HP Announces Next-generation Color Laser Printer with 1200 dpi-equivalent Image Quality

New Color LaserJet 5 and 5M Printers with Image REt 1200 Provide Low Cost Per Page, Cost of Ownership

PALO ALTO, Calif., March 11, 1996 -- Hewlett-Packard Company, the leader in the color laser printer market, today introduced its next-generation color laser printers, the HP Color LaserJet 5 and 5M printers. The printers are available through HP-authorized dealers and distributors worldwide.

The Color LaserJet 5 and 5M printers feature Image Resolution Enhancement technology (Image REt) 1200, an HP-developed technology that delivers dramatic, 1200-dpi-equivalent image quality - resulting in colorful graphics, sharp text and millions of solid colors.

With Image REt 1200, color laser printing can actually become more affordable than monochrome printing. Through more efficient toner placement, a color page from the Color LaserJet 5 printer costs less than a page from the original Color LaserJet printer, other color laser printers or even some monochrome laser printers. In addition to a low cost per page, according to HP research, the Color LaserJet 5 and 5M printers are the most affordable color laser printers to own and operate. (See HP Color LaserJet 5 printer "Cost of Ownership" fact sheet.)

"The Color LaserJet 5 printers expand upon the best-selling Color LaserJet printer, providing breakthrough color print quality at an affordable price," said George Mulhern, marketing manager of HP's Color LaserJet and Consumables Division. "Users can now produce sharp, high-impact text and graphics and detailed, photorealistic images to give reports, proposals, memos and other business documents a competitive edge."

The Color LaserJet 5 printers are designed for corporate workgroups -- where color printing is on the rise. According to Giga Research, a Norwell, Mass.-based research firm, all Fortune 1000 companies will have color printers on their networks within a year. The Color LaserJet 5 and 5M printers are expected to sell for about $5,995 and $7,395, respectively. Low cost per page and industry-leading network-printing capabilities make the Color LaserJet 5 and 5M printers ideal for workgroups requiring multiple copies of multiple-page documents with high-quality black and color printing.

The Color LaserJet 5 printers are part of a new class of color laser printers that produce smooth, "continuous tone" image quality through advanced color-control techniques. With this new type of color laser printer, dpi (dots per inch) alone is no longer an accurate indicator of print quality.

Many printers in this new category can produce continuous tone output by controlling precisely how color toner is placed on the page. These printers, known for their detailed, smooth image quality, are a step beyond traditional color laser printers, which use simple dot patterning or "dithering" techniques to reproduce non-primary colors such as orange or purple.

HP Image REt 1200 uses accurate color control and precise toner blending techniques to produce 1200-dpi-equivalent image quality while taking advantage of the low cost and high performance of the Color LaserJet 5 printers' 300-dpi engine. As a result, the Color LaserJet 5 printers produce output superior to that of higher-dpi color laser printers.

"A combination of new and existing HP-developed technologies helped create the Color LaserJet 5 printers' dramatic print quality," said Mulhern. "We expect to continue leading the industry with our breakthrough advancements in color laser technology."

• Millions of solid colors -- As an artist mixes paints on a palette to get a desired color, Image REt 1200 ensures precise color composition by telling the Color LaserJet 5 printers precisely how to "blend" the exact amounts of primary-color toner needed to achieve a required shade. Image REt 1200 technology lets the printer blend together up to four different colors -- within the space of a single dot -- to create a true solid color.
  
  Now, instead of just the eight solid colors that most color printers can produce -- cyan, yellow, magenta, red, green, blue, black and white -- Color LaserJet 5 printers can print millions of solid colors.



• Colorful graphics and photorealistic images -- Color LaserJet 5 printers produce 1200-dpi-equivalent output for excellent graphic and image quality. Image REt 1200 technology automatically interprets documents at a very high resolution, providing a detailed representation of the incoming document. This enhances the final output by giving better information for controlling color selection.
  
  Working in conjunction with Image REt 1200, HP ColorSmart software automatically recognizes the image, text and graphic elements of a document. This process results in sharp text, colorful graphics and photorealistic images -- all on the same page.
  
  
• Sharp text -- Image REt 1200 also interprets text at a high resolution, resulting in sharp, crisp characters of all colors.

A new 40MHz AMD 29040 RISC processor and standard 20MB RAM enable fast printer processing speeds.

The Color LaserJet 5 printers print at 10 ppm (black or one-toner color) and 2-3 ppm for color pages. Color-palette caching stores commonly used colors for fast color printing.

