Opinions of Z5200 and/or Z5400

[deanwork]

The software support for the Zs is the worst in the business. The other thing they failed at was promoting the technology after the first year. They trotted out some great engineers the first year, and then they were gone. I rarely meet an artist or photographer who is not a printing specialist who has ever heard of a Z3200. They are not running any ads in any magazines to attract artists and photographers, not doing anything useful on the web, and equally stupid is they never show up to the tech shows or the photo educational conferences. Duhhh... It's like they went out of their way to keep this amazing ink a secret or something. It boggles the mind.

And the website! Don't get me started on their website. It's like there are 100 people managing that site and they all hate each other. You need a to devote a couple of hours to finding something and then when and if you find it, half the time there is some glitch in being able to download the file, or it's been removed or something. This is one of the largest tech companies in the world, and one of the oldest, and they can't design a functioning website. It's gone on for at least a decade like that.  Stuff like this is just amazing. They should look at the Epson website, it just works, you're in and you're out in 5 min. They should have a website just for the printers, and keep all the damn bean counting sales people away from it. Imagine how much good will that alone would produce.

John

We only use genuine HP ink here as well. The hardware has been fine. Prints are beautiful but software is spotty.

jim

[Mark Lindquist]

So really, John, there's not much, if anything I would disagree with what you have said.  The first iteration - the Z3100's were fantastic.  They brought out all the big guns - designers, color technicians, everything, and called upon great photographers and printers for input (weren't you involved?), and created one of the best printers in a long time.  This is underscored by how long the very same printers have been in production, with generally interchangeable parts, and the aforementioned (in other previous responses) fantastic attributes that make the Z Series printers unique and exceptional.  All that being said, many of the parts used to create this phenomenal printer are cheap and IMO poorly chosen (such as power supply fan, etc.) and the carriage belt, and on and on.  Still, in all, we put up with this because of the inks, the printheads, and the spectrophotometer, and abilities to print on numerous papers quickly and easily.
It is a pity that the software is what it is today.  IMO it is a miracle the printer and the inks are still available today given how easy it would have been for HP to sImply abandon it.  I hope they will continue, and I hope they will enable the Z series machines to evolve so that we can benefit from a long legacy of excellence.  Change is inevitable, however, and change is definitely in the wind.  In my opinion, HP should press on with the Z's, accomodating professional printers and photographers if only to keep skin in the game.  They don't need it or us, let's face it.  But it definitely is to their advantage to keep that momentum going.  And it doesn't take much to do so....

[John Nollendorfs]

Hey Mark,
Did HP give you a lovely golden parachute when you retired? They should have kept you on and could have tripled their sales! ;-)
 
+1 for all the words about the Z printers. I keep wondering what I'm going to do when my Z finally gives up the ghost? I like Canon for their replaceable heads, but don't like their price for the heads. I have not heard anything compelling about any of the new Epsons, so I don't think I would go down that road again.

Keep my fingers crossed that this old Z3100 goes for another five years, beyond the 9.5 that it has served me so well. BTW, I took down a bunch of my old carts to Office Depot/Office Max, and they gave me $2 store credit each for up to 5 carts each month!!

[namartinnz]

I totally agree with what everyone has said here. Having first used the Z3100 then going to the Z3200 I've found it be on the whole a very reliable and easy to use printer. I did like the step up with the Z3200 when they fixed the poor red ink in the 3100, changing to Chromatic red. May well it live long and prosper!

Neal

[deanwork]

A lot of these Z printers are in Fedex-Kinkos and Office Depots now here in Atlanta. It's kinda overkill for them but they like em because they don't have to teach people to do nozzle checks and head cleaning. And they rarely need service. They are always just ready to go and you don't really need any experience to do decent bw either. Every university photo art department should have a few of them, but guess what, none of them do because HP never promoted it. Maybe they will in the future. They are quite interested in designers, and edit promote that, but if they aren't careful Epson is going to take that away from them too.

[shadowblade]

HP could easily own the low-volume and private photographer/artist market if they wanted to. They have by far the best product for the job - the Epson models are really geared towards large-volume, constant printing, while the Canons are somewhere in-between. And it's potentially a huge market. You can own a self-profiling, largely maintenance-free large-format printer, capable of printing photo-quality, extremely long-lasting prints on whatever medium you choose, with an integrated cutter, for around the same price as a good (non-sports-model) full-frame camera. It would be a worthwhile investment for anyone who sells prints.

