It’s rare that news of a printer makes it to Neowin’s front page. There’s a good reason for that, of course: with few exceptions, printers are extremely boring. There have been efforts to change that over the years – printers have morphed into "all-in-one" devices (combining printing duties with scanning, faxing and other similarly mundane tasks), while gaining new features, such as touchscreen interfaces, wireless networking and web connections – but frankly, there’s very little to get genuinely excited about.
As one of the world’s leading printer manufacturers, HP surely knows this for itself. It’s already tried many of these tricks, with devices such as the PhotoSmart Premium, but it’s not prepared to give up on making the humble printer an object of desire and consumer interest. Engadget spotted a teasing reveal of a new Envy-branded all-in-one device – almost two years after it announced the Envy 100 e-All-in-One, with its striking aesthetics and large touchscreen and web-apps.
The new Envy all-in-one (above) looks set to build on the design themes and use of materials showcased in recent notebooks and Ultrabooks such as the Envy 14 Spectre and Envy Spectre XT. The transparent glass lid is undeniably striking, while a glass control panel will continue the trend of touchscreen interaction on such premium devices. Metal design elements are showcased in the scan-bar and the hinge.
The paper tray is hidden, with an "auto-eject" feature mentioned in the slide above; this could mean that the new printer features mechanically retracting input and output trays similar to its Envy 100 predecessor - a bit like the disc tray in a DVD-player or PC.
We don’t yet know when it’s due to go on sale, or how much it’ll cost – but it’ll likely have a premium price tag compared with its more ordinary-looking brethren. If only all printers looked this good.
Images via Engadget