Dell claims world's fastest colour office printer

Dell's 5130cdn has duplex and gigabit Ethernet as standard

Dell has rounded out its printer line-up with two new colour models for business, one A4 device claimed as the fastest of its type in the world, and the company's first A3 colour model.

Available immediately, the Dell 5130cdn is a workgroup printer capable of producing up to 45 pages per minute in either colour or mono, and includes network interface and duplex print capability as standard. Prices start at £799.

The Dell 7130cdn, meanwhile, is available from 8 December and is the first colour A3 printer from the company. It is aimed at buyers requiring high-quality output for in-house printing of brochures and other media, according to Dell. For this reason it is Pantone colour approved, as well as having network and duplex capability built-in at £1,959.

"We now have a fairly complete line of printers, from low-end USB mono personal printers, up to A3 and fast A4. These models essentially complete our range," said Stephen Burt, Dell's European imaging business manager.

Burt added that the printer side of the business is proving a success with Dell customers, as companies are often "looking for a single throat to choke" on IT provisioning.

Dell claims that the 5130cdn is the fastest colour office printer in the world, but Burt does not expect the new model to retain this crown for very long. Performance is important for workgroup printers, he said, as users do not want to wait for other print jobs to finish.

The decision to introduce the 7130cdn A3 model was based largely on customer feedback, according to Burt.

"We listen to customers, and A3 colour is what they said they were looking for," he explained.

But customers also want reliability, and the 7130cdn can support a maximum duty cycle of up to 150,000 pages per month, while the 5130cdn supports 110,000.

The 5130cdn has a standard paper capacity of 550 sheets in its basic 'desktop' configuration, but can be fitted with a further 550-sheet drawer and a 1,100-sheet drawer and floor stand. An all-in-one finisher that can staple and stack printed output is a further option at £1,249.

The A3 7130cdn comes with a 600-sheet drawer as standard, with a high-capacity three-drawer 1,500-sheet feeder and stand available as options.

Both printers are capable of resolutions up to 1,200 x 1,200dpi and feature gigabit Ethernet interfaces as standard. They will be available direct from Dell and via resellers.