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Banishing print traffic from your WAN with PrinterLogic

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

Requirement – secure and centralize print management.  But moving traditional Windows print servers into your datacenter will cause a lot of WAN traffic from your branches.  WAN links are expensive and bandwidth is a premium resource.  Even with SD-WAN solutions that enable companies to use standard internet, instead of MPLS circuits, for branch connectivity, the bandwidth is usually limited.  On top of bandwidth issues, print sessions cause bursts of traffic that can trjgger other performance issues for users.  All around, its not a great situation.

Enter PrinterLogic, a St. George, Utah, based company that does printer management and enables direct-IP printing, avoiding the WAN entirely.   The PrinterLogic solution is straightforward and easy to manage.   It allows the central control and reporting of a single print server while avoiding the cost and problems associated with moving print data from the branch to the datacenter and back again.

Management Server

PrinterLogic has a main management server – called the PrinterInstaller server – that is primarily a discovery and management point for their solution.  This web application allows administrators to setup lists of printers organized by site locations with nice features like maps and location discovery.  PrinterInstaller also allows profiles to be created and the printer driver to be centrally administered and configured.

Getting started is a breeze with two different ways to setup printers.  First, you can point PrinterLogic to existing Windows print servers and import printers, drivers and default configurations directly into the product.  The second is a network discovery method that allows you to scan and find any previously unmanaged printers in the environment.

The main management server is also a reporting server, allowing administrators to gain insight into their print environment, including unmanaged printers that may be connected to managed workstations.   While PrinterLogic doesn’t make any changes to these unmanaged printers – even USB connected printers – it does allow administrators to get analytical data about these devices to be able to bring them into a managed situation or replace them.

 Client Agent

The other component is the print agent (aka client) on each workstation.  This agent is the primary access method for users.   With a click, it launches you into the web portal so you can add and discover new printers.  Users can self-service and find the correct or closest printers.  Assistance is provided by automatic correlating IP subnets to locations and defaulting users to those locations.

Once the print agent is deployed, any currently configured printers will automatically be converted for you.   This is a huge aid for deployments and bringing all the systems and printers into management.  The only real work required is deploying the agent to your workstations which can easily be accomplished with SSCM or scripts.

Licensing & Optional Modules

PrinterLogic licensing is very straight forward also – with the base licenses enabling everything discussed so far and it licensed based on the number of printer objects.  One of PrinterLogic’s big sales pitches is around reducing the number of queues required for different use cases by allowing a single printer object to have multiple profiles and even print drivers associated for different use cases – like Windows workstations versus a Citrix server.  With that, the licensing would roughly equate to the number of printers in your environment.

In addition to base licensing, PrinterLogic offers two optional modules for pull printing and mobile printing.  These capabilities are licensed in the same way, by the number of managed printer objects.

Pull Printing

Pull printing, “follow me” printing, or release printing are all ways to describe the same basic functionality – of printing to a queue where the job is held until you walk up and release it from the printer.  You can release by authenticating with user and password, with a proximity badge or by authenticating with your mobile phone.  When you print a job for a ‘virtual queue’ the job is held at your personal workstation until it is released.    This is another way PrinterLogic avoids WAN traffic – by keeping the job onsite since it will likely be released in the same site without having to cross a WAN link.

Mobile Printing

Mobile printing is exactly what it sounds like, enabling printing from phones and tablets.  Since these devices are not necessarily on your internal network – possibly sitting on a cellular or guest WiFi network, the printing method changes a bit – however, mobile printing looks a lot like pull printing.  Instead of holding a job in a local queue at the workstation, in the case of mobile printing, the queue is at the main management server.

Cloud Option

PrinterLogic also offers a print mangaement solution in a SaaS form, where they host and manage all the infrastructure of your printing environment, and you simply have to configure your printers a web console.  Dubbed PrinterCloud, the solution is targeted to SMB users.  While it doesn’t offer every single feature of the on-premises version, it is a great solution for smaller environments where IT wants to avoid running the local infrastructure.  PrinterLogic says PrinterCloud now has 97% feature parity with the full version, and that the exception is fewer choices for pull-printing release mechanisms. (PrinterCloud does not have simple badge release or all of the support with printer control-panel apps.)  The company is working on closing this gap.

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Printing

Taking the new HP PageWide Pro 577dw for a test drive

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

HP PageWide Pro 577dw MFP PrinterFor the first time in forever, HP has birthed a new line and brand of printers – well, sort of.  A couple of years go, HP introduced the OfficeJet Pro X line of printers.  These printers looked a lot like a LaserJet printer, they were built for business, but the actual print tech was more closely related to an inkjet, and so they were placed in the OfficeJet line.  But, there was so much different than other OfficeJet printers.  These printers didn’t use a moving print head, they didn’t use the same type of ink and the print speeds were much faster than any other inkjet.  This was all enabled because of a print bar that spanned the entire width of the page – something HP dubbed PageWide Technology – and pigmented ink.

