The product, codenamed the Tigris, has been seven years in development and cost more than 220m ($400m) to bring to market. It is expected to make its debut at Drupa in May.

Described in the initial launch as the Xerox copier/ printer 100 and Xerox 120 relating to the speed per minute of production the machine is geared towards the office and copy shop environments to meet the need for the highest quality monochrome printing in a cost effective price bracket.

Mark Waxenberg, vice president and general manager of Xerox Monochrome Business unit, says: Around 14 years ago we launched the DocuTech 145 and that made history. Now we are here with a new platform in the monochrome sector that Im sure we will be talking about still in years to come.

The new machine is designed to sit between the existing low-end Xerox 2101 and the high-performing DocuTech 6100 series. Built from the ground up, according to Xerox, it uses the same standard toner technology as its other copiers. The key to the extra quality lies in the front end, where the huge amount of pre-press power allows the toner to be laid down in precise amounts on the sheet, in a gentle toner cloud. The image resolution obtained is as high as 4,800x600dpi.