Calling Printer Manufacturers…

Ok you printer companies, I’m really looking for something that no-one seems to be interested in making.

Yes, I fully understand that the biggest part of your business might well be big printers making big labels all day long. That isn’t what most of my company’s customers are looking for though.  

In our markets we are dealing with clients who need to be able to print lots of data and barcodes on very small labels. They are looking for quality rather than maximum inches per second. They need high resolution – 400 and 600 DPI.

Yes, there are printers that meet this criteria – the XiIII from Zebra and the I and H-Class from Datamax for example (although Zebra have never been bothered to make a 400 DPI for some odd reason).

But here is the problem; many of our customers want to move to distributed printing – they want smaller printers located at each workstation where space is limited. They still need high quality and to be able to handle very small synthetic labels.

So where are the small footprint/high resolution printers? Why do the printer manufacturers think that small printers should be little plastic things like the Zebra GK or Datamax E-Class? 

So far the only printer model that comes close to meeting the requirement is the Cognitive CTX range and but this is limited to only 300 DPI.

Hey Datamax – putting a 400 DPI printhead in your new M-Class would be a step forward as well. This would then be a great printer for MIL-STD-130 labeling. 

So what would my perfect printer be for high quality, low volume applications?

I can imagine M-Class mechanics and electrics, 400 DPI, packaged about the size of the Cognitive (7 inches wide x 10 inches deep). The price could be just a little more than the current M-Class. Oh and for printer language it would have to be ZPL or DPL compatible and why not throw in RFID just for good measure!  

Who wants to build it?