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Printers
Printer prices have been plunging for the last four years. From ink jet to network color laser and beyond, you'll get a better deal today than you did yesterday. The two most noteworthy categories are color ink jet and personal laser printers. In both cases, feature tallies are rising as rapidly as prices are falling.
Laser printer prices have plummeted from $4,000-plus in 1988 to as low as $299, a trend that should continue for at least the next 12 months. Rated print speeds range from 4 pages per minute to as high as 8ppm. These models take up a lot less room than their faster, pricier cousins. Most print at 600 dots per inch.
Price wars, new product announcements and rebates in the color ink jet market are also contributing to the buyers' atmosphere. A single-cartridge 360dpi ink jet can be had for as little as $149, or $129 after rebate. (These produce muddier blacks than a dual-cartridge system, which uses a separate cartridge to produce blacks.) A dual-cartridge printer will cost about $199 for 600x300dpi and $249 for 600dpi. With careful shopping, $250 can buy a 720x720dpi Epson color printer. As an added bonus, many manufacturers are bundling software that lets you manipulate photos, create greeting cards and perform other graphics tasks.
Though ink jet printers' monochrome print quality still lags behind lasers', they're catching up, and next year should bring big improvements.-James Alan Miller
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