Fast forward to today and HP has taken the PageWide name and started using it as a brand for large-format printers, including the PageWide XL printer line.  PageWide is the both the enabling technology – a stationary print bar that spans the width of the page – and it is also a brand name – a catchy one.  With the broader use of the name, HP thinks its is time to rebrand the HP OfficeJet Pro X line to HP PageWide.  (I for one, think that’s a smart move.)

So, HP sent me one of the new PageWide Pro 577dw for a test drive.  I was lucky to test the OfficeJet Pro X 576dw a couple years ago, so the model I was shipped allowed me to compare the two head to head and see where HP has made some improvements.  I wanted to compare the same print jobs head to head on these two printers and clock the differences between them.  Those results are near the end, but first, take a look at how the PageWide Pro 557dw is equipped.

PageWide Pro 577dw Specs

  • Three print modes
    • Professional mode speed: Up to 50 ppm black or color
    • General Office mode (fastest mode) up to 70 ppm and Presentation mode (highest quality)
  • Scan resolution: Up to 1200 x 1200 dpi hardware and optical
  • Copy resolution: Up to 600 dpi black or color (text and graphics)
  • Standard connectivity: 2 Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Host; 1 Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Device; 1 Ethernet 10/100 Base-TX network; 2 RJ-11 modem port/phone line; 802.11 b/g/n Station; 802.11 b/g Access Point
  • Paper handling: 500-sheet input tray, 50-sheet multi-purpose tray; 300-sheet face-down output bin
  • Duty cycle (monthly): Up to 80,000 pages

PageWide Pro 577dw versus OfficeJet Pro X 576dw

  • For the 500 series, ink has been relocated into the previously empty space below the output tray — but the PageWide 300 and 400 series are configured like the OfficeJet Pro X 577dw.
    IMG_4734
  • Pro X was rated at 42ppm and the PageWidePro is rated at up to 50 ppm in Professional mode – general office is also faster and the output tray has been redesigned slightly to handle increased speeds – my tests saw better than these advertised speeds, if you deduct the time for the first page to print.
  • The duplexing scanner now includes two scan heads – one for front and one for back of page to simultaneously scan – increasing duplex scan speeds tremendously
    IMG_4672
  • Improved Embedded Web Server with AirPrint and Google Cloud Print integration, and HP ePrint and Apps
  • Wi-Fi Direct and NFC touch-to-print technology

‘General’ Impressions

Overall the printer firmware is a big improvement over the previous generation.  The touch screen seems to be much improved and the ability to move and customize the display is great.  There are also new app additions to the onboard software.

Many of the great features of the OfficeJet Pro X made their way on the PageWide Pro including the ability to scan directly from the printer to a network folder, scan to email and scan to SharePoint.  These shortcuts are handy as you place the PageWide in walk-up situations. In addition to these shortcuts, you can also walkup and retrieve and print jobs – directly from a USB and from cloud services.

General Office Mode is nothing short of incredible.  When printing in the fastest mode, its sort-of like watching to a machine gun fire as the pages come out so quickly (but not as loud).  And the quality of the print in General Office mode is still very high quality – not at all what you would expect of a ‘draft’ mode.  This is why HP doesn’t refer to this as draft mode – because there is nothing draft about the quality of the print.

Scanning, in particular duplex scanning, is much improved on the PageWide Pro 577dw.  The addition of a second scan bar for the document feeder allows for a single pass duplex scanning and also allows for the profile of the document feeder to be slimmed down.  The duplexer required in the OfficeJet Pro X 576dw is no longer needed with a second scan bar.  This provides up to 5x faster duplex scans without the worry of paper jams due to a cleaner paper path.

Print durability is still incredible in the PageWide Pro 577dw.  When I reviewed the OfficeJet Pro X, this was one of the remarkable things about the ink system and the printer in general.  The paper would deteriorate under water before the ink would run, particularly with Colorlok paper.  I posted about this and even included a video and in testing, this still holds true with the PageWide Pro prints.

As I wrote about back in 2014, the PageWide Pro is a greener alternative to printing, consuming much less power that the laser printer counterparts and also producing less waste than that of many other printers – both laser and inkjet.  That tradition continues with the PageWide models.  The consumables for this printer only include the cartridges and a waste tray.  Comparable laser printers have bulkier toner cartridges with more plastic, fuser kits that have to be replaced during the lifecycle and they consume 50% more energy than the PageWide Pro models.

The PageWide Enterprise models ship with HP SureStart and FutureSmart firmware capabilities along with integration with HP Flow and other enterprise features, but this doesn’t mean the PageWide Pro models are lacking.  From a networking perspective, the PageWide Pro supports every major computing platform – from Windows to OS X, iOS and Android in a variety of ways.  The PageWide Pro also includes support for 802.1x, SNMP and other enterprise requested features, so it can fit comfortably in a small home network, a branch office, or medium sized business all the way up to the enterprise network.

Where does it fit?

HP is positioning the PageWide lineup between the OfficeJet and LaserJet models.  It has compelling DNA from both lines – sharing similar form factors and enterprise-ready features from the LaserJet line and combining those with the economies of ink and a more compelling price point.  Below is a lineup for HP’s business printing options and where the company positions each brand.

