The New HP B9180 13x19 printer WOW WOW

[sanking]

Mr: Ted Harris: Well I did somelooking around and found the following information:

#1=HP-B9180 is $624.95 and has 8 cartrages@31.95 each:#H38

#2=Epson# R 1800@$549.00[Rebat$50.00] has 8 cartrages@11.95 each

#3=Canon #PIXMA Pro 9000@426.99 [rebate$100.00] has 8 Cartrages$11.95

Why In anybodys name would I want to spend ,$125.00 more over epson and $197.96 over canon and HP their inks are $20.00 more?

since I am looking at getting a 13x19 printer and to me Money talks and everything else walks! so what does HP have and does better than the other two:
Respectfully:
Mr.Lauren MacIntosh

The comparable Epson printer to the HP B9180 is the 2400, not the R1800. The R1800 with the Epson ink set is vastly inferior to the HP B9180 for monochrome printing. You could set the R1800 up with Piezography inks if monochrome printing is what you want, but for printing both monochrome and color the HP B9180 has it all over the R1800.

Also, the HP ink cartridges contain 27ml of solution. Just curious if you know how much ink the Epson cartridges hold? I believe the HP inks may be more expensive than the Epson inks but not by as much as your figures suggest. And even if they are a lot more expensive they rate much higher that the Ultrachrome ink set for stability.



Sandy King

[Jeremy Moore]

I myself am scratching my hair as to the difference of the R1800 and the R2400

The 1800 uses dye inks while the R2400 uses pigment inks. Dye inks are much less stable thank pigment inks in terms of permanence.

[Jeremy Moore]

Also, the HP ink cartridges contain 27ml of solution. Just curious if you know how much ink the Epson cartridges hold?

Sandy King

I want to say the Epsons have ~15mL of ink in each cart if I remember from when we popped one open to measure a while ago.

[Kirk Gittings]

Very Interesting.... I just received an email from HP customer support asking me what my issues are with the Z3100 and Z2100 printers. Of course I don't even own an HP printer and that is what makes this communication extremely unusual. I have simply been cautioning people on this forum about buying one because of numerous postings of issues with the Z3100 on Luminous Landscape. It appears that they are monitoring the various forums and being very proactive about these issues. I find that very impressive. I can't imagine any other large company doing this. Cudos.

[Jim Jirka]

Jeremy,
The 1800 uses pigment inks.

[Jeremy Moore]

Jeremy,
The 1800 uses pigment inks.

Yep, you're correct, Jim. It's just the new Epson 1400 which uses the dye inks... my mistake!

[audioexcels]

So how are these printers being discussed compared to a print off of a mega-buck Fuji machine? I know the biggest print a Fuji can make is something like 12X16?, but say we compare even an 8X10 print of a Fuji Frontier and one from the HP, will their be a difference? Is one better than the other? If the HP is clearly superior to a Fuji Frontier, I'd have to put my money into one...

Thanks for any advice!

[Gordon Moat]

I don't think it would be possible to define better, when comparing a continuous tone (chemical) print to any inkjet print. While inkjet can simulate continuous tone, it will always appear slightly different than a chemical print.

With a home inkjet system, you are the step in the quality chain. A lab running a Frontier (or Durst, Chromira, LightJet, et al) is only as good as the people running the equipment. In other words, a poorly run high dollar chemical printing machine can give poorer results than a well run home inkjet system . . . these machines have too much adjustment range; money spent is not a guarantee of quality.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio

[Ron Marshall]

So how are these printers being discussed compared to a print off of a mega-buck Fuji machine? I know the biggest print a Fuji can make is something like 12X16?, but say we compare even an 8X10 print of a Fuji Frontier and one from the HP, will their be a difference? Is one better than the other? If the HP is clearly superior to a Fuji Frontier, I'd have to put my money into one...

Thanks for any advice!

This is what West Coast Imaging says about inkjet versus Chromira:

http://www.westcoastimaging.com/wci/...loruploads.htm

[Bruce Watson]

So how are these printers being discussed compared to a print off of a mega-buck Fuji machine? I know the biggest print a Fuji can make is something like 12X16?, but say we compare even an 8X10 print of a Fuji Frontier and one from the HP, will their be a difference? Is one better than the other? If the HP is clearly superior to a Fuji Frontier, I'd have to put my money into one...

I've got an image that I had printed by my local prolab on their LightJet (Kodak endura paper, semi-gloss finish). I printed the same image on an Epson 2200 (at least one generation behind the HP B9180 printer). I used the custom ICC profile supplied by the lab for their LightJet (they said they make a new profile for every batch of paper). I used the generic ICC profile supplied by Hahnemuhle for an Epson 2200 printing on Hahnemuhle photorag (a smooth matte paper).

The image in question has, among other things, vivid emerald green leaves (spring time), wet (it was raining), and at dusk. The dark green certainly puts a hurtin' on the gamut. I adjusted saturation of the image file to put the dark greens on the edge of the gamut for the respective printer/paper.

The results were surprising. I fully expected the Lightjet to win, if nothing else because of the glossy paper and the custom profile. Yet, the Lightjet print was fairly dull and lifeless while the Epson print is fairly lively, and certainly had better dark greens. This is especially true in the lighter and less saturated parts of the prints, which was really surprising to me.

So... I don't know how you define "superior." But I suspect that inkjet printers exceeded the gamut of photopaper printers a while ago.