four and six pages per minute and can handle outline Japanese character fonts: NEC has three models in its range, with the the bottom-end $1,920 PC-PR1000 and $3,180 PR2000 supporting the NEC Printer Description Language and enabling existing drivers for serial printers to be used for producing clean outline font printing; the most expensive is the PR3000 PS, which supports PostScript, and offers similar functionality as NEC’s previous model laser printer, the PR 602 PS, but is 30% cheaper at around $4,390; the PR1000 is deliberately priced around $70 cheaper than the new low-end Canon printer, the LBP-A404; other Canon models are the LBP-B406S and the LBP-B406D; Canon is aiming to get 130,000 of the new printers away in the first year, while NEC’s goals are much more modest at 35,000 units in year one.
