From: dave@Cigna.COM (Dave Good)
Subject: Re: comments on hp laserjet 4m & sun's newsprinter 20 sought
Keywords: hp laserjet sun newsprinter sparc
Organization: Cigna FIRST - Irvine, CA
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 19:02:32 GMT

In article <51604@seismo.CSS.GOV> dsc@seismo.CSS.GOV (David S. Comay) writes:
>
>we are looking at purchasing either a hp laserjet 4m or an newsprinter 20 from
>sun for use on our network here.  most of the jobs consists of printouts from
>various mac applications (framemaker, macdraw, word, photoshop), the sun
>(framemaker, splus) and other miscellaneous jobs (troff, plain text, window
>dumps).  the above two printers looked attractive to us primarily because of
>their cost, but each also has certain advantages - the laserjet supports 600
>dpi, but this really isn't an issue with us, while the newsprinter 20 promises
>high speed and large paper sizes, but it does mean partially tying down a
>workstation somewhere.  the most important things we are looking for is speed
>(especially with graphics oriented programs, or mixed graphics & text) along
>with the ability to handle fairly memory intensive jobs (our existing printers
>often run out of memory while rasterizing some printouts).  one concern of
>ours with the sun printer is how reliable is newsprint in rasterizing jobs
>from real world applications from the mac, framemaker, etc.
>

The HP has several advantages over the Sun printer, mainly because of the
inadequacies of the SnoozePrint(tm) software:
    - SnoozePrint will more than "partially" tie down a printer unless you
      can afford to hook it to, say, a SPARCstation 2 (or 10) and don't need
      to use that workstation for any real work.
    - The SnoozePrinter can't be connected directly to your network (the
      HP can with an optional JetDirect card)
    - FONTS! The HP can use standard Type 1 Fonts, which are widely available
      for (relatively) low prices.  SnoozePrint requires F3 fonts, of which
      there are only a few sources, and they cost mucho big bucko (2-3 times
      the cost of the same Type 1 font).
    - HP has an extremely good reputation for their printers, and has been in
      the business for over 5 years.  Sun is just getting into the printer
      business, and if the SPARCprinter is any indication, they may not be
      in the business much longer.
    - HP maintenance is dirt-cheap and extremely good.  4-hour response 
      (at least in my area) is only $384/year.
    - SnoozePrint sometimes gets confused while rasterizing.  Figuring out
      how to fix it is problematic, and usually we just reboot the workstation
      it's connected to.

We had a LaserJet 4 in for evaluation (we ended up buying a IIIsi for its
speed and capacity) and were quite impressed with it.  On the other hand,
we have a SPARCprinter that's sitting on a shelf gathering dust.  We've also
used SnoozePrint on some Talaris T2090s, and desperately wish we could get
out of our 3-year lease on these and buy some more HP IIIsi's.

Of course, these opinions are mine alone (and also that of my co-worker)
and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employer. (Although we
are planning to buy more IIIsi's and may just let the Talaris' gather dust
until the lease expires)


-- 
David Good                                                  dave@cigna.com

                 This space intentionally left blank.