HPBusinessPrintLineup

Speed Tests

Printer Pages Page Type Job Type Mode Time (seconds) PPM Equivalent
PageWide Pro 577dw 42 Single Print Professional 56.6 44.52
PageWide Pro 577dw 42 Duplex Print Professional 82.64 30.49
OfficeJet Pro X 576dw 42 Single Print Professional 62.2 40.51
OfficeJet Pro X 576dw 42 Duplex Print Professional 115.47 21.82
PageWide Pro 577dw 37 Single Print Professional 50.3 44.14
PageWide Pro 577dw 37 Duplex Print Professional 73.29 30.29
OfficeJet Pro X 576dw 37 Single Print Professional 51.71 42.93
OfficeJet Pro X 576dw 37 Duplex Print Professional 103.1 21.53
PageWide Pro 577dw 37 Single Print General Office 32.02 69.33
PageWide Pro 577dw 37 Duplex Print General Office 67.89 32.70
PageWide Pro 577dw 37 Single Scan Color 200dpi 100.15 22.17
PageWide Pro 577dw 37 Duplex Scan Color 200dpi 77.29 28.72
OfficeJet Pro X 576dw 37 Single Scan Color 200dpi 140.1 15.85
OfficeJet Pro X 576dw 37 Duplex Scan Color 200dpi 310 7.16
  • The times reported include the initial wake-up/warm-up time, once the print job is submitted, until the last page hits the output tray.  If this time is removed, these ppm ratings exceed the ppm rating from HP Inc. 

Availability and Price

HP expect the PageWide Pro 500 series printers to be available in April, 2016, with a starting price of $699.  In addition to the PageWide Pro 577dw multifunction printer, a PageWide Pro 552dw single function printer will be also be available.

Disclaimer:  HP Inc. provided the HP PageWide Pro 577dw at no charge for me to review.  The views and opinions I share here are my own and were not previously reviewed or dictated by HP.  

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Printing

HP Inc. revamps printing lineup and introduces PageWide brand

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

PrintingReinvented

The slimmed down HP Inc. today unveiled a new lineup of revamped business-focused printers including the introduction of a brand new brand of office printers to be known with the PageWide brand.  The announcement is expansive, with the introduction of 15 new printer models and a set of Secure Managed Print services from the company.  Packed into the announcement is a major focus on security of printers included in the new print models.  Let’s dive into each of the areas in more detail.

Security

There’s a growing concern that devices that make up the Internet of Things (IoT) will become a hotbed for malware and attacks.  In fact, 60% of companies have had a data breach involving printers according to the “Insecurity of Network-Connected Printers” study that Ponemon Institute published in October 2015.  Updates and patching become incredibly important to secure these devices the same way we have attempted to keep our computers secure.

According to HP, today’s printers more closely resemble computers and are increasingly more connected.  Today’s printers aren’t just networked, they have email accounts and are directly connected to the Internet.  They are cloud integrated with services backing the choices on the display panels.  But even with the innovation and increased capabilities, security has largely been an afterthought, and capable processors and lax security make for a hackers playground.  HP realizes this and has been at work with solutions and a change of mindset about printers to try and head off issues.

The first way HP is attempting to address issues is with push updates.  The percentage of companies that update printer firmware is small, but HP hopes to change that with a direct from the Internet update capable on new printers.  The update feature is powered by software on board the printer, but security professionals may pause and wonder if this is wise to do.  Is it possible to simply inject malicious updates and auto-deploy them across an entire enterprise?  No so fast, says HP.

The enterprise printers announced today include a security technology called HP SureStart.  In September 2015, HP introduced three LaserJet printers that use HP SureStart technology to protect the printer’s BIOS.  If the HP SureStart name sounds familiar, it is a security feature that was introduced into the HP Elitebook line of professional laptops back in 2014, that HP has brought to its printer lineup.

HP SureStart is a secure BIOS that stores both the current and a previous version of the BIOS.  SureStart detects tampering and malware attacks on the BIOS and will revert to saved, good BIOS version to ensure that the basic firmware of the hardware is not compromised. HP calls it self-healing.

Not only are the updates meant to be for security, they also provide a consistent user interfaces across the printer fleet.  HP FutureSmart is a push from HP to establish a consistent user experience across all of its enterprise printers and enable the same walk-up features no matter where you go in the organization and this capability is also included in the enterprise printers announced today.

Secure Managed Print Services

Building on the HP SureStart, HP has created an ensemble of services to create Secure Managed Print Services.  The self-healing capabilities of the printers with HP SureStart is the foundation of the secure print services, but it also combines security software to detect threats, protect, monitor and manage the printer fleet and provide reporting for regulatory and compliance audits.  Secure Managed Print Services also includes a strong component of security consulting from the experts at HP to device a comprehensive print security plan.  Finally, the services also allow for data encryption to provide protection for confidential information.

As part of the announcement, HP introduced an updated version of HP JetAdvantage Security manager, a software that allows for policy-based printer security.  This software provides much of the reporting, auditing and compliance enforcement capabilities for the Secure MPS.

HP also announced that its Enterprise printers will now be able to be monitoring using Splunk.

