BY IKE SUAREZ Correspondent

Epson Corp. has released the Epson Stylus Pro 7700 (24 inches) and Epson Pro 9700 (44 inches) large format printers, as it seeks to serve the printing needs of retail and service industries, architectural, interior design, and engineering firms, and educational institutions.

The printers’ introduction announced recently at a press briefing at the CAV Wine Shop, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City.

Epson Philippine Corp. senior General Manager Ed Bonoan told reporters that the new models had been optimized to provide accurate reproduction of architectural drawings and color presentations, engineering plans, spatial data maps and attention-grabbing point-of-sale displays.

Bonoan also added that with the new large format printers, their vendor firm would now be venturing into a new market segment. In doing so, it would seek as robust a performance there as it presently does in the segment it dominates, the pre-press market segment in the Philippines where he claimed their company holds 70-percent share.

Bonoan said the new printers’ main talking points would be their use of the Epson Ultrachrome Vivid Magenta Ink and the Epson Micro Piezo Thin Film Piezo print head technology, both proprietary to their company.

He said the formula for the Epson Ultrachrome Vivid Magenta ink is the latest generation of this technology for pigment ink. Utilizing four colors, including dual black ink; it is a high density resin coated formulation highly favored by graphics arts professionals. As such, it would enable printing of high-resolution architectural plans, highly precise engineering drawings, extremely photographic GIS mapping output and brilliant display signage.

On the other hand, the Micro Piezo would be inkjet technology in contrast to printers by other companies, which use thermal inkjet technology. Bonoan said this proprietary technology would assure color consistency over longer print runs.

Bonoan further said that both printers would have USB.2.0 and Ethernet connections and would support Windows, Macintosh and HDI platforms. Information kits provided reporters said the Epson Stylus Pro 7700 and Epson Stylus Pro 9700 models would cost P166,000 and P278,000 each, respectively.