From The Expo Floor - Okidata Attends First MACWORLD, Shows Color Printers

by , 11:00 AM EDT, July 18th, 2002

Okidata, a company one doesn't usually associate with the Mac, is counting this week's MACWORLD show as the first one they've attended. We had a chance to sit down with Robert Shibata, Senior Marketing Manager, to learn about some recently announced Okidata products that specifically address the graphic arts and design industry.

The first is the OKI C9200n Studio Edition, a printer advertised as a complete color printing solution. The technical specifications are pretty impressive, with 21 ppm color or 26 ppm monochrome printing, 600 x 1200 dpi resolution, 192 MB RAM expandable to 1,024 MB RAM, 10/100 Base-T Ethernet networking, a standard 5 GB hard drive, and MonacoEZmatch color matching software, which works under both Mac OS 9 and X.

For those who need a little more horsepower, there's the OKI C9200dxn Pro Studio Edition. This model is similar to the Studio Edition, but comes with 320 MB RAM, has 5 paper trays and duplexing standard, and features an external RIP with iProof PowerRIP for OKI software. The iProof PowerRIP software offers client support for Mac OS 9 now, and Mac OS X in the Fall.

Both printers are meant to fill a "Print on Demand" niche, where people need high quality color output, but can't afford the time and expense of sending out pre-proof and color composite work. They also support "hard proofing" which means that they can emulate another printing device, so you can see what the output looks like on another printer, if you have the appropriate profile available. Plus, they also have straight-through paper paths, which can help eliminate jamming common with wrap-around paper paths.

The OKI Studio Edition is priced at $9,999, and the OKI Studio Edition Pro is priced at $13,499.

The Mac Observer Spin:

Its refreshing to see yet another company attending MACWORLD for the first time.

Okidata