HP PageWide Printers

In perhaps the biggest news, HP introduce a new brand of printers – the HP PageWide line.  PageWide has been used by HP to describe the printing technology of the HP OfficeJet Pro X line as well as the brand name of some specialty large-format printers, like the PageWide XL line, over the last several years.  Now, HP is borrowing the name of its wide print bar to be the brand name for the printers that use it.

PageWide printers will come in two major categories – Pro and Enterprise.  HP introduced two PageWide Enterprise printers today – the PageWide Enterprise Color 586 multifunction and the PageWide Enterprise Color 556 single function printer.  Enterprise models will be the most full featured models and include options to essentially replace copiers and multifunction with floor stands and other accessories.  There are also additional software capabilities in the Enterprise models, including integration with HP Flow print control services.

The PageWide Pro models will be focused on small to medium business and branch office solutions and are split into 3 series – the 300, 400 and 500 series.  The major difference between each series is speed.  The 300 series features printers with up to 30 pages per minute (ppm) in Professional print mode and 45 ppm in General Office mode (HP PageWide’s version of draft mode – but don’t think low quality here – it is still very high quality).  The 400 series features 40 ppm in Professional print mode and 55ppm in General Office mode.  While the fastest printers are in the 500 series, rated at 50 ppm in Professional and 70 ppm in General Office mode.   The 500 series also offers a series of accessories to convert the printer into a floor model with additional drawers for paper types and job accounting and PIN printing on the front console.  All of the new PageWide Pro printers feature a single-pass duplexing scanner rated at 26 ppm.  HP has released a multifunction printer and single-function printer in each series today.

The new PageWide brand will replace the Pro X moniker that HP initially introduced for its business-class printers using the PageWide print bar.  The new brand will differentiate the print technology that uses the wide print bar and pigment inks versus all of its business ink printers in the OfficeJet line that use moving print heads and traditional inks.    HP sees the PageWide brand sitting in between the LaserJet and OfficeJet families – providing the lowest cost per page of any of its business-class printers, along with the least amount of waste generated and least amount of energy used.

Below are slides with details of the new printers are below to provide more information for the entire lineup:

OfficeJet Pro Additions

HP also introduced several new models in the OfficeJet Pro category, targeted at small business with up to 5 users sharing a printer.  These print models target small office environments and specific use cases, such as legal documents and mobile printing.  All of the new OfficeJet printers announced replace existing models that HP is retiring in the lineup.   Details on the models and their specs in the slides below.

LaserJet Additions

For the LaserJet line, HP introduced two new printers today – the HP LaserJet Pro M501 – a monochrome laser printer targeted at 5 to 15 users and the HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M377dw – targeted at 3 to 10 users with multifunction capabilities.  Both are brand new products, not replacing existing products in the lineup.

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Printing

Officejet Pro X redefines the Inkjet Printer

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

The Officejet Pro X is to inkjet printers what the Prius is to traditional cars.  While it looks a lot like all of the cars before it, the Prius completely redefined the core drivetrain and its power source, inventing a new category of car – the hybrid.  In the same way, the Officejet Pro X completely redefines the core print system of an inkjet and its ink.  Like the Prius, the Officejet  Pro X defines a whole new class of printer in the marketplace.

It has been a little over a month of testing the Officejet Pro X576dw multifunction printer.  The results are really impressive.  First, this printer has lived up to the hype and marketing promises that it came with.  It’s ink is something completely different – something revolutionary – for an inkjet and it offers superior durability.  It prints with a speed comparable or better than laser printers in its class.  It offers better cost per page costs for its owners.  It delivers on features that enterprise will require and small business may not know to hope for.

Amazing Ink Durability

aka Prints You Just Can’t Destroy!

As I wrote in my introduction post, the Officejet Pro X features a new formula of ink that was developed by HP to be more durable than traditional inkjet ink.  The new inks have a formula with more pigment and less water, meaning that prints of the printer come out dry to the touch and resist smearing and running when the page comes in contact with water or a highlighter, which has been one of the major complaints of inkjet prints.  So, I decided to test the new ink in the worst possible ways I could imagine – by submerging printed pages and photos from the Officejet Pro X in the sink and seeing how the prints fared.  I had seen a demo of this last year at HP Discover, but I thought that there was no way a page could survive under a running faucet.  But I was absolutely wrong.  As a matter of fact, it was such an amazing test, that I had to recreate it and film it.  It is something you have to see with your own eyes.  So, take a look at this video below where I take regular copy paper, normal photo paper and a page of HP’s Premium Glossy Photo paper and test them in the sink.

