By Edvarcl Heng, CNET Asia
12/09/2007
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/printers/0,39051182,62032106,00.htm

SINGAPORE--At a regional launch event, HP launched 13 new printers and a slew of online and retail print solutions.

Chief among these is the HP Photosmart C8180 AIO printer which is touted as one of the most complete printers in terms of features. While a built-in multi-card reader is now a standard for most inkboxes, the C8180 goes one better with an internal optical drive.

New printing paths

In his keynote speech, Christopher Morgan, senior vice president for HP's Imaging and Printing Group, laid out one of the directions that HP printers will be taking.

"Home photo printing is a big, big focus for us."

To appeal to a larger home user demographic that would include traditional non-tech users, HP has attempted to lower the learning curve of its new printers with the addition of a touchscreen interface it has dubbed the HP Photosmart Express. According to a HP-commissioned research by Doxus, an independent research company, the study claimed that the new interface provides a better printing experience when compared against printers from other manufacturers.

     

New LCD interfaces: D7260, A826, C6280

Wireless wizardry

"Wireless connectivity has become essential in the printing space," said Morgan.

In light of that and akin to Lexmark's earlier campaign to embrace wireless printing, HP's C-series of Photosmarts will have built-in WLAN networking. And for owners of unwired HP printers, the Palo Alto company is offering an upgrade option in the form of a Wireless Printing Upgrade Kit which can set up an 802.11g connection in a plug-and-play environment. According to an HP staff at the event, the kit is compatible with most non-HP printers as well.

       

The wireless pack: D7460, C8180, C7280, HP Photosmart C4385

Fishing in the retail space

HP's photo-sharing and printing site Snapfish also marks its third foray into the Asia-Pacific market with its Singapore launch.

Already available in Australia and New Zealand, the online printing service has made aggressive inroads into the US retail photo-printing space with its low prices. According to HP, Snapfish will roll out in India and China by end 2007 and in Japan by 2008.

When queried on whether Snapfish is intended to be a loss leader in order to price out the incumbents, Bala Parthasarathy, HP's vice president for Online Imaging, said: "Our strategy is to make a profit and we do make a profit. We just have economies of scale, so Snapfish is absolutely not a loss leader at all."