| Portable
Printers
Color Capabilities
Manufacturers of thermal transfer and ink-jet printers now offer
color ribbons/ink for color printing. By replacing the black ribbon
or cartridge with a three color model, some printers can produce
full-color output.
For ink-jet
printers, color tends to be quite acceptable. You will find that
color cartridges do not last very long, but portable models are
acceptable for a few color pages.
Color with
thermal transfer printers tends to be less useful. Most color ribbons
have difficulty lasting even a full page. Even worse, color tends
to be not professional enough for most businesses.
Thermal printers
cannot print in color, since the paper controls the printing process.
Printing Performance
For black and white printing, most portable models can print a maximum
of four pages per minute. In practice, many print at closer to one
page per minute. For color or more complicated graphics, some printers
will require as long as 45 minutes to churn out a full-color image.
If you expect
to print multiple pages at a time, you should pay extra attention
to the sheet feeder and battery performance.
Sheet feeders
can hold anywhere from 5 to 80 pages. They allow you to avoid the
hassle of feeding paper manually one sheet at a time. When examining
a feeder, make sure you can feed more than just full-sized sheets.
The best feeders will also handle envelopes or transparencies.
The performance
of the printer's battery also plays a critical role in the usability
of the printer. Most printers use Nickel-Cadmium (NiCad) batteries.
These batteries can print up to 90 pages, and can typically be recharged
while still in the printer.
A few models
use Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries, which can print as many
as 250 pages but take more time to recharge. In some cases, you
may need to buy an external fast charger to effectively use an NiMH
battery.
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