Technology & You: BULLETIN BOARD: PRINTERS

COST-CONSCIOUS COLOR

If you've wanted a top-quality color printer for your network but balked at the $10,000 price tag, your wait may be over. With a list price under $5,000, the new Phaser 340 from Tektronix (503 682-7377) uses a crayon-like solid ink to produce beautiful color output at four pages a minute. Color laser printers, whose prices start at around $7,000, can turn out black-only text at high speed. But the Phaser 340 is really only practical for color work. A text page takes as long to print as a color graphic, and the waxy gloss that makes the color output more vibrant than the laser's muted tones can be distracting on straight text.BY STEPHEN H. WILDSTROM