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CES: Noritsu Drops Cost Of Getting Into Commercial Photo Printing

According to the company's VP of strategic marketing Tina Tuccillo, the idea behind the D701 (pictured left) is not only to make it possible for average retailers to get into the business of commercial photo developing, but also to help brick-and-mortar store owners give their customers another reason to visit their shops more often. Relative to the commercial photo printing systems you see in 1-hour developing locations such as chain pharmacies (systems that Noritsu also makes and sells for more than $100K), the D701 costs only $25,000 and, with a 4.63-square-foot footprint, is about the size of a coffee table.

In the attached video, Tuccillo gives me a tour of the D701, which can print to pre-sized sheets (4-by-6 or 8-by-10) or to rolls of paper for printing panoramic 10-by-36 photos. One of the big differences between the D701 and its high-end siblings is that it's a dry-ink printer. Whereas the big one-hour photo printers at the local drug store are typically wet-ink printers that rely on chemicals, the D701 is basically an ink jet. But it's one that uses dye-based ink that Tuccillo says is the key to its industrial strength and quality. Pictures printed by the D701 (shown in the video) looked very good.

Its ink cartridges aren’t your average every day ink-jet cartridges, either. One set (which Tuccillo says costs $400 to replace) should be able to generate about 2,800 4-by-6 pictures. Tuccillo laughed when I said I wouldn't mind having a D701 at home. But think about it. If you print a lot of pictures with your existing ink jet, $400 is a pretty low cost of consumables if it covers you for $2,800. OK, I was only joking. Nobody spends $25,000 on an industrial strength ink jet for their house. But, at that price, retailers might not think twice about putting a photo-developing arrow in their quiver if it also means more customers coming through the front door more frequently. Interested? Here's Noritsu's Web page for the printer and here's the video from CES.

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