Printer Out of Sync With Its Promise

You can synchronize almost every file on a Palm device to a PC or Mac, but wouldn’t it be nice to be able to print once in awhile?

The $149 SiPix Pocket Printer A6 seemed make this possible--except it doesn’t work.

At about half the price of a rival device from Pentax Technologies, the Pocket Printer prints on a 4-by-6-inch sheet of thermal paper. Thermal printing uses paper designed to bring out images and text when heat is applied. The quiet process can handle fonts and graphics, but it’s not always as crisp as an inkjet or laser printer.

Initially, the Pocket Printer A6 seemed like a dream device. It’s small and light. Carrying the device is easy. A well-written manual accompanies the device, offering suggestions on how to operate the printer, which uses AC power or four AA batteries. The printer communicates with devices through infrared or serial cable, though the latter would not work out of the box with a Palm.

The manufacturer includes a CD-ROM with printing software for notebook computers and the Palm operating system. I installed the Palm software on my test unit--a Palm-based Handspring Visor Pro--with no hassles and added the printing option to my major applications. Open a contact or a memo or an appointment, click the menu icon and a print option would appear.

What wouldn’t appear--despite dozens of tries--was anything in print.

I’d line up the infrared ports of the Visor Pro and the Pocket Printer A6 about as close as possible, or even a short distance away. The Palm software would, about 40% of the time, see the printer and offer to send a document over. But once I clicked OK on the print menu, the software would either hang up, saying it couldn’t recognize a printer, or send the data without printing.

Because the Pocket Printer A6 is designed to work with notebook PCs as well, I tried the device on a laptop running Windows 2000, another operating system for which it was designed. Again I’d line up the ports, but here, too, communication would fail.

The Pocket Printer A6’s price, weight and stylishness commend it at the outset. But the product simply didn’t work in repeated tries across two computing platforms. Forget it. Sometimes, bad things come in small packages.

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Mark A. Kellner is a freelance technology writer and hosts “Mark Kellner on Computers” at https://www.adrenalineradio.com from 5 to 6p.m. Thursdays. He can be reached at mark@kellner2000.com.