• PC World
• »Peripherals
• »Printers

Seiko Epson will put two color laser printers aimed at small businesses on sale globally within the next two months, the company said at a news conference in Tokyo this week.

Both machines are designed to be compact but with enough functionality to appeal to small businesses wanting to upgrade from relatively inexpensive ink-jet and monochrome laser printers, according to Seiichi Hirano, director and chief executive of Epson's Imaging and Information Products Division.

The decision to ship the models to the U.S. in particular is a new move by the company, as it tries to convince small businesses and people who work at home that they can afford to switch to multifunction laser color printers, Hirano says.

Both models have scanner functions and both come with Ethernet and USB 2.0 connectivity, the company says.

Two Models Available

The LP-A500 is 18.1 inches by 18.5 inches by 23.2 inches and weighs 68 pounds, while the LP-A500F, which has a fax function and comes with an automatic document feeder, stands about 1.2 inches higher and is about 4 pounds heavier.

Both models can print five A4-size one-sided color copies per minute, or 25 one-sided monochrome copies, the company says. The maximum printing resolution for both models is 600 dots per inch (dpi). Per-copy costs are about 14 cents for each single-sided color print and 2 cents for each monochrome print, according to Epson.

Prices for the machines, which go on sale in Japan this Friday, will be about $1647 for the LP-A500 and $1921 for the LP-A500F. Prices for the U.S. market will be lower than those for the Japanese market because price competition in the U.S. is particularly severe, Hirano says.

The company plans to initially ship about 5000 units per month, it says.