Self-calibration, the new nozzle-checking technology, and larger ink tanks certainly sound promising. IJA hints that B/W prints may not match the tonality of K3 due to only having 1 gray ink, if so that's disappointing. I'd also like to see a green ink added as I feel dark greens are the biggest weakspot of K3 printers. Blue would be OK too but IMHO the green is more imprtant. I wonder if the larger wide-format models that are sure to follow will use the exact same inkset as the 9180, or if they'll follow Canon's example and expand the inkset for "pro" models.
IJA's comments about the B/W modes are puzzling to me. They criticise the 2400 for using some color ink but this is necessary to get neutral results. You can actually print with just K, LK, and LLK on a 2400 using Quadtone RIP but the results are quite warm. Is IJA claiming that the HP's gray inks are perfectly neutrual? Is that even possible?
The lack of a roll-paper mechanism is pretty disappointing for those who shoot panos.
I'm happy to see they're undercuttong the price on Epson in the 13" printer space, I hope the follow that lead in the large-format space.
A 17", 12-ink Vivera inkset printer priced well below $2K sure would be sweet.