Hendrik Schimmele
URL: www.hjsch.de/?MicroDry_Druck___Printer_%7C_Drucker___ALPS_MD1300
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More Printer Information:
The Alps MD-1300 Photographic-Quality Color Printer gives you smooth, continuous-tone color images and text that rival lab-processed photographs and high-end professional printers costing thousands of dollars more. It's the only desktop printer on the market that combines Alps' proprietary Micro Dry ink with features of the dye sublimation printing process-a technology that delivers what you see in actual photographs. You'll notice colors that blend smoothly into each other and you won't have the abrupt color shifts typical of inkjet printers. The Alps MD-1300 Photographic-Quality Color Printer is a sleek, versatile printer that weighs about ten pounds - but acts like two printers in one! When you don't need true photographic-quality output, a simple change to standard ink cartridges lets you print economical draft proofs and mixed image/text documents up to 1200 DPI. It couldn't be easier to print what you need to get the job done - your way.
The Alps MD-1300 is one of the rare color printers that sells for less than $1000 that isn't a color ink-jet printer. This $549 printer uses Alps MicroDry technology-- a form of dye-sublimation printing. Dye-sublimation printing has been the mainstay of high-end color printers for close to a decade, but the MicroDry system of color cassettes and paper brings the cost per page and ease of use within reach of the home market.
The printer itself is a rather odd combination of charcoal and orange, with a 100-sheet feeder tray. We had no troubles with setup, you simply need to snap in the four-color cartridges (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) into the flip-down tray on the front of the machine, then load the drivers. One warning: To reach the printer's highest photo quality, 1200x600dpi, you need to load a set of photo cartridges (cyan, magenta, yellow, and a special clearcoat) and use Alps photographic-quality paper. At $8 per cartridge, you'll want to keep close track of which set you use to print the kids' homework on.
The Alps delivered beautiful photos, as close to continuous tone (as close to "real life" as a good photograph, because the individual dots of color don't stand out) as we've seen on a printer this inexpensive. In addition, the colors are instantly dry, and are smudge- and waterproof. Even so, there are printers, such as Epson's Stylus Photo 700, that offer nearly the same quality for close to $200 less.
