Printer makes color affordable

Sporting a built-in Ethernet interface, 24 Mbytes of RAM, and a 100-MHz RISC processor, the Phaser 360 color printer from Tektronix costs $3,695. The 800-dpi unit uses solid inks, which users drop into slots and can reload on the fly. Printing rates are 6 full-color pages per minute and up to 5.5 color transparencies per minute--rates the company says exceed those of liquid-ink jets and color laser printers. As an incentive to make the move to color, Tek is offering free black ink indefinitely, which it says will let users create typical color office documents for five cents per page. Another plus: e-mail notification of paper jams, ink low, and paper out. Tektronix Inc.: Product Code 4204