But management at the executive level has been abysmal and lacking in vision for the past decade - almost on the same level as IBM delaying entry into the desktop/microcomputer market by decades because it was 'just a fad' and 'no-one needed a computer at home.'

[Mark Lindquist]

I agree that they could own the market - my thoughts exactly (and thoughts that were clearly expressed.).
Trouble is when compared to the major realms that they are mostly involved in, with the new latex printers, etc., and given current "photo print" market shared being split by Canon and Epson, it's "what market? to them imo."
They really don't have anything to prove. And the bottom line is king as it has been ever since the blip on the radar (the Z Series printers.)

Frankly, I'm surprised that they are even continuing to do anything with it at all.  They don't need it.

At one point there was a perception that digital photography/printing was going to dominate.  Well it did, but so what.
The size of the market which is the indicator for all things feasible for a company like that is the whole story.

I have urged them to at least keep their hat in the ring and not abandon the loyal fans of their printers.

If they come back in for future development, it will be in a BIG way, or not at all.

We've seen what not at all looks like.

But then again, their machines and their inks are still here.  Thank goodness they haven't changed any of that.

[deanwork]

I kind of agree with both of you guys. HP sees it as a small market overall, AND it is a potentially BIG market if they marketed it and supported it as such. It wasn't a small market for Kodak, even when they were competing with Agfa and Ilford and even Fuji.

HP made an amazing product and never promoted or advertised it after the first 6 months so/ it never caught on, except for guys like us who went to PhotoExpos or frequented these forums. Ask a typical art student in a major school, like here at Savannah College of Art and Design about the Z series, and they will say Z what? Even their instructors don't know anything about them, and I do work for some of these people and have talked to them. They use all Epson because Epson courts the hell out of them and always have.

I have a question for you Mark, when is the last time you opened a magazine of any kind and saw an ad for a Designjet Printer of any kind?

Like you said, they aren't even trying to market to the general photo buying public or schools or ad photographers or anyone really. Even if you went to their own website it would take you an hour to find anything about their high-end photo printers. They should be on a separate website. Most of the big digital supply houses no longer even carry their ink, much less their photo printers.

We are living in a time when everyone wants to be a photographer and they are not spending millions for all these new cameras that come out every six months just to put things on Facebook. Someone is going to print them somehow.  It is a very big market. Might as well be on a printer that is the easiest to use which makes easy bw and prints that last longer than anyone else, while using far less in than the competition, huh? Why aren't the Vivera inks in high-end desktop units of various sizes ?  Lots of questions. Maybe they are gong to come out with something soon.

[shadowblade]

The logical thing would be to come out with some home- and prosumer-sized 13" and 17" roll- and sheet-fed models first, to reintroduce people to HP inks and printers. Sell them at a competitive price and they'd sell thousands, particularly if they could include a feature (say, a cutting/trimming blade) that would give it a compelling edge over comparable Epson and Canon models for the average user (i.e. not just current HP users, who tend to put a big premium on longevity). Ease of use and easy maintenance won't necessarily be enough to sway the home user. This forms the base of users, and commonality of parts and economies of scale will drive down overall costs, over just having large-format models that sell in far smaller numbers. After securing the base, release the big guns, in 24" and 44" models.

There was a time when HP was competitive with Epson and Canon in the small-format photo printer market. The HP B9180 was up there with the best of them. But they lost that base, once they abandoned the small-format inkjet market to concentrate firstly on large-format models, then on fast-printing, non-photo-quality commercial models instead. They need to reestablish that. It's as if Canon didn't sell any cameras other than the 1Dx and 5Ds lines, and Nikon sold nothing except the D5 and D810 lines - they wouldn't get very far.

The key thing is to keep the clog-free, cheaply-replaced heads and the longevity of the inks. Fiddle with those and you've lost the main reasons for going with HP in the first place. Inbuilt cutters/trimmers and spectros would also be very attractive features, although not mandatory - the last thing low-volume printers want is to spend extra money and add extra steps to their workflow trimming and calibrating new papers (whereas a print shop might print roll after roll of the same paper, and have separate printers for different papers and canvasses, a lone photographer or graphic artist might print each work on a different paper, for optimal presentation).