The Color LaserJet 5 printers also are effective as high-performance monochrome printers, meeting the various printing requirements of a typical business workgroup, including 11-inch by 17-inch monochrome printing.

The Color LaserJet 5 printer are designed for Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows NT, DOS and IBM OS/2 computing environments and comes with enhanced HP PCL 5 with Color, 20MB RAM and an HP Bi-Tronics bi-directional parallel port.

The Color LaserJet 5M printer comes standard with enhanced HP PCL 5 with Color and AdobeTM PostScriptTM Level 2 languages, Ethernet and LocalTalk interfaces and a standard 36MB RAM, making it easy to share in networked, mixed and Macintosh environments.

The Color LaserJet 5 printers break down barriers that have until now prevented computer users from printing their office documents in color. Some of these color barriers include slow print speeds, high cost per page, low-quality black text, poor print durability, low print volume and a black and color document appearance that does not match the matte finish of most business documents.

Following are some of the features of the Color LaserJet 5 printers that enable everyday color printing.

• Low cost per page -- The Color LaserJet 5 printers achieve a breakthrough cost per color page, often making color laser printing more affordable than monochrome laser printing:
• At approximately 1.8 cents per page, a black-only page (at 5 percent coverage) often costs less than the same print produced on a monochrome laser printer (average 2.5 cents).
• A full color page from the Color LaserJet 5 printers costs less than the same document printed on a monochrome laser printer. For example, a page containing 50 percent color coverage printed by Color LaserJet 5 printers costs less than the same page printed by the LaserJet 4 Plus printer.
• An average color document containing 15 percent color coverage costs as little as 5 cents per page.
• Low cost of ownership -- In addition to a low cost per page, HP research shows that the Color LaserJet 5 printers are less expensive to own and operate than any other color laser on the market.
• Professional finish -- The Color LaserJet 5 printers print color with a non-glossy, easy-to-read matte finish for a professional appearance consistent with today's laser-printed business documents. Glossy paper is available for high-impact color output.
• Easy font management -- HP FontSmart font-management software, which is new in the Color LaserJet 5 printers, provides an additional 65 outline fonts for a total of 110 fonts. FontSmart software makes font selection and management easy.
• Easy to share -- HP JetDirect network connectivity, automatic-language switching and simultaneously active ports make sharing the Color LaserJet 5 printers easy, fast and convenient. HP JetAdmin printer-management software makes the Color LaserJet 5 printers easy to manage over a network. The Color LaserJet 5M printer comes standard with JetDirect network connectivity and supports virtually all network operating systems. Advanced networking features allow the cost of the printer to be spread across multiple users.
• Compatible -- The Color LaserJet 5 printers are compatible with virtually all operating systems, networks and computer systems. Unlike other color laser printers, the Color LaserJet 5 and 5M printers also can print full color in both PCL and Adobe PostScript.
• Multiple original printing -- Users can print longer documents and multiple original prints, or "mopies," of documents. Features include a 30,000-page monthly duty cycle; 3,000-page toner yield; and up to 500 sheets of paper input capacity. The Color LaserJet 5 printers also incorporate sophisticated internal monitoring systems for consistent output over the lifetime of the printer. The Color LaserJet 5 printers are unmatched in reliability and require minimal user interaction.
• Print permanence -- The Color LaserJet 5 printers provide professional, colorfast color output that will not smear, peel, melt, scrape off, fade over time, flake or rub off onto other pages.
• Easy to use -- ColorSmart technology makes it easy to select optimal color settings. ColorSmart analyzes a document, recognizing text, images and graphic elements separately, then automatically adjusts the color clarity, contrast and accuracy for the best-possible results. For easy printer installation, HP's Windows Printing System installer automatically determines and loads the appropriate drivers for the specific Windows environment being used.
• Versatile media handling -- The Color LaserJet 5 printers support letter, A4 and legal-size plain paper, glossy media and transparencies. The Color LaserJet 5 printers are the only color laser printers that support 11-inch by 17-inch black-and-white printing.
• Multipurpose operation -- The ability to print black-only documents without sacrificing speed, cost per page or laser-quality output makes the Color LaserJet 5 printers ideal for users' various printing needs.

The Color LaserJet 5 and 5M are available now through HP-authorized dealers and distributors worldwide. (See pricing fact sheet.) The HP Color LaserJet 5 and 5M printers come with a limited, one-year, next-day, on-site service warranty. Users can obtain additional two-year limited warranty coverage by purchasing HP SupportPack.

Suggested prices for HP products and services described in Access HP are quoted in U.S. dollars and apply only in that market. To check prices and availability in markets outside the U.S., check with your local HP sales office or distributor.