Today in Melbourne we are kicking off the Formula 1 Grand Prix weekend with the launch of a multi-function printer from Epson. Ordinarily this sort of business based product wouldn’t grace the front pages of EFTM however this is one worth talking about for a number of reasons.

The team at Epson who invest half a billion dollars in research and development each year have focused some serious attention into business grade printers. One thing we have learned is that what is developed for the big leagues will always make its way into consumer products. Just like in F1, technology cascades into road cars.

The big deal around the latest from Epson and it’s relation to Formula 1 cars include

Fast

Like an F1 car, the new Epson WF-C20590 will throw 100 colour pages per minute from the machine, it’ll store 3000 pages in the tank, so technically it could chew through the entire paper storage in 30 minutes! That’s a heck of a lot of brochures, or a full reprint of the Bible three times.

Consistent

The Epson WF-C20590 does two things insanely consistently. Firstly, unlike Laser printers it will pump out your 100 pages without the heat issue, you can pick them up and not feel the warm hug of a bunch of paper. The other great thing here is that with the dry inkjet technology you’ll get the same quality from page one to the final page out of the machine. That consistency is what matters in the workplace and in F1.

Efficient

Like an F1 car the WF-C20590 uses 84% less power than laser printers. After 1 million prints a laser printer will require over 32 component changes. This is unlike the Epson WF-C20590 which will require zero.

Used by the Professionals

The Epson range is used by serious professionals. Like Mercedes F1 has drivers like Lewis Hamilton making the cars look good on the circuit, the Epson range has people like Ken Duncan using their printers to reproduce prints of his amazing photography. It is that level of trust between the photographer and the printer that is so important, in the same way F1 drivers need the right car.

Lastly,

The one thing highlighted today is not just printers but also in innovation. We had a demo of the Moverio B300 AR glasses being used with drones (which we have covered in the past here) and keeping the line of sight while also seeing through the camera of the drones, very impressive and something we will see released soon. Beyond that, we heard about the use of paper recycling machines that turn printed paper into blank, ready to use paper. They’re in Japan now and coming to Australia in the future. Plenty keeping Epson busy.

 

Geoff Quattromani & Trevor Long travelled to Melbourne and attended the Formula One Grand Prix as guests of Epson Australia – for full details please read our commercial arrangements and disclosures