[kers]

The logical thing would be to come out with some home- and prosumer-sized 13" and 17" roll- and sheet-fed models first, to reintroduce people to HP inks and printers. Sell them at a competitive price and they'd sell thousands, particularly if they could include a feature (say, a cutting/trimming blade) that would give it a compelling edge over comparable Epson and Canon models for the average user (i.e. not just current HP users, who tend to put a big premium on longevity). Ease of use and easy maintenance won't necessarily be enough to sway the home user. This forms the base of users, and commonality of parts and economies of scale will drive down overall costs, over just having large-format models that sell in far smaller numbers. After securing the base, release the big guns, in 24" and 44" models.
...

with the Z3100 they came up with the consumer HP9180 - an A3+ printer- i have got 3 of them here...
they use the same ( but only4) printheads and ink as the Z's

Although they are "build like a tank" they are far less reliable and easy to use as the Z's. ( only one of the three is working as it should)
They have not so good software and you need to manually clean the heads more often. Also the little cartridges make them expensive in use or even when not in use. They seem to use too much ink when not in use. ( i calculated 200-300€ a year)
So with this in mind they will have to address these problems first before going to the consumer market again with a new model....

[Mark Lindquist]

All of these ideas were discussed, so many in fact, it brings back a lot of memories.
Seems like everyone has a love/hate relationship with the company.

I did discuss a table top 13-17" printer, and it was a suggestion that they could own the market if they did the things bandied about in this thread.

But perhaps one most important thing, IMHO, is sheet feed loading on the Z3200.
BTW, it was my view that they just improve or add to the existing Z3200, create some accessories and continue with much the same model.
I shudder to think what would happen if they jumped back into it full force with both feet and came up with a brand new model which would include new and fewer inks.

That, it seems, would be more likely than to continue fiddling with the Z 3200's.

One of the things they could do to make the Z3200 24" and 44" machines function better for photographers would be to add a self loading paper tray that could be sold as an accessory.  The last batch loading paper tray I have seen was on the Epson Pro 4800 - one of the best things about that printer.
It was very easy to do a run of 20-25 sheets using that loadable paper cassette.  Editions, books, portfolios, you name it, that would do it all.

So I was asked to do a quick sketch of the cassette concept and I did do that and sent it out to them.
Remember this is only a concept  sketch - just a starting point.

First of all, it is based on Ernst Dinkla's method which he shared with me, long ago, of loading paper from the back, on top of the roller, or on top of a roll that is rolled up and sitting there. Since using Ernst's method, I rarely have any sheets that won't feed.

So I sent drawings - just quick sketches and crossed my fingers, and hope they might do something with this in the future.
Since it would be an accessory, it could be used on any model.  But that's my idea, doubt it would be theirs, since there are so many issues retrofitting.

At any rate, I did this gratis, hoping they will perhaps embrace the idea. One other idea I had was to make the front panel LED reversible so that it could be accessed from the back.  And yes, there was a lot of discussion about front loading paper, which really should be a no-brainer since we already have the "paper move" function that rolls paper in or out.

Again, we'll just have to wait and see.  For my money, I would just as soon see a re-tooled Z3200X rather than a Z3300A with new ink and new features.
Complain as we all do, it's still the best printer out there for a lot of people and seems a no-brainer to do at least one more run with it.

Remember, the sketch is a concept sketch - by no means anything serious. We discussed a lot of things.  If just some ideas are used, it would be great.

Mark

[Mark Lindquist]

I have a question for you Mark, when is the last time you opened a magazine of any kind and saw an ad for a Designjet Printer of any kind?

I guess the question would be:  "when is the last time you opened a magazine", LOL.

Point(s) taken, however.

[deanwork]

I opened Art In America today, but I know what you mean 

But it seems like every time I make an order for my media supplier it get one of the big gloss brochures of the Epson or Canon line. I never saw one of those from HP. When HP sends me any email is is about some cheap computer or something, never the highend products.

