Color For The Road

Tom Thompson

If you happen to be on the road with your trusty color PowerBook and you need to knock out a full-color document for a client, whom are you going to call? Now you can have your color files and print them, too, with Apple's Color StyleWriter 2200 (priced at $419). This portable color ink-jet printer prints at resolutions of 360 dots per inch and can accept plain paper, medium-weight labels, #6 and #10 envelopes, and transparency film. It measures in at just 2.2 by 11.8 by 6.2 inches and weighs in at just over 3 pounds (4.2 pounds with the battery attachment).

The printer takes only a few minutes to set up and consists mainly of clipping either a black- or color-ink cartridge into the print-head assembly. A storage case holds the ink cartridge when you travel with the printer. The printer connects to a PowerBook via a serial cable. Several floppy disks contain the printer-driver software and 19 additional TrueType fonts.

Printing speeds are determined by two factors. First, the more gutsy the PowerBook's processor is, the faster the driver generates the page image. For best appearances, you'll want to have your application generate page images at 144 dpi or better, which means more data must be shipped to the printer. This, in turn, slows the printing process. But the wait is worth it: Color output is gorgeous and rivals the output quality of the Hewlett-Packard 1200C ink-jet printer.

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Have Your Color And Carry It, Too

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For quality color in a portable package: the Apple Color StyleWriter 2200.