Neil:
Any way to load cut sheets other than ONE AT A TIME? That is a pain in the butt with the big Epsons, yet so great on the DJ 130. Also, is the roll-loading easy on these new printers as opposed to the DJ 130, which often takes me five minutes of tries every time? Looks like a giant step in the right direction for HP.
And, of course, how does the print quality stack up to the DJ130?
Thanks for all of your great info...
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Good questions.
I do know why they didn't put a tray in and it didn't make me happy. No, it's manual sheet fed or roll. Luckily for sheets the 9180 takes care of the A3+ proofing side for most users which frees up the 24, 44" printers and beyond to do what they are made for.
The way it works is you push the media in, it grabs it , sends it forward (sheet or roll) then measures it up and checks front to back alignment. If it's not square it beeps then you simply open up the huge slot machine lever and set it to a dotted line. Takes two seconds and is done.
Behind the scene is a limited motor assisted auto align which is why you'd have to be way out before it couldn't set it right.
A bit archaic but practical and effortless. The 130 is very finicky for those who don't have the feel for when it's right. This printer absolutely anyone can load , and do so quickly.
Print quality isn't yet locked down. I'm doing my best to make sure certain things are redone before the software/firmware are frozen.
The Gloss Enhancer is really beautiful. Never seen better, it would be hard to get better than this. Looking at an Epson 7800 print and the GE Z3100 of my image on glossy shows you why it changes everything. Even though people feel the K3 is acceptable for glossy , it is the HP that makes the Epson look wrong in comparison.
Color gamut is also a thing linked to software in progress.
It is larger than K3 as expected in most areas, only in some areas compared to Canon, but the shock is Epson still has both beat in Chroma depth. The profiles on Glossy and satin media are excellent so if you have a Bill Atkinson profile print of an average scene, same for a Canon , same for HP you wouldn't tell them apart for most images as far as colour goes. What I do like about HP and Epson is the prints have a photographic look, advantage going to HP in this way. Epson has such a fin pitch that it can look quite plastic as it is sometimes too fine to be photographic in an analogue way.
The switching between B&W, matte, colour is flawless and efficient.
The beauty pictures are the best in their class with GE. Matte B&W is nice but there are some things to make it better which is certainly why I'm here to help make things meet.
For proofing and illustration it is a wonderful printer. It makes easy work of Pantones like it was a dye printer. I was just playing about in the B&W bi-toning or tri if you like as you have three controls highlight mid and shadow color wheels to tone and or split tone your prints . This is as little or as much tone as you like.
It is a sharp printer but not so sharp that you risk screening artifacts. So the 130 is smoother but the new HP's (especially the 9180) will produce a tad more detail.
Much more later....