Xerox ColorQube Desktop Solid Ink Printers Debut

By Nathan Eddy  |  Posted 2010-10-20

Print solutions specialist Xerox announced the release of two solid ink color printers, the ColorQube 8570 and ColorQube 8870. The ColorQube 8570 starts at $699 and is designed for small businesses that need to make an impact with high-quality color. Priced at $2,499, the ColorQube 8870 offers pricing plans that reduce color page costs: Customers who print high volumes pay only for the amount of color they use on a given page.

A solid ink printer or multifunction printer uses solid sticks (or blocks) of no-mess, non-toxic ink instead of toner or inkjet cartridges. These feature Color by Words, a color-editing tool, Adobe Postscript3 and PANTONE color-approved simulations and advanced color matching capabilities and 2400 FinePoint image quality. 

Green benefits of the ColorQube 8570 and ColorQube 8870 include Earth Smart print driver defaults for two-sided printing, proof print, recycled paper and draft mode, an Intelligent Ready feature that learns usage patterns and moves to low-power mode when the printer is least likely to be in use and GreenPrint software that automatically highlights unnecessary pages such as those with only banner ads or logos, prior to printing.

An internal Xerox study found that the ColorQube 8870 uses 30 percent less lifecycle energy and has a carbon footprint that is up to 30 percent smaller than comparable desktop color laser printers. The results were primarily driven by the design of the solid ink printer, which does not require a cartridge for the ink, according to the report. "Due to this fundamental difference in technology, the solid ink printer produces less waste in the customer environment, uses less energy, and contributes less to global warming than a similar laser printer over its life cycle," the report concluded.

Earlier this month, the company introduced the WorkCentre 7545 and WorkCentre 7556 color MFPs (multifunction printers), starting at $19,398. The MFPs come equipped with advanced security features including hard disk encryption, image overwrite to electronically "shred" data, fax isolation to prevent unauthorized access to data and network authentication to restrict access to scan, e-mail and fax features.

Four green benefits of the WorkCentre 7545 and WorkCentre 7556 include Earth Smart print driver defaults that can be set to include two-sided printing, sample print, no banners and 2-up printing, Xerox's Emulsion Aggregate Ultra Low-Melt toner and induction heat fusing that reduce equipment energy use and an LED scanner that consumes one-third less power than traditional scanners.

The printers also offer a host of productivity features, including walk-up print and scan USB port located on the front of the MFPs, scan to network, mailbox or PC to automatically route documents to a predefined file for fast retrieval text-searchable files to find and search scanned documents and the company's EIP (Extensible Interface Platform) technology to design customized workflow applications.

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