Dell Rolls Out Laser Printer and Vostro Desktop

Dell takes aim at small businesses with large printing needs and, in the process, creates a new category of Dell printer. That’s according to Orlando Lacayo, the company’s global product manager for laser printers. The hardware in question, the 3330dn, is a black and white laser priced at $599.

The 3330dn falls between Dell’s mainstream and performance lines of lasers. The differentiators consist of pricing and features including, said Lacayo, a print speed of up to 40 page-per-minute and a hefty duty cycle – the number of pages per month the printer is designed to handle; in this case, 80,000.

“It’s a robust printer, and by that I mean the gears, motor and paper trays are built to withstand the rigors of printing 4,000 pages a day without any issues,” said Lacayo.

However, according to a Dell spokeswoman, “Though 4,000 pages a day is technically correct (the printer can do 80,000 pages maximum duty cycle), the recommended duty cycle is between 1,000-6,000 pages/month.”

Lacayo added that the 3330dn also provides a lower cost-per-page than lasers in Dell’s mainstream category. Typically pricing for a Dell laser in the mainstream category starts in the $300 range, and the cost per page comes in at 1.8 cents, whereas the 3330dn yields a cpp of 1.65 cents, said Lacayo.

“This is an affordable, general application laser that’s suitable for small companies with large printing needs such as invoicing, legal documents, reports. It would also be an ideal printer for companies in the health care industry,” he added.

In addition to the print speed and duty cycle, the general application printer also features standard duplexing (double-sided printing), secure printing capability (i.e., you can send a job to the printer but it won’t actually print out until you’re at the printer and enter a password via the LCD panel (a useful feature when printing confidential documents) and Ethernet, USB and parallel port connectivity options.

You’ll find detailed tech specs here, and the Dell 3330dn laser printer plays well with the following systems:

  • Microsoft Windows Server  2008, 2003, 2000
  • Microsoft  XP 32bit/64 bit, 2000, Vista 32bit/64bit, Windows 7
  • MacOS: (OS 9.2 and OS X 10.2-10.6)
  • Unix( PS PPD for Sun Solaris 8,9,10.0)
  • HP UX
  • Citrix Metaframe Presentation Server 3.0 & 4.0 (compatible) and 4.5 (certified)
  • SAP
  • Novell NetWare: 5.1, 6.x
  • Linux: Ubuntu 8.10, 9.04
  • Debian GNU/Linux 5.0
  • RH Linux 3.0,4.0,5.0
  • WS SuSE Linux 8.0, 9.0, 10.0
  • SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 11
  • SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11
  • OpenSuSE 11.1

And in Other Dell News…

The Vostro family of small business computers just got a bit bigger with the addition of the Vostro 430, a mini tower desktop that Dell describes as “future-proof, power-packed” and “optimized for Windows 7.”

The Vostro 430 includes the newest Intel processors – the Core i5 or the (optional) Core i7 and discrete video graphics from Nvidia and ATI. The systems also feature pre-installed video conferencing software, dual-display support and multi-touch technology (think remote collaboration possibilities), which plays into the Windows 7 optimization capabilities such as pinch-to-zoom and tap-and-drag scrolling. Do note that you’ll need to buy a touch-screen monitor and a Webcam to take advantage of that technology.

Other expansion and connectivity features include:

  • One terabyte hard drives for up to two terabytes of internal storage
  • 10 external USB ports and four total PCI/PCIe expansion slots
  • Optional Blu-Ray Disk drives for data storage
  • PS/2 and serial ports for legacy devices
  • Dell 19-in-1 Media Card Reader (Optional)

Pricing for the Vostro 430, which is available now, starts at $699.

Lauren Simonds is the managing editor of SmallBusinessComputing.com

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