I agree with Mark, I would rather see an updated Z3200, with the same inks ( or take the green out and add a very light gray option that would be fantastic and not hard for them to do) a little faster speed, and that sheet paper tray you designed. That's fantastic Mark. I knew Ernst was loading from the back and I copied him doing that, but if your paper isn't completely flat and trimmed perfectly it still takes you five minutes to load a letter size sheet. But I'm not that picky about that, hell I'm fine using rolls for everything, but for most people the sheet feeding is the most annoying thing about the Z. It is the only poorly thought part of their otherwise excellently designed printer. If they come out with any new art printer surely that would be the first thing they would fix.

I guess the question would be:  "when is the last time you opened a magazine", LOL.

Point(s) taken, however.

[shadowblade]

I shudder to think what would happen if they jumped back into it full force with both feet and came up with a brand new model which would include new and fewer inks.

New inks are inevitable, and not necessarily a bad thing, provided longevity stays the same or improves further. Ten years of further development in pigment encapsulation resins, carrier fluids and print heads mean that newly-developed inks can carry a far higher pigment load than previous inks. And we've seen what that can do, in comparisons between Canon's Lucia Pro inks and the older Lucia EX, as well as between Epson's HDX vs the older HDR inks.

Fewer inks would be a very bad thing. Artists and photographers can always use wider gamut, more saturation (particularly hard to achieve in lighter tones) and deeper blacks. Cutting down the number of inks may make for faster and (possibly) more economical printing for print shops churning out banners and advertising material by the hectare (they're probably using solvent, latex or UV technology for most applications anyway) but is nothing but bad news for the photographers, artists and graphic designers who would be most interested in a photo-oriented aqueous inkjet.

[Ernst Dinkla]

Remember, the sketch is a concept sketch - by no means anything serious. We discussed a lot of things.  If just some ideas are used, it would be great.

Mark

Some years ago I thought about a similar concept but never made one. The slots the normal sheetfeeder uses, left and right, could also be used to hook in a larger feeding tray. Feeding 102x72 cm sheets landscape wise, as I have done, would require a wide tray anyway. On a roll cutting plotter I have made a kind of register table years ago, to cut silkscreen printed membrane keyboards and simple stickers, small runs. Worked quite fast. It is true that sheet feeding is taking too much time in handling. One easy aspect to solve though is in the software, a single button click to repeat the media setting already done on the first sheet speeds up the process already, now we have to go through the whole process again and again. For register front and back side printing, I load the sheet at an angle on purpose and then wait for the error to get a chance to use home made register tabs at the front side. If a sheet loading mode is added where you can put the sheet against tabs right away (at the front or on a new feeder at the back) then those jobs go faster too.

If there has to be an extra printer model I would go for a 24" model for sheets with a roll feeding option, instead of the other way around. I think a larger printer does more justice to the head design than possible within a 13" model. The B9180 experience I had (and two of my customers had) was not that positive. My gut feeling is that the heads require a maintenance station in Z3200 style, so way bigger than the B9180 could use.

I would not advise HP to enter the consumer photo printer market again, say at A4, A3, sizes. The distribution channels are different from the channels needed for office printers, CAD wide format inkjets and the sign etc printers. The competition in that sector is heavy. Even a 17" printer would be a risky launch into the market. Canon did not update its model in that category, Epson only late for the x900 range. I bet only that model sells in high enough quantities now.

For ink gamut I am happy with today's Vivera inks. Maybe HP could improve the scratch resistance more by borrowing something of its Latex ink technology. If it does not sacrifice gloss, gamut and longevity in that modification. On ink cartridges; the easiest upgrade would be a software change that allows the use of the 300 ML 772 cartridges for the inks that are consumed most. The 8 ink 772 cartridge range is already in the distribution channels, maybe the Gray and Gloss Enhancer inks could appear in 772 300 ML cart model too. If not worth it in a commercial sense then forget the last. The RGB inks only in 130ML carts, good enough with the print volume I have.

