Free Upgrade for Zebra Card Printers Can Improve Speed up to 15%
Zebra Performance class card printers are built to deliver reliability and performance for high-volume card production. Now the most popular of Zebra’s card printers—the P330i, P330m and P430i—offer more features and better performance to provide best-in-class card printers. The following enhancements will be implemented via the new firmware and driver (except where noted):
- Improved data download efficiency with USB connectivity, which increases the overall throughput 10-15 percent when printing with full color ribbons.
- Up to 50 percent faster encoding speeds for Smart Card contact and MIFARE contactless options. (Speed will vary based on conditions.)
- Microsoft certified drivers: Windows 7 (32 and 64 bit), and Windows Vista (64 bit). (Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, XP, and Vista (32 bit) are currently supported.)
- Increased standard memory to 20 MB. (hardware upgrade)
The enhancements noted above will be available via the updated firmware and driver shown in the chart below.
Take advantage of these enhancements immediately by downloading the firmware and driver.
| Printer Model |
Firmware Version |
Driver Version |
|---|---|---|
| P330i | 2.00 (new) | 9.00 (new) |
| P330m | 2.00 (new) | 9.00 (new) |
| P430i | 2.00 (new) | 9.00 (new) |
Important Notes:
The new firmware is only compatible with the driver version indicated in the above chart. Please install both the firmware and associated driver. The P330i/P330m firmware does not support the P430i printer, nor does the P430i firmware support the P330i/P330m printers.
Features and Options
Zebra Performance class printers offer a number of standard innovative design features, and encoding and networking options to meet any specific application requirement. Features and options of the Performance class card printers include:
- New printhead (started shipping March 2009), which offers an average life of over 30,000 cards (150,000 panels, YMCKO ribbon), reducing printhead replacement considerably.
- Innovative and highly reliable angled card feeder design that reduces card jams.
- An array of encoding options, including the first-to-market embedded UHF Gen 2 RFID encoder.
- Half-panel YMCKO ribbon that allows the color image to be printed anywhere on the card.
- Five heat tables that are selectable via the driver user interface to adjust the print colors.
- Zebra True Colours i Series ribbons, which provide intelligent media technology.
- 16-character LCD operator display for ease of use.
