Putra Jaya Komputer (PJK)

With the capacity of USB flash disks getting larger and larger and portable USB hard disks offering hundreds of gigabytes of storage, who would need a portable printer?
If your organizing committee wants a hard copy of your presentation, just copy the PowerPoint file to a USB disk and hand it to them. Give them the name of the file and they will take care of the rest. The good thing is you do not have to worry about your ink expenses.
But there are times that you have to do the printing on your own. If you are in your hotel room late at night, the business center is closed, and you remember that you have to prepare an invoice to be submitted to your client first thing in the morning, you may find yourself wishing you had a printer in your suitcase.
And if you happen to be in an unfamiliar city, would it not be better to have a printout of the map depicting the route to the convention center where you are supposed to give your presentation? Just go to the Web, select the right map, zoom in the right area, print it out and keep the printed map in your pocket.
A portable printer has long been a notebook companion for a lot of road warriors. The early models did not use ink. Yes, you guessed it right, they used thermal transfer fax paper. Of course, the biggest drawback with this kind of printout is that it fades quickly.
A much noisier type of portable printer uses the old dot matrix technology, but this type generally is for special purposes. For example, they are used to print labels, receipts, tickets, etc. They are no good for printing a press release.
For many years, top printer makers such as Canon, Citizen and HP have sold quiet but reliable portable printers. Courtesy of Datascrip, I had the chance to play around with the latest portable printer from Canon, the PIXMA iP100. It is the successor to the Canon PIXMA iP90, which I did not get to test drive.
PIXMA iP100 is a portable photo printer. It can print full page photos without borders. (JP/Zatni Arbi)
Packed in a plastic box with a silver-finish, the CNet Editor's Choice PIXMA iP100 has two ink tanks -- one for the black and the other for the colors.
A unique feature is Canon's Use Composite mode. If you run out of black ink, you still can print black text as the printer has the intelligence to mix the color inks to produce black. To cut down the use of black ink, there is a Save Black Ink mode. The printer prints various sizes of paper, with A4 the maximum.
Like most high-end printers nowadays, Canon uses a technology that it calls ChromaLite 100, which promises that the printouts will last for 100 years. I do not think I will live long enough to verify that the promise is kept. The photo quality is enhanced by the use of Canon's FINE technology, which now has 1,856 nozzles to spurt the ink on the paper. Additionally, one droplet of ink has the volume of a picoliter.
Different technologies have made photo printouts look more detailed and colors more vibrant, but if you still insist on knowing the resolution, the iP100 has a printing resolution of 9600 x 2400 dot-per-inch (DPI).
More interesting is perhaps the ability of this printer to print photos without borders. But, perhaps, the most relevant feature is the speed that Canon claims this printer is capable of.
The company's press release says that it can churn out up to 20 black-and-white text pages per minute and 14 color pages per minutes. A full color, 4-by-6-inch photo takes around 50 seconds. I did not have a stopwatch to check this.
There are three different ways to connect the portable printer to a notebook computer. You can use a USB cable, which I did in my test. There is also infrared connection, which is commonly called IrDA. You can also invest in a Bluetooth adaptor (BU-30), which will enable you to print directly from Bluetooth-capable PDA or notebook. You can print directly from your digital camera or a camera phone without the help of a PC. The printer also works with Macs.
Unfortunately, there is no media card reader and there is no way to add Wi-Fi, either. On the other hand, the Solution Menu application really makes it easy to select the photos you want to print. You can also check the status of the ink in the cartridges, although it only tells you that the ink level is "Adequate".
"Customers are still interested in portable photo printers," Nisyarani, a member of the Datascrip media relations staff, told me.
"During the computer exhibition at the Jakarta Convention Center last month, we ran out of stock. People were even willing to buy this demo unit," she added, referring to the printer unit that I was trying out.
It was rather surprising news, as the price tends to be on the higher end. Without the rechargeable battery, the price is US$248. With the battery, it is $292.
"The battery will enable you to continue working even while stuck in traffic," said Merry Harun, Datascrip's director for Canon division.
A fully charged battery can last for around 450 printouts. There is also an optional car kit, so that you can recharge the battery using the cigarette lighter jack in your car.
The unit weighs around two kilograms. You will need a wheeled bag if you have to carry both this printer and a notebook. The plastic feels a bit flimsy, and I have no idea how resilient the PIXMA iP100 when facing the abuse of regular travel. However, if you are habitually careful with your electronic gadgets, this is a good solution for your occasional -- probably desperate -- printing needs.
Each time you decide to carry your portable printer, just remember to throw in a pair of spare ink cartridges just in case. You do not want to add two kilograms of dead weight in your suitcase -- especially now that airlines are more unforgiving when it comes to excess baggage in light of rising fuel prices