HP today introduced the Designjet 120, a new six-color printer created for designers looking a system that can do both standard desktop printing and large-format work.
The Designjet 120 sports a standard media tray and a 24 inch paper path. It incorporates closed-loop color calibration, 2400dpi resolution, four-picoliter drop size and HP’s own color layering technology. The print drivers are designed specifically for RGB workflows with an optional RIP to handle CMYK color matching and emulation, according to the manufacturer.
The optional HP Raster Image Processor (RIP) provides support for standard automatic Pantone calibration, color emulations standards like Apple’s ColorSync technology and ICC profiles, and offset press emulations including EuroScale, SWOP, DIC, JMPA and TOYO.
The standard media tray can handle letter, tabloid and custom sizes; the printer can output anything from 3 x 5.6 inch postcards to 24 inch wide media, according to HP. A rear bypass slot can support rigid media up to 80lbs or .0155 inches thick, and it also supports automatic roll feed for print jobs up to 600 inches long.
Print speed on the Designjet 120 clocks in at about 10 pages per minute (ppm) for letter size in fast mode on plain paper, or about 2 minutes per page for tabloid-sized images in normal mode.
The Designjet 120 also sports individual ink tanks and separate print heads that can be replaced individually. Drivers for Mac OS X 10.2 include graphics features for color control of CMY. Equipped with parallel and USB interfaces, the Designjet 120 can optionally be outfitted with an HP Jetdirect print server card (the 120nr model includes this), which provides Fast Ethernet networking capability.
Look for the Designjet 120 in stores now for a suggested retail price of US$1,295. The 120nr model costs $1,895.