What do ink jet printers have in common with cell phones? I'm Fred Fishkin with Bloomberg Bootcamp. Sign a contract for wireless phone service... .and you get a pretty sophisticated phone dirt cheap... sometimes even for free. These days... some top notch ink jet printers are selling for under a hundred dollars. The manufacturers are making their money... through ink cartridge sales. One example... is Epson's sub-one hundred dollar Stylus Color 777. Product manager Rodrigo Catalan says it brings high end printer technology... into the home... .

"It's based on the micro piezo technology that we use in all of our high end professional color graphics and proofing machines. The micro piezo technology is what allows us to deliver 2880 DPI. When you factor in that high DPI number with an extremely small droplet, you come out with some really stunning color quality."

I've been impressed with the reliability and output of Epson printers for years. But I've often wondered why the prices of ink jet cartridges in general are so high, usually more than twenty dollars apiece. Catalan says...

"We use clean rooms to package our ink and to create our inks. Clean rooms that rival those of Intel and some of the microprocessor chip fabrication companies."

The 777 works with PCs and Macs using either parallel or USB connections. You can find more information at Epson.com. Bootcamp, I'm Fred Fishkin, Bloomberg Radio.