Unique business needs demand uniquely suited ID card printers. It can often become confusing trying to pick out the perfect brand and model to match your card printing requirements and deliver exactly what you need. That said, there are some printers, such as the Fargo HDP5000, which have distinguished themselves in a variety of ways.

Notable Features

• Quality Image Printing: This printer offers best-in-the-class High-Definition technology, with more vivid and saturated colors on each card. Being a reverse transfer printer, this machine prints right up until the edge of each card, as opposed to leaving a small white border the way most direct-to-card printers do. One pro of this is that it lets you ensure the printhead does not touch the surface of the card at any point, which can be crucial in cases where the latter has smart chips, wires, or antennas embedded inside.
• Suitability to Wide Applications: Whether you have a proximity card, a magnetically encoded card, or a smart card, this printer can handle whatever you throw at it. It is a retransfer printer capable of putting out a range of cards including membership cards, gift cards, and access control cards. While other retransfer printers cost a lot on the rendering of each card, HDP5000 holds things inside a decent budget.
• Added Security: The layer of film that is applied on the card’s surface during printing is effectively an extra layer of protection and security. A would-be counterfeiter trying to peel this off would simply destroy the image, and be left with nothing they could work with. There are also options to add special overlays to step up card security.
• Dependability and Endurance: This printer can render medium as well as high volume printing operations, and as such, last between 6 and 10 years under fairly regular use. This is a piece of equipment, that lets companies stay abreast with the best in the game.

Industries Where the Fargo HDP5000 Shines

The markets where this printer model has shown itself to be the most useful include the following.

• Government agencies
• Higher education
• Healthcare
• Service bureaus
• Retail

Recommended Printer Upgrades

One thing this printer assures is that you do not need to worry about your needs growing beyond its capabilities anytime soon. It can easily keep up with your growing card printing requirements with well-chosen upgrades, many of which can be added as field-upgrades. That last bit means you would not need a technician to come and look at something so minimal. Below are some of the upgrade options this model comes with.

• Lamination: This is a great way to make your cards last a lot longer. You may want just one side of the card laminated, or both; the HDP5000 lets you do either based on what you ID card program needs. Holographic images can be added too, in case you need to boost security by a couple notches. Each of these options is open from the time you buy this model.
• Wi-Fi: If you are far from your workstation, or are off-site for some reason, and still want to use your card printer, Wi-Fi connectivity on the go can help tremendously. This lets you achieve a level of flexibility that is almost synonymous with efficiency.
• Dual-Sided Printing: When buying a single-sided printer, you limit your printing possibilities to a half of what is actually possible in this day and age. That said, there is always a way open with models such as the Fargo HDP5000, which can be upgraded to dual printing.
• Encoding: This feature is one of the smartest ways to raise security on a card while holding operations inside a relatively modest budget. Multi-use cards with this feature can be integrated into other systems, allowing for seamless functioning on the security front.

When to Trade in your Existing Printer for the Fargo HDP5000

If your current ID card printer has the following problems, it is probably time you went and bought something more robust and feature-rich like the Fargo HDP5000.

• Continual crashes, and faulty functioning: Neither of these is good for a busy office with tons of other work to get done. If your card printer acts up of puts out subpar prints, you should start looking at newer, better models to replace it with.
• Was discontinued, and is no longer getting firmware updates: Older printer models can fast become obsolete, to the point that getting them to work on the same pace as most other models becomes a chore in itself. If its manufacturers to have abandoned the model you own, that should be taken as a sign that you should be moving on to a better, sleeker, stronger, and faster machine.