Thanks Marc. I'm most interested in the Z3200 but sure, I would appreciate to hear about your HP experience. The IPF8100 or 9100 would require an addition onto the house.
The Z3100 has done a good job printing on canvas, photogloss and semigloss, and fine art papers, with the exception of reds on anything but the canvas. The profiling and calibration is straightforward and works well. It can be a bit temperamental to load the machine, and there is no counter and imprint system to track media. Also, no roll takeup.
Software/firmware upgrades can be painful, and the machine can fall of the network from time to time. The drivers are flaky, and HP is a pain to get support from. The website has been a disaster to navigate for years. The phone support can be a miserable experience, and that's gotten worse over the years (I've had HP5000's and 5500's since 1999).
HP has made some improvements with their ink handling system. Running out no longer wipes out a whole print. You can replace a cart on the fly. Hp has also done a good job documenting media settings, and giving recommendations on choosing appropriate settings for varius media types.
There has never been a problem with nozzles clogging or dropping out. That's been true with the bigger 5000's as well.
I've just put the Canon into production. It's been an absolute pleasure. The drivers are solid, the photoshop plugin works as it should, good metering on paper, and the ink usage is incredibly low.
The first place I go for documentation is the Canon Wiki, which is great, and Canon Support has been super. Easy to find downloads on the website, and phone support is one menu choice and a ring or two away. Techs are patient and knowledgeable.
The output from the Canon is beautiful, and the reds are where they should be. We profile with Monaco, and have generated RGB profiles successfully for use with the driver, and CMYK+RGB for use with a RIP. The printer works with QImage perfectly.
Output speed seems to be faster, and the paper handling is easier and less fussy.
If I were making the choice, I'd base it on how many different materials I'd need to profile and manage, and whether I could profile offline. One advantage of the Canon is that it can be brought to a known factory calibration state, which means third party profiles might be more accurate for this machine. Time will tell!
