InfoPrint printers make it easier to control eco-features

When you create products that encourage people to use a precious natural resource, paper, and that also spend more time sucking up energy in an idle mode than in actively doing their job, you'd better come up with some smart ideas with respect to eco-product designs.

That's one reason that printer company InfoPrint decided to include a feature called Eco-Mode on the latest models of its workgroup products. InfoPrint is a joint venture of IBM and Ricoh.

All of the new InfoPrint color models, introduced in May and ranging in price from $707 up to $2,470, come with this feature. Basically, this is a repackaging of many features that were actually already available in InfoPrint products: They're just presented in one place to its easier to find and use them. So, you can do things like turn off the backlighting on the LCD, launch quiet mode and so on, from one console area instead of having to guess about what you can do. The new printers also default to double-sided printing, which saves on paper.

The new models are listed and described in this press release; they range from the InfoPrint Color 1834, which is a workgroup model for 10 people or less, to the InfoPrint Color 1866 multifunction printer, which comes with a hard drive and workflow features.