Zebra ZXP Series 3 Card Printer for Smart Card Applications Announced

Zebra Technologies announced the new ZXP Series 3 card printer. Available in the first quarter of 2011, the ZXP Series 3 extends Zebra’s card printer product line with a new model that combines performance and affordability in a small footprint ideally suited for most card printing and encoding applications.

The ZXP Series 3 is unique to the card printing market, employing several advanced features that provide best-in-class performance at an attractive price point. The ZXP Release 3 ZRaster host-based image processing technology takes advantage of the increased processing power of today’s PCs to significantly optimise image and print quality while increasing overall print speed throughput. This permits greater sophistication in image optimisations without sacrificing printer speed or adding cost. Additionally, new Zebra high performance card ribbons employ an improved chemical formulation specifically designed for fast high-quality image printing. Zebra is first to market with the new ribbons, which provide more efficient dye transfer and greater durability under printing conditions. Both these innovations work together to provide better image quality and faster throughput without compromising reliability or cost.

“Customers are looking to deploy card printers in a variety of applications, but they expect these printers to print faster and more realistic images,” said Richard Powlesland, EMEA product manager, at Zebra Technologies. “With the ZXP Series 3 we are introducing a printer that delivers on the promise of high speed printing, brilliant image quality, enterprise networking features and full encoding capabilities – all in a compact, easy-to-use package.”

The ZXP Series 3 is a full featured, high speed card printer ready to be integrated into standard ID card and access control applications. Its compact size makes it ideal for deployment in educational institutions and retail outlets for ID card, gift card, loyalty card, or membership card applications. The ZXP Series 3, with its added security and encoding features, also offers an affordable yet fully featured printing solution for the secure issuance of financial cards. The ZXP Series 3 includes the following features that set it apart in the market for a wide variety of card printing applications:

• Affordable on-demand card printing: ability to print direct-to-card full-color or monochrome, single- or dual-sided cards.
• Standards based smart card encoding: PC/SC and EMV standards compliant smart card encoding over USB and Ethernet.
• Secure financial card issuance: EMV certified encoding, increased security features such as a mechanical lock to secure the top cover, card input hopper, obscured input and output hoppers, and PC/SC encoding over Ethernet for financial instant issuance card printing.
• High-Performance Load-N-Go ribbons: new ribbons specially formulated for better print quality at faster speeds.
• “Green” ribbon cassettes: green-aware ribbon cassettes built with environmentally friendly plastics without sacrificing the ease of media loading. Available in Q2 2011.
• Ease of integration: full-featured SDK making it easy to integrate with a wide variety of enterprise card printing applications.

Effective from the launch of the product in 2011, the ZXP Series 3 will be included in the Zebra QuikCard ID Solution bundle. The QuikCard ID Solution bundle includes everything needed to create and print ID and other types of cards, including a ZXP Series 3 printer, CardStudio card design software, a Web camera, ribbon and blank cards.