As a color printer device that has received the most attention in recent years, the RISO HC5000 actually met with a large number of users as early as the end of 2003, but it really caught the attention of the public, but it was held at the drupa exhibition in 2004.
Although it is not the first single-channel inkjet printer, it is the first inkjet product to offer a combination of features, performance and price advantages. When this product was exhibited at Drupa, its maximum speed could reach 110 pages per minute, making it the fastest and at the same time the world's fastest single-sheet digital color printer. Before that drupa show, we also saw a number of single-channel digital color printers, such as the Kodak Versamark and Agfa Versamark, but they all use a continuous paper supply method, although this will make them faster. Higher than RISO HC5000, but the cost is much higher than the latter. RISO has proven that inkjet printing and single-channel engines are the future direction of digital color printers. Compared with the multifunctional multifunction machines and light production printers commonly found on the market at that time, the RISO HC5000 can achieve similar quality costs on non-coated paper, but its operating costs are much lower than the former. In 2006, RISO replaced the original HC5000 color printer with a higher quality and faster upgrade product, the HC5500.
Recently, RISO has also enriched its ComColor product line with a number of new models. This new product has a total of five models, including low-end products with a speed of 90 pages/minute and a price of $25,194, and top-tier products with a speed of 150 pages/minute and a price of $46,194. Although these new printers will not replace the current HC5500 color printers, it is difficult for us to find better features on the HC5500 than the ComColor series printers. The ComColor 7010 has a speed of 120 pages per minute and is priced only about $1,200 above the HC5500. However, the former is more compact, more productive, and it can achieve one page of printing. In addition, double-sided printing is faster and has faster drying black ink. ComColor uses a new print head that is different from the HC5500 and therefore achieves higher print resistance.
This may sound wonderful, but there are some limitations in RISO's products. One of the most important is that their print quality cannot compete with the quality of inkjet printers such as the electrostatic image printers of the same price and HP CM8050/8060. In addition, although the speed of RISO ComColor printers is much faster than that of the above models, since they use oil-based inks, they cannot be printed on coated paper.
RISO claims that they have succeeded in the sales of HC5000 and HC5500 products, and sold a total of 1,800 such devices in the global market, of which 600 were sold to the United States. RISO has many interesting sales channels, including Kodak, which sells HC5500 printers for them. The company's Versamark printers also belong to the same product list and are more suitable for short-run transactional printing. Although great progress has been made, sales of RISO printers still cannot be compared with the equivalent price of electrostatic imaging printers.
The emergence of the ComColor product line may change this situation, it is very competitive, and has been adjusted according to the needs of the digital printing market. In terms of product distribution, RISO is currently collaborating with Objective Lune and Prism to sell typesetting software, and Pitney Bowes has also signed an agreement with them to sell the HC5500 printer.
In the not-too-distant future, these new ComColor printers may be threatened by HP's plans to introduce light-duty production printers, and these printers are highly likely to adopt the full-scale printing technology (Scalable Printing Technology) that has been commonly used on HP printers. At present, most of the latest inkjet technologies are found in multi-channel home office and display image printers and high-speed single-channel continuous feed printers, and the emergence of the new ComColor printer proves to us that inkjet printing can also be used in light production. in. Of course, this market is still dominated by electrostatic imaging printers produced by Canon, Konica Minolta, Ricoh, and Xerox.
