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.
Content from our partners
