All change!

The third quarter of 2007 closes this September after a shake-up in the specification and positioning of dye-sub models from several leading manufacturers. The big news has got to be the positioning of some models at a new price point of around £700 ex vat. During the first half of the year Kodak and Sony more or less inadvertently established this price point through the trade-in deals www.photomart.co.uk ran for them, offering Kodak's 6850 and Sony's UP-DR150 6x8" printers at just £700 if you had an old or competing dye-sub to trade-in against them. Now three manufacturers are positioning some 6x8"/6x9" models permanently at a lower price point, with no strings attached. They are Kodak with their new 605 printer, Mitsubishi with their venerable CP-9550DW, and ICI Olmec with their most excellent new OP1000 print box. All these manufacturers also position other models at the old c.£1,000 price point. Mitsubishi has their new and long awaited CP-9800 (finally a Mitsy as fast as the competition!), and Kodak and Olmec leave their 6850 and OP900 machines at the higher price point. So what differentiates the c.£800 offerings from the c.£1,000? In the case of Mitsubishi and Kodak, the cheaper machines are their slower models. Kodak's new 605 printer is essentially a much lighter version of their 6850 model (though running at a slower speed) in a new, more attractive housing. Mitsy's successful CP-9550DW event printer may be sliding down to a lower price point to make room at the top for their long awaited full-speed CP-9800. And Olmec's new OP1000 box sheds the industrial-strength heavy-duty overbuild of its OP900 sibling, but is actually faster.