So what did I learn from my water testing? I’d highlight 3 things:

  1. Prints on standard paper are extremely durable.  HP recommends ColorLok paper for superior color and clarity of prints, but even in my testing with the cheapest copy paper I could find on the shelf, the prints look fairly crisp and clear, but on cheap paper the prints do look dull.  The prints on ColorLok paper look fantastic.  HP ships about 20 pages worth of ColorLok paper for you to use and see the results.   ColorLok, by the way, is not an HP brand but rather a brand from International Paper, so its not to HP’s benefit in recommending ColorLok.
  2. Glossy presentation and photo paper lend to incredible looking prints.  The glossy page combined with the HP pigmented inks really stand out and the are very durable, surviving my intense water testing.  If I were in sales, I would be foaming at the mouth to have one of these for customer presentations and leave-behind materials.  For a small cost per page, you can produce incredible looking materials without the need for professional printing.  Talking with HP, they tell me that they’ve had a lot of success using the Officejet Pro X for on demand printed materials at conferences and events internally and customers are adopting the same.
  3. The durability of photo prints has a lot to do with the type of paper.  Semigloss and matte finishes tended not to endure my water test, however, the testing I did was pretty extreme.  Still, I’d stick with HP’s recommended papers listed on the HP website under the supplies for PageWide array printers.

One really interesting story that I was told was about a mining company in South America.  Where laser printers could not hold up in the damp and high humidity conditions of a mine, the HP Officejet Pro X is really doing well. While the printer wasn’t designed specifically for those operating conditions, its design along with the pigmented inks provide this mining company with a solution where laser printers had failed.  After running prints under streams of running water, I can see why.

The ink seems more akin to what you’d find from commercial printing companies, offering durability and resisting water unlike anything I’ve seen with a home, ink printer.  But that may be the only disappointment for the Officejet Pro X.  At this point, there aren’t color matching controls that would allow this printer to be used by graphic designers and agencies – not the type to ensure color matching to Pantone colors or swatches.  I really see that as a huge potential market and perhaps HP will bring these kinds of color matching to the line so that it can address the needs of graphics professionals.

Blistering Fast Print Speeds

One of the features that was most highly touted were the print speeds of this inkjet printer. Inkjets, generally work with a reciprocating print head that moved back and forth across the page, printing one line at a time. The OfficeJet Pro X uses a PageWide print head that had nozzles across a page width of area and can deliver blistering fast prints. In fact, there are a lot of black and white Laser printers that don’t print as fast as the OfficeJet Pro X when printing full color, normal prints.  Again, to illustrate this, I thought a video would be the best possible way to convey the results I found in testing.  I could write about it, but its really something you need to see to understand.

One of the things the HP team told me during my briefing on the product was that the General Office Mode prints were still a very high quality and that the development team worked hard to ensure that even the fast prints were still crisp and clear.  There is a bit more over-spray and jaggedness to the individual letters of printed documents in General Office Mode, but you have to get close to the page to really notice it.  The ability to achieve over 70 pages per minute in full color is incredible.

One other thing I noticed from a speed perspective is that even pages with lots of graphics print very quickly, usually without any noticeable delay, unlike laser printers.  Sometimes on a complex image, Laser printers will stop and process the image before printing the page, significantly slowing down the printing process.  The Officejet Pro X didn’t seem to suffer from the same issue.

There are actually even two more printing modes for the Officejet Pro X – Presentation mode and Maximum DPI mode.  To a normal user, I could not tell a difference between these two modes.  They were both extremely high quality prints and looked fantastic.  Maximum DPI mode seemed to be selectable in the driver when paired with HP Premium Photo paper as the media, while Presentation mode is available on plain paper as well as glossy presentation paper and other media.

In testing, I found that printing slows down when duplexing due to having to change paper path and print the other side.   The same goes for moving up to a higher quality of print.  As the video illustrates, one of my test documents was a 24 page text document with full color images on several pages and colored headings.  This document took just 23 seconds to print in General Office Mode and about 35 seconds to print in Professional mode (5 seconds until first page and then 30 seconds of print time).

Copies are slower than print jobs, also.  But the quality of the copies was excellent.  As a matter of fact, I put an original print and a copy side by side and if I didn’t know which was which, I would not have been able to tell a difference.  The automatic document feeder had a tendency to feed in pages slightly crooked.  It didn’t happen all the time, but the more pages in the document feeder, the more often this would happen.

At the same time, I have not experienced a single print misfeed while testing – which is a big thing.  With pages moving so quickly through the printer in General Office mode, I can’t believe that i have not had a single misfeed for the print path, but it hasn’t occurred.  That’s not to say it couldn’t, but in printing several reams of paper in testing, there hasn’t been a single print misfeed.

Other Functions of a Multifunction Printer

The Officejet Pro X line are all different variations of a multifunction printer.  The touch control panel is extremely responsive and responds well to touch commands including swipes to scroll between screens.  Handy shortcut icons lines the top of the home screen, including network settings and ink level buttons.  There is a shortcut for ECO settings that let you adjust screen brightness, set two-sided fax and copy prints, standby and sleep times for the printer.  There is a shortcut button for ePrint and for fax settings.  All of the same settings are available from the full Settings menu also.  The display is intuitive and easy to use.

Drivers

On Windows, the model specific HP software and drivers worked extremely well for scanning.  On Mac, the scanning integrated with Image Capture and worked well.  Apple’s automatic driver discovery downloaded the print drivers specifically for the Officejet Pro X and the printer also worked with AirPrint driver enabled.   The HP Universal print driver worked extremely well with the printer.  This is a huge plus for enterprise and business customers who don’t want to maintain lots of different driver versions and who want to avoid compatibility issues on their print servers.

