Lasting images - Alps Electric's Alps MD-4000 micro dry printer/scanner - Hardware Review - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, May, 1997 by Joey Latimer

Alps MD-4000

Micro Dry Printer/Scanner

RATING: ***

If you're tight for desktop real estate and only need half of the functions of a multifunction unit's printer, copier, scanner, and fax machine, then your prayers have been answered. The Alps MD-4000 MicroDry Printer/Scanner combines these two useful office functions into one footprint the size of a typical ink-jet printer. Unlike ink jets, however, the MD4000 uses an entirely different printing process to put color on paper. With four ribbons (black, cyan, magenta, yellow), the MD-4000 pulls the paper through four times, each time adding a different color by fusing dry ink onto the paper. When a print job is complete, there is no possibility of it smearing or fading over time, according to Alps. We found this to be true even after exposing printouts to coffee, water, soda, and extended sunlight

Capable of printing at 600dpi in color and 600 by 1,200dpi in black, the MD4000 is excellent for preparing presentations and final prints. We wouldn't recommend it for outputting high numbers of text pages due to its slow speed and functional limit of about '60 pages per color cartridge (which cost about $6 each). The 600dpi color prints took as long as 30 minutes, whereas full pages of text at the highest quality often took over a minute each.

We were impressed by the scanning capabilities of the MD-4000, but it was not without problems. To scan photographs, you first have to insert the image to be scanned into a clear plastic envelope, then insert the envelope into the back of the unit where printing paper is usually fed. Full-page color scans took 15 minutes or longer to process (compared with 30 seconds when using the Epson Expression 636, a four-color flatbed scanner), and the results sometimes contained flaws due to dust, hair, and other particles adhering to the plastic envelope. The colors, however, were always sharp, vibrant, and rich.

The MD-4000 is a high-quality machine capable of excellent presentation-quality color and black-and-white prints, as well as accurate scanning. Because it's encumbered by its slowness and short ribbon life, however, we wouldn't recommend it as an allaround office machine but rather as an add-on for preparing final reports and presentations.

MD-4000

Manufacturer: Alps Electric (USA), 408-432-6000, 800-825-2577, www.alpsusa.com

Est. Street Price: $700

Requirements: Windows 3.1 or higher, 8MB of RAM, a printer cable; Mac-compatible version sold separately