Tektronix Threatens a Show Stealer

During this review, Tektronix showed me a prototype of its Phaser 540, a color laser printer with features and pricing that will compete directly with the three printers I review here. The base configuration comes with 20 MB of RAM and a 32-MHz RISC processor. It supports Adobe PostScript level 2 and HP PCL5 (Printer Control Language). The unspecified print engine uses a direct-to-drum technology, as does the engine used by HP. Tektronix claims a rate of 3.5 pages per minute for 300-dots-per-inch color and 14 ppm for black-and-white pages.

The Phaser 540 features imaging in both 300-dpi continuous-tone color and 600-dpi dithered color. Extra RAM raises continuous-tone color resolution to 600 dpi. Tektronix achieves continuous tone by modulating the intensity of the laser beam, not just its duration, which i s the usual trick for boosting image resolution. You add toner by sliding four color-coded cartridges into the printer.

Sample continuous-tone output at 300 dpi was remarkable (see the figure above): I strained my eyes to see just pixels, because the usual clumping of pixels in halftone patterns was absent. Tektronix expects the Phaser 540 price to be under $9000. Based on this price point and the quality of preliminary output from this printer, expect Tektronix's Phaser 540 to grab a chunk of the color laser desktop market when it ships sometime this month.

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Figure: Tektronix Phaser 540