While I expect that the CAD Designjet distribution channel is also suited for the Z3200, Z5400, etc, it may be worth it to create a separate portal for promoting the photo quality wide format printers and to support its users. This LuLa forum is probably the most frequently used information center for Z3100/Z3200 users right now. The Designjet mailing list at Yahoo is almost dead, the 3 messages that appear there on schedule (asking for moderators etc) flatter the messages quantity by more than 100%! Mailing lists lost their appeal anyway, this includes the one I moderate at Yahoo. HP could do itself a favor by supporting a blog style website for the Z3200 etc models where it has less control on content but could rely on users that have an interest in the Z3200 concept themselves. Today information is scattered on aged Wiki pages, mailing list archives, some fora and HP's own web pages. Accumulating the free information at one spot + an Underground map to guide users through the HP website would do wonders for existing and potential users. HP technology could fill in any market segment, niche or large, but selling that technology into this segment seems to be a problem. Any other segment of the printers/printing market and HP is present, if not dominant.


Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
January 2016 update, 700+ inkjet media white spectral plots

[deanwork]

They should probably have a 16x20 inch size desktop unit like Canon and Epson. I believe both Canson and Epson have way  too many printers and inksets though. Can you imagine what that cost to produce, stock, and ship all that inventory? It's crazy and they seem to come out with a new desktop unit every 6 months.

I'm printing with my 9 year old Z right now and the prints on Platine look excellent. Only reason I don't use it all the time is because it's so slow. For my personal work I wouldn't care.

j

[shadowblade]

By 16x20, do you mean the size of the printer, or the size of the prints?

There's definitely a need for a desktop unit, along the lines of the P800 or Pro-1000. It would probably outsell the bigger models by a factor of 10 or greater, and the commonality of parts and consumables would keep costs down. Many non-landscape photographers don't print wider than 13" or 17" anyway, apart from occasional jobs that are easily outsourced, and many people just don't have the space for a big printer, much as they'd like one. But I don't see any role for a photo printer larger than A4 size that can't take roll paper; Canon's omission of that in the Pro-1000 is a huge tick in favour of the Epson P800. There are just too many papers out there unavailable in sheet form, and too many photos whose aspect ratio is such that a 13x19" or 17x25" sheet would give you an unusably-small print and a lot of wasted paper.

Introduce a 13" or 17" roll-fed desktop unit, as well as 24" and 44" stand units, and you'd have all bases covered with only three models, and near-total commonality of parts apart from casings.

[Mark Lindquist]

It's my feeling they won't necessarily get into the desktop size printer again.  Too many problems.

The paper cassette tray that uses the roll paper spindle would be a great thing, especially if it could be used (with adapters) on both sizes of the Z's.

Realize that those sketches are just 2 of six pages.  Other pages show a motor drive, etc.

You guys are right, that borrowing from the latex technology would be interesting if not excellent, however it leaves these printers in the dust, to become obsolete in short order.  Hopefully, there will be some ways in which the Vivera inks can be used down the road.  The writing is on the wall with Vivera.  Sad to say.

I'd like to see an accessory plain and simple for sheet feed handling.  Hopefully an upgrade to software to allow feeding from the front, and even a fence guide in the front as an accessory.  I'd be happy with just that.  As it is, now, I have a table in front of the printer to allow pushing the paper along at the right height.  Works well and can be totally unattended and I will not come back to see the print curled up on itself, but instead, nice and flat and no trimming required. 

We can all dream, but they march to the beat of a different drummer.  There is no telling if the cassette will become a reality.
I am not holding my breath. 

I'm just glad the Barcelona team is still there and flourishing.

Mark

[deanwork]

I'll bet if you go back and do searches for HP Z posts on the web you'll find most of them are by Ernst and me, and recently Mark. I've never seen a post by anyone in authority. I found out about the printer from Ernst right before I went to NY to see one.

 But I know those Barcelona guys are smart and sincere because we met them. It made a big impression on me because I had never met any photo tech guys who actually got a bunch of people together and asked, " what do you guys want" and they wrote everything down.  We tried to talk to the Epson guys and they were smart ass jerks telling us what they would give us for our own good. We asked the Canon reps how the dither was on the just released Prograph machines they had there. They said "dinner" and Walker said not dinner, "dither", and they said what's dither? The first Canon's were quite coarse, but the Z3100 was quite sharp and all the other features were so cool.

[John Nollendorfs]

Mark:
Are you saying there is something new from HP? I thought the Barcelona bunch was all disbanded several years ago, have they got a new design team there now? Or is this all from memories many years ago?