Scanning

Scanning, both from the document feeder or flat bed, produces very clear scans.  The software on the computer, both PC and Mac, worked extremely well for initiating scans and controlling the settings of the capture.  Beyond scanning controls from the computer, the touch screen display also provides users with a lot of control from the printer itself.  This is particularly helpful in shared office environments where the printer may be around the corner.  Administrators can setup file share locations, computers and even email where scans may be routed with easy touch controls on the front panel.  The printer also features two USB ports (one below the touchscreen panel and one on the back of the printer) that can be used as a destination for scans also.   Configuration of network locations and computers to route scans is very simple from the web-based control panel or the HP utilities that ship with the printer.

Direct  & Secure Printing

In addition to writing to USB devices, the printer can print directly from USB for recognized formats using the “Plug and Print” option in the touch controls.  The USB port on the back of the printer is a USB 2.0 port and it can be used as a temporary location for confidential print jobs to be stored and then retrieved and printed once you’re standing at the printer.  This is a hugely popular feature for shared printers, because you never want your co-worker looking at your paystub when you print it to a shared printer (or some other situation like that).

One Touch Apps (News & Forms)

Also, while talking about the touch screen controls, you have to look at the Apps section of the controls.  This section allows you to select from a number of web services delivered through hpeprintcenter.com that allow you to print common forms, daily news or many other things directly from the web, all without a computer.   Need music paper or graph paper, the OfficeJet Pro X can print that without you ever needing to search and find a template.  The ForbesDaily or TimesDigest apps allows you to print the latest newspaper or even schedule a daily print of news delivered directly to the printer, just like your daily paper used to be delivered to your doorstep.  With the decline of newspaper, this is a really nifty use for printing your news on-demand.   Oh and the TimesDigest (from the New York Times) even includes the crossword…

Networking

Network configuration is straightforward and simple.  The touchscreen controls make it a breeze to join an existing WiFi network, even a password protected one.  Connecting Ethernet is even easier.  The printer will obtain and address from DHCP or you may specify a static IP address easily through the web control panel or HP Utility on the computer.

Consumables

Another huge plus is the number of pages you’ll get per cartridge.  The ink consumables of the Officejet Pro X are priced around $75 per color retail, but in all my thousands of pages of testing, I have barely moved the mark on any of the 4 ink wells, so in my experience, you’ll see thousands of pages per cartridge before needing to refill.

Disclaimer: HP provided the OfficeJet Pro X576dw MFP to me free of charge for review and a second unit to giveaway.  HP in no way influenced or had any editorial control over the views, opinions and conclusions that came to in the course of testing the printer.  

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DatacenterPrintingStorage

Is there such a thing as an Enterprise InkJet? HP’s OfficeJet Pro X thinks so…

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

Laser printers and enterprise seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly. But a little over a year ago, I was introduced to an enterprise inkjet printer line – the HP OfficeJet Pro X.   In many ways, it resembles an HP LaserJet printer in size and design.  It looks like an office printer – something substantial that could handle the demands of an office printing thousands of pages per month.  It looks like it belongs in an enterprise.  But everything I knew about inkjet said, there is no way this could work for enterprise.  Inkjets print slowly, I thought, one line at a time.  Inkjets are more expensive than laser, I thought, and ink smears.  But, the OfficeJet Pro X is not a traditional inkjet and what makes it enterprise ready is a long list of differences from what normally defines ink printing.  HP has rethought core inkjet technology in a way that makes it a viable enterprise solution for printing.

OfficjetProX

The OfficeJet Pro X Differences

A Whole Lot of Pigment and Less Water in the Ink

Sad Water DropletOne of the key differentiators of the OfficeJet Pro X line is the ink used for the printer.  According to Larry Tracy, a product manager for the Pro X, the inks have a heavier pigment load and less water than traditional inks.  Less water means the print dries faster as its moving through the device.  Unlike laser printers that use heat and a fuser to transfer the image to the page, the ink printers have no drying mechanism in them – no fans or heaters.  In addition, the durability of the print is much better, according to Tracy.  The print on the pages doesn’t smear or run.  You may use a highlighter over the print without smudging it and it has superior life versus other inkjet printers.  In fact, Tracy says that in their testing the paper will begin to degrade long before the print itself begins the break down.

The PageWide Print Bar

The OfficeJet Pro X features a stationary print bar that is the same width as the sheet of paper, something HP calls PageWide technology.   The PageWide print head features over 420,000 nozzles.  Unlike traditional inkjets where the ink well and nozzels are integrated into the print cartridge, the OfficeJet Pro X print head is not changed with every ink replacement.  This print head has monitoring built in to detect a misfiring nozzle and can allow surrounding nozzles to increase their volume to fill in.  In addition, there are spare nozzles that can be used in the event of a blockage or failure.

