Primera Trio
An incredibly versatile all-in-one considering it weighs 1.3kg, but be aware of the compromises made
SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE primeratrio.eu
L€397 (€476 inc VAT)
from
et’s first be clear what the Primera Trio is not: it isn’t a top-quality inkjet you’ll turn to when you want to print that vital presentation for a client. It isn’t fast. It isn’t cheap to run. Instead, it’s an incredibly convenient portable all-in-one printer that you may well decide to make part of your mobile workforce’s armoury – because, sometimes, only print-outs will do.
Primera has done its utmost to keep travelling size to a minimum, going so far as to create a “stow” position for the cartridge in transit. Lift up the catch, rotate the caddy 90 degrees and it moves from an upright position to lying on its side. That means you can fold down the paper input tray and the lid so that the unit is easy to slip into a case.
You’ll notice its 1.3kg carrying weight, but there’s no need to worry about extra cables. Although there is a power input, this isn’t necessary: you just plug it in via microUSB when you need to connect to your PC, which will keep the Trio’s internal battery topped up. Note there’s no Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, so this printer is very much for partnering with a computer.
Press Print and you’ll get an oddly hypnotic insight into how all inkjets work, as you see the print head shuttle from side to side to build up the page. In Normal mode, it takes around 45 seconds to output a typical colour page, while upping to Best mode increases this to three minutes.
That’s a long wait compared to desktop inkjets, but there’s a big jump in quality between the two modes. The Normal mode here is closer to the Draft mode of a desktop inkjet, with clearly visible bands in solid colours and easy-to-read but wobbly text. While there’s still some banding on solid colours in Normal mode, it’s only obvious if you’re looking for it.
Even in Best mode, though, text from the colour cartridge isn’t as sharp as a modern-day inkjet, which now tend to be indistinguishable from lasers. You can fractionally improve this by switching to the mono cartridge, which boosts the speed to just shy of 2ppm in Normal mode, but feathering around letters is a constant issue.
Perhaps surprisingly, this tiny little device has a couple more tricks up its sleeve, with an integrated scanner at its front. Slide a business card, receipt or full A4 piece of paper into this and then press Scan on the Primera utility that installs with the driver. An A4 scan at the default of 300ppi takes around 35 seconds.
Note it defaults to the American Letter size, which means you’ll miss the bottom of an A4 document, but it’s easy enough to choose between the various options of resolution, output format (including PDF, JPEG and PNG) and location. What you won’t be able to change is the quality, which is only average; scans look fine at 100%, but zoom in and you’ll see blocks of colour suffer from artefacts, similar to high JPEG compression.
Again, though, this is about setting expectations. The Primera Trio is all about compromise, and the fact you can print, scan and copy from a device that’s so compact and weighs so little is quite an achievement. Its closest competitor is arguably Epson’s WF-100 mobile printer, weighing
“The Primera Trio’s closest competitor is arguably Epson’s WF-100 mobile printer, weighing 1.6kg, but that doesn’t scan”
1.6kg, but that doesn’t scan. So if you need to copy documents or produce printouts on work trips, without the hassle of going to your hotel’s business centre, then the Trio is undoubtedly a huge hassle-saver. What stops it from getting a recommendation, though, is that it isn’t a cost-saver: both the unit and ink are expensive.
A standard-yield colour cartridge comes in the box, which lasts a mere 70 pages at 20% coverage. You’ll soon find yourself ordering a high-yield replacement for €59; this lasts for 260 pages, giving a cost per page of aroundz. The high-yield black cartridge costs €54, which translates into around 6p per page if we assume 5% coverage.
Add the printer’s high price (reduced to €399 until 31 August) and you’ll need some compelling business reasons to buy this printer, and you’ll also need to ensure you don’t waste print-outs. So long as you’re aware of its limitations and running costs, however, it could make an invaluable addition to an executive travel bag. 4,800 x 1,200dpi thermal inkjet printer 600ppi scanner up to 3.1ppm print speeds (mono, draft) up to 1.6ppm scans (300ppi)
borderless printing up to 6 x 4in 10-sheet input tray supports Windows 7 upwards and Mac OS X 10.6 upwards 1yr warranty 290 x 165 x 46mm (WDH) 1.3kg