Market for portable printer?

[WanderingOak]

With the iPhone coming out soon, and several other 'smart phones' on the market, I am wondering if there might be a market out there for a portable, bluetooth enabled, consumer grade 'car printer' that would be about the same size as a small paperback book. There are already ruggedized 'field printers' out there for UPS, etc, but they start at about $500.00 and go way up from there. These units are professional grade and are designed to be used for up to 10 hours between charges, etc. I am thinking more of a smaller, less rugged unit that would be powered through a powerpoint in the car, rather than a battery, that would sell for less than $200.00. It would be used for printing out driving instructions from Google Maps (in B&W perhaps), for example. I know that the iPhone itself is portable, but there are times when a hardcopy would be useful. Does anybody think that there might be a market out there for such a device?

[aussieNickuss]

I remember quite a few years ago, Canon had a portable inkjet printer that ran on batteries or 12v power, but I haven't seen them since. It was a bit more than the width of an A4 sheet of paper and a few CM's thick.

Theres tons of small portable bluetooth photo printers out there now days but they rely on AC power and they're in the $100-300 range. I'm guessing, if you were really keen, you could rig up an AV inverter which takes your 12V power and converts it to 110/230V. Alternatively, if you were smart with electronics and didn't mind voiding your warranty, you could alter the printers power supply to run directly off the cars power.

[WanderingOak]

Originally Posted by aussieNickuss

I remember quite a few years ago, Canon had a portable inkjet printer that ran on batteries or 12v power, but I haven't seen them since. It was a bit more than the width of an A4 sheet of paper and a few CM's thick.

I remember seeing those back in the mid-90s when I had my first laptop. I thought about buying one, but I was a starving sailor in the US Navy at the time, so all I could do was look.

Originally Posted by aussieNickuss

Theres tons of small portable bluetooth photo printers out there now days but they rely on AC power and they're in the $100-300 range. I'm guessing, if you were really keen, you could rig up an AV inverter which takes your 12V power and converts it to 110/230V. Alternatively, if you were smart with electronics and didn't mind voiding your warranty, you could alter the printers power supply to run directly off the cars power.

Those printers are about 5x larger than what I am thinking of. This is closer to the size of my idea. Not much larger than a TomTom or an iPod, so it can fit in the glove box of your car (for example), and provide a mobile road warrior with a hardcopy of whatever he needed. I'm not sure if I would go with thermal technology, as cars tend to get a bit hot in the sun, though...

[Matthew4682]

Maybe they'll be a market in rural places, but in urban places where you can just print from Kinkos/Fedex, etc., I don't think it will be all that necessary.