HP Announces Industry-First MFP to Simplify Mobile Print for SMBs
By Marlene Orr, Senior Analyst, Printers/A4 MFPs, February 18, 2014
The office is not static; business environments continually evolve and so do the workers in them. While mobile devices as part of daily workflow is a trend in the office that is here to stay, mobile printing has not historically been easy, presenting challenges for users and IT departments alike. To further meet the needs of business users looking for simplified mobile printing, Hewlett-Packard (HP) today announced the first Mopria-certified print device, the Color LaserJet Pro M476, targeted to SMB customers needing an affordable color MFP with enterprise-level mobile print capabilities.
HP Announces the Industry’s First Mopria-Certified Print Device
What is Mopria? The Mopria Alliance is non-profit membership organization of leading global technology companies with the shared goal of aligning the mobile, software and print industries with a common set of standards that make printing universally compatible from any mobile device to any printer anywhere. (For more news on Mopria, check out the article on Solutions Center.) As the industry’s first Mopria-certified printer, the Color LaserJet Pro M476 series meets the established global standards for delivering simple wireless printing from smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, regardless of brand. As such, the series begins shipping to customers in April 2014 with embedded print support for Android-based devices (a Mopria print plug-in Google KitKat/Android 4.4 OS will be available March 2014).
Designed for workgroups of three to 10 users, the Color LaserJet Pro MFP M476 series is available in three configurations (the “nw” with wireless and manual duplexing, the “dn” with automatic duplexing and wired network connection and the “dw” with duplexing and wireless) and replaces the LaserJet Pro 400 Color MFP M475 series. The new M476 series offers higher toner yields (4,600 pages for black and 2,700 pages per color, up from 4,000 pages for black and 2,600 pages per color on the previous generation) and advanced mobile print capabilities, including standard NFC/WiFi Direct integration on the “dw” configuration.
Other enhancements not found on most competitive devices in this class include a standard 50-sheet DSPF to scan both sides of a document in a single pass, which contributes to faster scan speeds and reduces wear and tear on originals, and LDAP support that not only simplifies entering email addresses at the panel by accessing the corporate mail server, but also provides added security by requiring users to authenticate at the device. The unit features a 3.5” touchscreen display that provides simple access to cloud-based applications, such as HP Flow CM Professional, Box and Google Drive.
Stay tuned in the coming months for additional coverage on this series, including a full lab test report on the Color LaserJet Pro MFP M476.
Republished with permission from Buyers Laboratory LLC (www.buyerslab.com). ©2013 Buyers Laboratory LLC
