On A Business trip: Don’t Forget These Gadgets

It so often happens that we leave for a business trip and then realize later on that what if I had been carrying this gadget or that gadget.

Gadgets are mostly fun but some of them are pretty essential and ideally you should not forget them.

We would today discuss a few of these gadgets.

Mobile Printers

When your business involves lot of paper work, printers are the one thing that you would not like to miss on a business trip. Additionally if you are carrying your own mobile printer you would be sure that there is no chance for security errors to creep in and compromise your purpose.

While selecting mobile printers just ensure that you select a compact model but without sacrificing any speed.

EyeWare

A Video eye ware can be really handy when you are on a business trip. You might need to play some files in private and review secret data or simply you might not want others to peep into what you are watching. Just connect them to your laptop and enjoy.

They look pretty cool too.

Global travel Plug adapter

It is highly likely that the country you might be visiting uses different types of power plugs than what are used in your country. Also most of your gadgets need different type of plugs to work on and surely you would not want to get in a situation where in you find you electronically working gadgets of absolutely no use.

Remember time is money is business. The more prepared you are the better it is.

Xerox – The Verdict

It took a cool 30 seconds though, to warm up before its first printout and after that it took approximately 40 seconds to print 10 sheets of text in draft quality. For documents which have fine print, the ‘Darker Text’ option proved to be quite helpful, making that text more legible.

This printer is a good choice for those whose machines have USB 1.1 ports.

No point going in for this printer when you have a faster USB port on your system.

For: Very responsive. The printer design is simple and does not take up too much space. There are no extra add-on rays­makes for simple installation.

Against: The warm up time can be quite high when used infrequently- up to 30 seconds. It supports the older USB

Xerox Phaser 3120

The Phaser 3120 is a lot like the 3130 featured last month in our ‘Top Gear’ section. The difference is in the memory size which at 8 MB is less than in the 3130. Besides, it only supports USB 1.1 while the 3130 supports 2.0. The 3120 also offers a lower resolution printout- 600×600 dpi.

This printer does not come with any sort of add-ons other than the toner, which you need to insert into the printer. Hook it up, install the drivers and you are good to go.

The 3120 is compact and houses a paper tray which can hold up to 250 sheets. There is also a manual feed slot through which the device can eat one sheet at a time.

The paper clamps are of good quality and they can be adjusted easily when you use pa pers of various sizes. This printer will print on transparencies too.

Canon Laser Shot The Verdict

As the number of pages on the plastic output tray (which by the way, is at an angle and longer than necessary) increases, it does not allow the papers to stack up comfortably.

Besides this, there isn’t much to complain about-its performance is quite faultless-it doesn’t take much time to warm up for its first print and prints 10 text pages at 300 d pi and normal setting in just 41 seconds.

For: The printouts are fast, even for image-heavy documents. The warm-up time is low, especially when it is not used over time.

Against: The machine comes along with add-on trays and covers. The paper tray sticks out at the rear and when you are strapped for space, this is quite nice

Shot in the dark

The Canon Laser Shot LBP 3200 looked nice and compact when it arrived. But as expected, it came along with trays that needed to be attached to it. It is simple to set up, no doubt, but some of us would just like to hook the printer up quickly and start printing! The Quick Start Guide is a great help for someone who is new to this.

The tray that needs to be added to the printer sticks, holds the paper and extends outwards uncomfortably from the rear of the machine by about 3 inches. Then comes another piece of molded plastic which covers this tray! Not much help when you do not have space. Two plastic flaps guide the paper out of the printer onto the foldable output tray. When the paper comes out of the printer, they keep the paper down so firmly that it bends tremendously from the center.