OfficejetProX_Printhead

 

Heavy Pigment Ink + Pagewide = Speed

An inkjet that prints up to 70 pages per minute is remarkable.  Demos that I have seen of the OfficeJet Pro X576dm during HP Discover and on a demo unit that HP has provided hold true to that speed.  70 pages per minute is available in what HP calls General Office mode, but don’t make the mistake of calling it draft mode like other printers offer.  Draft mode is a degraded quality print with less precision and crispness.  The OfficeJet Pro X’s General Office mode doesn’t significantly compromise the quality of the print.  The print is still very crisp and clean on the page.

LaserJet Cross-Pollenation

For enterprise, there is a second, higher-end line printers known as the OfficeJet Pro X Enterprise line that integrates HP Flow scanning and routing with other enterprise features.  Similiar the HP Flow models of LaserJet printers, these machines are meant to replace traditional copies and scanners with multi-function printers.  In addition, the HP Universal Print driver that allows businesses to use the same driver for many HP printer models also works with the OfficeJet Pro X line.

When talking with Larry Tracy, I also found out why the OfficeJet Pro X looks like a very close cousin to the HP LaserJet printers.  This printer was developed in Boise, ID, in the birthplace of the HP LaserJet.  A lot of enterprise features created in the LaserJet line are also in this OfficeJet Pro X Enterprise line of printers, including software for pin based secure printing, integration with HP’s Flow workflow and scanning software, and badge readers.

Lots of Traditional HP Printing Goodness

In many ways, the OfficeJet Pro X line is a departure from its ink predecessors.  But its not a complete departure from its heritage.  The OfficeJet Pro X includes many of the expected features like HP ePrint and AirPrint support, both wired and wireless connectivity, USB storage and print from USB thumb drive support, and a multi-page document fed and flatbed scanner integrated.  The OfficeJet Pro X also has faxing and copying capabilities from a touch-screen display and with a bit of configuration, the touch screen can be used to scan documents directly to a file share or HP software on a networked computer.  According to Tracy, a software update earlier this year allows for one of the two onboard USB ports on an OfficeJet Pro X to be used for persistent storage so that secure documents can be stored until accessed and printed by PIN code.  The OfficeJet Pro X printers will also duplex prints and copies automatically, which is a required business feature.

The OfficeJet Pro X Cost Advantage

As a consultant years ago, I performed printing studies for companies and comparing the cost of buying a personal or workgroup laser printer versus the cheap inkjet printers (think $50 big-box variety printers) I often found in their offices.  For a normal office workload, the inexpensive inkjet costs the company more in ink than an laser would cost per page.  Plus, buying the printer-du-jour from a big-box store means stocking multiple different ink refills, increasing costs and frustration.  Calculating the cost per page over the course of a year or several years, I would surprise each customer I worked with at how much they could reduce their printing costs by switching to workgroup or personal laser printers.  And while its been ten years since I was a consultant, many of the things I found then are still true today.  But the OfficeJet Pro X seems to be a very different animal.

When Buyers Lab, an independent testing institution, reviewed the OfficeJet Pro X printer, they found that the cost per page is about 1.1 cents per page for black and white and about 6.5 cents per full color page.  Those prices per page beat out all small laser multifunction printers Buyers Lab had tested.  Buyers Lab reported the average small workgroup laser MFP costs 2.4 cents per page in black and white and 11.5 center per page in full color.  But, the OfficeJet Pro X beat even the lowest cost per page laser multi-functions cost 1.5 cents per page black and white and 7.8 cents per page for color.   Buyers Lab defined the small laser multifunction printer as printers with duty cycle less than 5,000 pages per month.  When you move into a mid-size workgroup MFP, the results change a little with some higher-priced laser multifunction printers able to beat the OfficeJet Pro X’s cost per page, but the OfficeJet Pro X still slightly better than the average cost per page for this class of printers.

Printing and the Environmental Impact

When you think of printing, you think of paper and you may think of trees.  Boldly saying that a printer is eco-friendly may seem a bit counter-intuitive, but the fact remains that some documents must be printed, so when given a choice, choose a printer that uses less resources.

OfficeJetProXinkOne of the lesser talked about stories with the OfficeJet Pro X line is the eco-friendliness of this printer compared to lasers and other inkjets.  The OfficeJet Pro X printers produce less waste than other printers, both laser and inkjet.  Ink cartridges for the printer yield 9,200 pages from the black cartridge and 6,000 pages for each of the three color cartridges.  As a comparison, most laser printers in the same class yield 4,000 – 7,000 pages.  The Buyers Lab performed a study and pitted the OfficeJet Pro X against a Lexmark and found that the Lexmark required almost twice as many ink replacements to produce 150,000 pages.  HP has also worked hard to reduce the amount of waste associated with each ink replacement in terms of packaging and precious metals included with the ink wells.

The second major aspect of environmental friendliness for this printer is its power consumption.  Compared to Laser printers, the OfficeJet Pro X consumes about 8 to 10 times less power – which equates to using less power when printing than a Laser printer when sitting idle.  Many Laser printers do not completely power down the fuser because it would require extra time to before the first page is printed.  Keeping the fuser warm pulls more power than the OfficeJet Pro X when it is in full print mode.  The printer is Energy Star qualified.

