Printer Test Document, thoughts on HP WideArray (x451 / x555 / x585) printers

[sonofsanta]

My current project is that most thrilling of topics: printer contracts.

 

By and large it's all lasers, except for HP, who are offering their new WideArray super-fancy-inkjets-on-steroids printers. On paper they look fantastic - up to 70ppm, all colour, as cheap as 0.44p/2.9p click on a desktop printer, lower power consumption, fewer consumables, more reliable... - but I'm not so foolish as to take a sales pitch at face value, so we have a demo unit of the x451dw arriving tomorrow, with an x585z due sometime as well.

 

I've tried Googling, but can't turn up a decent mixed document for printing - a dozen pages, mixed text / office graphics / photos. I'll make my own with some Lorem Ipsum if needs be, but it'd save me some faff if someone knows of something. (I have a few calibration files already, but I'm more bothered about day-to-day quality and speed measurements than colour accuracy).

 

Also, while we're on the topic, has anyone got any experience of these machines? Are they as close to laser quality as the reviews suggest? Are they as reliable and hassle free as I'm promised?

[KanbanMPS]

Hi,

 

These printers are great. HP have spent £billons developing these to avoid the patent royalties they pay Canon. These devices will change the market and lower prices forever. HP have also put together an amazing program which provides heavily discounted genuine supplies, next day onsite service from HP and very flexible terms. A true utility model that even refunds you for used supplies. In my opinion, having worked for several printer vendors it is the most complete, fair and attractive program I have ever seen. These are coming in at about .3 and 2.5 for mono and colour.

 

If you PM me I can give you more details.

[newpersn]

Let me know how you get on. Full review and pictures of unit and print outs.

 

I think our art department could do better than brother 8250 (I think)

 

They gone though a 326 black in around 1000 pages (they should do 4000 pages)

[sonofsanta]

To finish this thread off, then, here are the documents I ended up using for testing:

 

• Battle of Agincourt.docx - this Wikipedia article reformatted as an 18 page colour document, mostly text with some images and colour text. A good basic document for comparison's sake, similar to student work.
  
• OfficeDoc.docx - a 2 page office document i.e. pie charts, cheesy stock photo. The images are sharper and more colourful than Agincourt which is useful in spotting problems with print resolution.
  
• CUPS test page - very handy for spotting problems with printer resolution (especially the spoked black wheel - look for how big the black blob in the middle is, when detail can't be resolved, and any Moiré patterns in the spokes) and colour gradients.
  
• Datacolor's test image - very handy for us because we use a Datacolor Spyder to calibrate our IPS monitors, so we could check accuracy. The black scale at the bottom right - the set of grayscale squares - was useful for spotting how laser printers crush the blacks.
  

 

I'll write up a separate post with impressions of the x451dw (including scans of prints), @newpersn, but in brief: very impressed, particularly for value and simplicity (changing the inks is hilariously easy after dealing with belts and fusers). Contrast is a little lower than a laser but that's because the laser crushes the blacks, and the OfficeJet Pro X is more accurate in that regard. It's colour balance was a bit off, but that's nothing that can't be corrected with a colour profile if it's that important. The dithering pattern is visible, but is less distracting that the crosshatch pattern of a laser, so I'd say that the x451dw is better for images than a laser, if you're thinking about your art department.

[sonofsanta]

I made a new thread with my thoughts: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/hardware/152938-hp-officejet-pro-wide-array-ink-printers-super-boring-review-me.html

[synaesthesia]

Very nicely written. We've been buying in a few for the lower-use areas and have been extremely happy with them. We don't have many, but the running costs alone were a major selling point and it's likely the majority of office lasers will be replaced with these when the need arises. Won't be putting them in shared areas (ICT suites) for fairly obvious reasons, too many flappy bits that are likely to go missing!

[sonofsanta]

There's not really many more flappy bits than on a laser, I don't reckon - the multipurpose tray is less flappy than our Okis, and the only extra flappiness is the bit you can extend for the output tray. I suppose there's the flappy bit that lifts up when you print, as well.

 

Flappy flappy flappy.

 

Given that I'm in an all-girls grammar school, though, damage isn't something we really need to worry about, which makes life so much easier. We can have nice things!

[synaesthesia]

Ah, good stuff Our little darlings are not *too* bad, but if they see an "invitation" to do something they often will It would be the output tray (the L shaped large bit) that would probably end up thrown over a telephone cable outside.

[KanbanMPS]

I have one at home now, absolutely love them. I'm also in discussion with Epson as they are launching devices with 75,000 mono pages in, enough they recon for three years. However the HP technology is better. "Business ink jet' as a product category is forecast to grow significantly over the next couple of years.

 

10 April 2015 (London, UK): Unit sales of business-targeted inkjet printers (Business Inkjets) by Western Europe’s IT Distributors increased by +9% year-on-year in 2014, according to data published by CONTEXT, the leading European IT market research company.

 

The growth was driven by sales of Business Inkjets sold to the B2B Channel, which were up by +16%. HP accounted for 60% of the market segment and saw unit sales in this Channel increase by +17% in 2014 and +3% in early Q1 2015 (the first 12 weeks of 2015 compared to the same period a year ago).

 

HP OfficeJet Pro X and Enterprise X models with page-wide array inkjet technology in Distribution were mostly sold to the B2B Channel, while Epson’s Business Inkjets with Precision Core technology are making inroads with sales into both B2B and B2C Channels. Epson has a market share of 19% of the segment and increased its unit sales to the B2B Channel by +5% in 2014.

 

Brother follows with a share of 12% and +11% year-on-year unit sales growth, driven by their A3 Business Inkjets, which account for half of all A3 devices sold to the B2B Channel by Western Europe’s Distributors. Canon entered the segment at the end of last year with its MAXIFY product line and currently holds a market share of 3% in sales to the B2B Channel.

 

From a user point of view, the technology is no longer as important as it used to be, Epson’s however is an old piezo technology that is not as reliable as Canon/HP/Funai (ex Lexmark) thermal inkjet.

What really matters for businesses is whether the devices can be sold, managed and operate as desired, at a low cost.

 

Phil

[PotNoodleTech]

What really matters for businesses is ......

 

.... whether in 3 years time the running costs will have doubled thanks to outrageous year on year price increases in ink. Based on HPs last 5 years experience, I'd say that it is quite likely!

 

I'm fixed price contracted MFPs all the way - fixed low costs for the next 5 years so the business actually knows what it will be spending next year, the year after, etc.

Edited April 28, 2015 by PotNoodleTech

[KanbanMPS]

Hi Abutters, Not true now. As HP prepare to split the company in two they have an amazing print deal in their pmps program. The PMPS programme will give you fixed costs for up to five years and next day onsite Service from HP. If you use less ink than agreed they'll refund and lower the volume for the next year. The X555 comes in at .9 mono and 2.5 colour WITH service. I don't think there's a better deal anywhere right now.

 

Phil

[PotNoodleTech]

Well at around 0.2 mono and 2.0 colour on the Govmt framework for print services and MFDs I would say you still have a fair bit of work to do.

 

I take it you work for HP? Might be worth looking at becoming an edugeek sponsor if you wish to do business on here.

[KanbanMPS]

Hi No I don't work for HP but I do work with lots of schools. Yes, Konica in particular offer great prices under RM1599 and others, I did work for Konica for many years and they are also fantastic. However many schools don't want or can't consolidate into centralized MFD's. They want or prefer distributed printers, which was the topic of this thread. I may well advertise however my interest in the topic was genuinely because I think that print is getting interesting again.