HP's System Peripheral Operation has developed one of its first printers from the ground up in the new HP 5000 D640, and managers say the laser printer carries a far bigger load than the top of the line LaserJet. HP 3000 sites searching for a replacement to their 2680 printers may find this new cut-sheet laser printer can replace their sheet-fed devices for print needs under 300,000 pages per month. The printer also supports the new page-level recovery that's part of the MPE/iX network printing feature.
HP's Curt Dowdy said that if printers were vehicles, the D640 would be a bob-tail truck, while the LaserJet 5Si would be a minivan. That's meant to emphasize the difference in duty cycle between the printers, since the D640 triples the 5Si's 100,000 page/month limit. Using the same comparison, the F-Series of HP laser printers are semi tractor-trailers, Dowdy said.
The comparison is also meant to show that like the LaserJets, the D640 can be serviced by customers. That's a design shift from the printer it replaces, the HP 5000 C40, which HP is discontinuing. The new printer, designed to be driven by servers such as the HP 3000, offers an 11x17 larger page size and 600 dpi output at about $15,000, half the price of the C40.
Dowdy said HP's been able to cut the printer price by using a new Fujitsu print engine, and by having the budget to design a midrange volume system from scratch. To use and support the D640, sites need only have someone on staff whose duties include printer administration. In contrast, the C40 required HP site visits even for fundamentals like installing consumables. "Lots of midrange printers come from the high end mentality," Dowdy said. "With the C640, we took on more of the LaserJet design."
The printer supports non-standard paper sizes between 4x7.2 inches and its ledger-size limit, as well as more standard sizes than the LaserJets. HP is targeting the printer at customers who print more than 75,000 pieces or more per month and tend to mail items like statements. City governments, universities and financial firms are typical customers.
For those 2680 customers who have the capability to convert forms to PCL and can transfer to cut-sheet media, the printer offers a price point new to the industry. HP estimates that D640 printing will cost about 2 cents per page, the same as the 5Si. It also includes an 840-Mb disk drive to store fonts online, pre-loaded with the entire HP LaserJet cartridge family. HP expects to ship the first units in November.