All for all-in-one

The emphasis is clearly on increased functionality in office automation products available today

One of the most basic equipment for any office, small or big, is now digital, has more than one function, is speedy in operation, can do loads of work without a fuss - indeed, the photocopier has come into its own.

Photocopiers

When one thinks of copying documents, there's a word some people use instead of 'photocopy' and that's 'Xerox'.

In fact, the company name Xerox has become so synonymous with photocopying, it has been used as a verb over the years with people almost always talking about "Xeroxing" or about having "Xeroxed" something!

But Xerox, the pioneering company in photocopiers, did not rest on its laurels. It developed more and more office automation and document technology products and services to become one of the largest in the world in its class. The range of black and white and colour copiers from Xerox is vast and small home office users to big companies can find the perfect model for their needs.

Xerox black and white copiers start from WorkCentre 415 A-3 digital copier, which is a 15-page per minute (ppm) to the WorkCentre Pro 90, which is a 90-ppm A3 digital copier-printer with 100-page Duplex Automatic Document feeder and comes with Office Finisher with optional hole punching, advanced finishing and professional finishing options. The colour A3 digital copier/printers also start from the DC12 that can produce 12-ppm to DocuColour 3535, which is a digital Copier-Printer-Scanner with 50-page Duplex Automatic Document feeder and can produce 35 pages in vivid 600x600 dpi Photomode.

Olivetti offers a range of copiers and combination products that can copy, print, fax, and scan. Olivetti d-Copia 200 is a copier that has a copy speed of 20ppm, photographic quality printing with the option of erasing borders. With an in-built 32 MB memory upgradeable to 160, it allows the scanning of multiple copies, automatic binding of documents and can memorise up to ten tailored set-ups.

While companies such as Canon, Sharp, Brother and others also have copiers, the trend in small offices is fast shifting to multifunctional systems that can copy, fax, scan and print. Copiers of high capacities are still made for bigger offices but these too have at least printing and email features in them. One such system that can also scan and fax is the Kyocera FS-1020D that offers unbeatable high-tech advantages at a really low price.

Printers

Brother, a market leader in the printing, faxing and digital printing technology for home, SOHO (Small Office Home Office) and medium enterprises, now offers four brand new models that are characterised by higher print speed standards and value-added features. The new HL 5100 Series perfectly matches user requirements. The printers also offer significant enhancements such as faster print speeds in its class, more standard memory, low running costs, automatic duplexing (HL 5150D, HL 5170 DN), standard networking (HL5170 DN), expandable paper capacity and a host of software utilities.

Colour printers from Oki ranges from 12ppm to 30ppm A4. The same printers can print mono colour from 20ppm to 37ppm. The higher the number of pages, the higher is the resolution for colour printing.

Xerox Phaser 3121 is an A4 black and white laser printer, 17 pages per minute, standard paper capacity 250 sheets, 66 Mhz, 8Mb RAM memory, 600 X 600 dpi resolution, GDIi printer, USB printing.

Xerox Phaser 7750 is an impressive A3 colour, laser, network printer with 35ppm colour and black and white, 1200 x 1200 dpi resolution, automatic two-sided printing, standard paper capacity - 500 sheets universal with 100-sheet bypass tray, memory of 384 MB/1 GB RAM upgradeable to 512 MB/1GB RAM, standard 20 GB internal hard disk drive, 10/100Base TX ethernet, parallel USB ports, True Adobe® PostScript® 3 and PCL5c emulation with automatic sensing and switching.

With the advent of digital photography, photo printing has become a major option for printers. Canon, a camera specialist, also offers multifunctional photo printers of high quality. The Digital Photo All-in-One Smartbase MP 700 Photo and MP730 Photo deliver photo-quality printing, copying, scanning and faxing.

Epson, a world leader in printing technology offers a comprehensive range of products for home and office use. There are printing solutions from Epson for printing on paper, screen or glass. For users who want to print their photos at home, there's a range of photo printing solutions such as the Picturemate series. There are also all-in-ones, dedicated ink-jet printers using DURABrite, Ultrachrome and other advanced inks from Epson, which provide high quality and long lasting images.

Fax machines

Olivetti Fax-Lab 450 is a sleek ink-jet fax machine that uses plain paper and is based on Olivetti's proprietary ink-jet technology that is far superior to thermal fax technology. The plain paper fax never fades or gets distorted if water falls on it, whereas the logos, photos and characters on the thermal fax paper fade with time and dissolve in water.

The Fax-Lab 450, with its built-in modem and MMR data compression system, transmits one A4 page in 7 seconds. Its large digital memory can hold as many as 50 pages. It comes with a handy telephone and an electronic phone book for 60 numbers. It can also be used as personal copier providing quality printing, multi-page scanning and zoom.

Sharp FO 5900 is a high-performance plain paper laser facsimile with 1.3 second quick scanning and duplex scan, 16 ppm high-speed printing, super g3 modem for high-speed transmission, 2 mb standard flash memory - giving storage of up to 125 pages, 50-sheet automatic document feeder, personal auto-dial phone books and easy-to-read tilted status display.

Sharp also has thermal fax machines in the FO and UX series in its office systems line-up. Plain paper fax machines from Sharp are stylish, compact and easy to use. FOP600 and FOP510 have convenient 4-point operation keys, use plain paper and allow 15-second transmission.

They are also convenient copiers, have automatic document feeders, 448 KB memory and automatic dialer functions. Other features include 64 level of halftone; antijunk function; help function; header printout; transaction report; automatic fax/phone changeover and 50-sheet paper tray.

The compact and cost-effective Canon FAX-B120 offers excellent quality output on plain paper. Users benefit from exceptional ease of use and a range of productive, time and money-saving features.

The FAX-B140 offers unique voice recognition dialling for automatic sending of faxes and a digital answering machine. Canon's FAX-B180C is made for the smaller office. Being fast and reliable with colour printing functionality, it is everything a small business needs: fax, colour printer, copier and optional telephone. In short, a truly multifunctional fax. Canon also offers several models of plain paper fax machines, which use Bubble Jet technology.

The HP digital sender 9100c series is an innovative workgroup device that converts paper documents into digital information.

Multifunctional systems

Samsung offers high quality multifunctional systems for small and big offices. The new Samsung SCX-4016 and SCX 4216F are multi-functional digital systems that offer high performance with the latest cost-saving features. Sharp FO-2950M offers the 6-in-1 solution for advanced business needs and is a laser multifunction facsimile, fax, printer, copier, scanner, phone, and PC-Fax.

Xerox multifunctional systems range starts from the WorkCentre PE16 that can c