Personal PrintPartner. (Fujitsu's DL3600 PrintPartner)
by Jill Champion
Fujitsu's DL3600 PrintPartner is a 24-wire dot-matrix printer and software bundle designed primarily for small businesses, corporate departments, and home offices that need a single printer to do the work of several office machines.
Combined with Fujitsu's Zip-Type, Creative Faces, and DLMenu software, the DL3600 emulates the font handling of a PostScript printer, the color capabilities of a thermal transfer printer, the functionality of a wide-carriage dot-matrix printer, and the most useful features of an office typewriter.
ZipType is a pop-up utility for creating templates that make filling out common office forms a snap. ZipType also has a typewriter mode in which the printer responds directly to keyboard indstructions, so you can use the printer as a typewriter to complete other forms, labels, and documents not programmed as templates.
DLMenu allows you to configure and reconfigure printer setup conditions from your computer--without exiting your current application. Creative Faces, offered free with the purchase of a color upgrade kit for the DL3600, is a Windows 3.0 driver that allows you to print charts, graphs, and other graphics in seven colors.
The wide-carriage DL36000 prints up to 360 cps (characters per second) for drafts and 108 cps for letter quality printouts. It accepts both continuous-feed and cut paper; handles four-part forms up to 16 1/2 inches wide--with exceptional last-copy legibility; allows automatic paper loading, first-line printing, and top-of-form tear-off; and includes a paper-parking feature.
Optional single- and double-bin sheet feeders for pre-loading different cut paper stocks are also available. The DL3600 boasts an 8000-hour MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) reliability rating and comes with a two-year warranty--one of the longest in the midrange class of printers.
Bundled with ZipType and DLMenu, the PrintPartner package lists for $949 and includes coupon offers for a free copy of Creative Faces with the purchase of a color upgrade kit, two free font cards with the purchase of a cut-sheet feeder, and a two-for-one offer on black ribbons.
For more information on the PrintPartner package, contact Fujitsu America Computer Products Group, 3055 Orchard Drive, San Jose, California 95134; (800) 626-4686.