DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, 21 July 2008 - HP recently reinforced its commitment to understanding its customers and delivering imaging and printing products that anticipate their needs at the HP Laboratory Masterclass - Real World Printing event held in Dublin Ireland.

At the event, HP demonstrated how innovation based on a deep understanding of customers' habits and desires informs its consumer and small business imaging and printing portfolio.

HP's top technologists and engineers discussed innovation in printing mechanisms and ink and paper and mobile printing, giving an exclusive insight into future HP technologies and revealing its line-up into 2008 and beyond.

"Everything we produce - from the paper feeder to the entire printing system - is designed around an understanding of how people print.," said Amr Hassan, General Manager, Imaging and Printing Group, HP Middle East. "At HP Laboratory Masterclass we demonstrated to press during this event the role of HP R&D and innovation in creating world-leading printing systems that inspire customer loyalty." 

Innovation delivers ease of use

Keeping the customer in mind when designing its consumer and home office printers and supplies, HP makes every model easy to use by including features such as colour displays - including touch screens on some models - and a new, highly intuitive user interface.

Recognising it's often the details that improve the printing experience, HP has included auto-engaging photo trays to make printing even more effortless, plus it's now even quicker and easier to print 10 x 15 cm and 13 x 18 cm photos with dedicated photo trays.

Many of HP's new printers and mid to high-end all-in-ones carry individual ink cartridges, with print resolution up to 9600 dpi, so customers get superior print quality and can easily replace only the colours that run out.

New in 2008, the HP Deskjet D2563 Printer and HP Photosmart F4283 All-in-One feature new HP 300 ink cartridges with HP Vivera inks, offering laser-quality black text and vivid graphics with water- and smudge-resistant properties.

The new HP Photosmart D5463 Printer includes the new 5-ink printing system with HP 364 individual ink cartridges, producing stunning photos and laser-quality text. This printer series includes a 3.8 cm colour display, memory card slots and an auto-engaging photo tray. It will also print photos and text directly onto CDs and DVDs.

WiFi printing takes over

WiFi networks are growing in popularity all across EMEA. HP WiFi printing is becoming the link between the online and offline world in the wireless home. HP has used its extensive knowledge of networks to create embedded WiFi that is easy to set up and use in models such as the HP Photosmart C8183 All-in-One.

Inkjet for home offices

HP inkjet now means business. A new range of HP Officejet products has been designed to save money for micro-businesses and home office users over price-equivalent lasers while delivering superior print quality. With new HP Officejet high-capacity inks, business users can print at a cost of up to 50% less per page than lasers. With laser-quality text and vivid, high-quality colour, the new HP Officejets are perfect for producing in-house marketing materials.

The new HP Officejet J4580 All-in-One and the HP 901 Officejet ink cartridges create high-quality colour documents and offers convenient printing, copying, faxing and flatbed scanning in one device.

HP ink technology boosts quality

New inks for HP consumer and home office or small business printers are constantly improving the quality of everyday inkjet printing, both for photos and documents. Even our low-end printers now produce exceptional print quality with new dual-drop technology. The technology increases the available colour gamut for images, producing drops as small as 1.3 picolitres, so a 5-ink printing system can produce photo-quality prints comparable to 6-colour inkjet printers.

Photos aren't just more vivid and true-to-life, with the new system customers get fast-drying prints with improved water and smudge resistance when using HP Advanced Photo Paper. The ink also has exceptional long-lasting fade resistance. With the addition of pigment black inks, customers will get laser-quality black text on plain paper, and enhanced document quality when using papers with the ColorLok logo.

The HP 364 ink cartridge is an innovative 5-ink printing system that delivers enhanced image quality and leverages the value of individual ink cartridges. This new HP printing system, debuting in the new HP Photosmart D5463 printer, offers customers image quality comparable to 6-ink printing systems with the rich black graphics and text that are a hallmark of HP three- and four-ink systems.

High capacity cartridges reduce printing costs

Everyone prints differently. People that print a lot can take advantage of the cost-savings provided by HP's new XL high-capacity cartridges. For example, optional HP high-capacity supplies can provide three times more black and two times more colour pages than standard supplies when used with HP Deskjet printers.[1]

-Ends-

About HP
HP focuses on simplifying technology experiences for all of its customers - from individual consumers to the largest businesses. With a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure, HP is among the world's largest IT companies, with revenue totaling $110.4 billion for the four fiscal quarters ended April 30, 2008. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at www.hp.com.

About HP Middle East
HP is the largest technology and solutions provider in the Middle East with 1100 employees and subsidiaries in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Cairo, Ramallah, Qatar, Oman and 2 service Joint Ventures in Kuwait and Bahrain servicing the GCC, Egypt and the Levant. HP has been present in the Middle East since 1968 and opened its first regional office in 1994. HP Middle East is the market leader for enterprise, small and medium business and consumer technology products and offers a large portfolio of solutions and services in various business domains.

More information about HP in the Middle East is available at www.hp.com/me  

To register for regular news update please visit HP Press lounge on www.hp.com/me/press  

[1] Compared to HP standard cartridges. High-capacity cartridge not shipped with printer, please purchase separately.

Press Release 2008