But its not just HP’s word.  Marlene Orr, a senior analyst for printers and MFP’s for Buyers Lab, was quoted as saying “From an environmental perspective, these units also use significantly less energy and create less consumables waste than comparable small workgroup laser printers and MFPs recently tested.”

Any of these environmental features will benefit its owners from a total cost of ownership – aka “in the wallet.”  With less power consumption and cheaper cost per page in printing, these printers will save long-term for their owners.  Plus, from my perspective, I despise the throw-away printer mentality, with the uber-cheap printers whose ink refill costs more than the printer.  These are designed to be cheap and not last, which isn’t a good use of natural resources.  The OfficeJet Pro X is a system that’s built for a business level workload, with a duty cycle of up to 75,000 pages.

Next Steps…

My demo HP OfficeJet Pro X 576dw arrived a week ago and I’ve just started setting it up for evaluation.  My initial reaction is really positive.  To be completely transparent, I’m a big HP printing fan.  I made the choice a long time ago to stick with HP printers in my home office and advocate for the same at work.   I’ve attempted to help my former customers with printers of all makes and models, but when I came to my picks for my home, its always been an HP.  So, I will be the first to admit my bias, but it does come from years of experience dealing with issues from other printer brands – Epson, Lexmark (Dell) and Canon.

So, in a couple weeks, I’ll be posting a personal review from my experiences with the OfficeJet Pro X576dw.  And, look for an announcement for your chance to win an OfficeJet Pro X for your own environment.

Disclosure:  HP provided the Officejet Pro X576dw to me free of charge for review and testing.  All views and opinions in this blog post are my own, gathered from research and first hand information.  The views expressed were not dictated by HP.  

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Printing

HP Officejet Pro X: The serious inkjet for business

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

OfficjetProX

Inkjet printers are the predominant type of printers used in homes because of their low price, the low price of their ink and the versatility – handling color print jobs, photos and business prints with ease.  And while inkjet became king of the home, laser printers became king of the enterprise.  In the office, laser became the ideal choice because it offered better durability, color quality, speed and they could handle the larger workloads that the enterprise demand.

HP is attempting to break that stigma against inkjet in the office with the Officejet Pro X, a new business class inkjet printer that can print up to 70 pages per minute with a cost of about 1.3 cents per page.  The Officejet Pro X features several differences that set it apart from traditional inkjet printers and make it better suited for an office environment.

OfficejetProX_Printhead

Page-wide printhead

The first difference is a new innovation from HP.  It is known as PageWide technology and it involves a new printhead that is the same width as the paper featuring jets all the way across, which help the new line of printer achieve its up to 70 pages per minute in general office mode and up to 42 pages per minute in professional mode, which is higher quality.  And keep in mind, these are page per minute counts in full color – beating out many laser printers in terms of pages per minute.   The page-wide printhead features 42,240 nozzles each dropping ink on a precise section of the page.  The array provides a 1,200 nozzles-per-inch native resolution.

I can’t call the second point an innovation, the second thing that also sets Officejet Pro X apart from other ink printers is pigmented ink.  Traditional inkjet inks use dyes for colorant, where Laserjet toner uses pigment for coloring.  The pigment allows for richer color and better durability. Pigment inks from the Officejet Pro X offer the same benefits.  The final prints for these printers offer smear resistant prints whose ink doesn’t smear under a highlighter or run if water is spilled onto the page.

OfficejetProX_Cartridges

Larger ink cartridges


The third change is much larger ink wells, which are better suited for the volume of an office.  Each set of XL color ink cartridge is rated for approximately 6,600 pages of life and the XL black cartridge is rated for 9,200 pages.  Clearly, these aren’t the print wells you’ve seen before.  They are massively larger and retailing for around $150 each.

The last major difference is the thermal system found in the Officejet Pro X – a feature usually reserved for laser printers.  This compared with the pigmented ink allow for crisp and dry prints the instant that they emerge from the printer.  Inkjets typically pause between pages of heavy color to allow drying time, but this is not necessary with the Officejet Pro X.  It cuts through printing quickly and efficiently.  

But you don’t just have to take my word for it.  When I attended HP Discover in June, I was able to get a demo of the Officejet Pro X from Jamie Houser, HP Future Product Manager and Managed Solutions within HP’s Printers and Personal Systems group.   I took a video of the demonstration:

Houser says the printer is targeted to business workgroups.  So how does it compare to the Laserjet Pro 400 – a comparably priced laser printer for workgroups?  The Officejet Pro X bests the Laserjet in terms of pages per minute, doubling the Laserjet Pro 400’s 21 ppm in professional mode.  In general mode, it more than triples the pages per minute.  In terms of print quality, these two were side by side on the HP show floor and the prints were identical.  I could not discern which print came from which.  In terms of monthly print volume, the Laserjet Pro 400 is rated for up to 40,000 pages per month versus Officejet Pro X’s 50,000 pages per month.  In terms of consumables, the ink prices are slightly higher for the Officejet Pro X, but each XL cartridge is rated for 50% more pages than the Laserjet Pro 400’s toner cartridge.

For more information, visit www.hp.com/go/officejetprox.

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