Digital BW, The Print

After reading more B9180 reviews in view of the wide format 
models announced today I think this thread ended too soon.

Some aspects of the printer that have not been mentioned:

pro:

there's 16 bit rendering in the (plug-in) driver for B&W if I 
read the following interview correctly:
http://www.pma-show.com/2006/interviews/hp_photosmart_b9180/001_marvin_gross_nany_pilcher.html

Unlike with other printer models the use of light magenta 
isn't the highest of all colors, Vivera Light Gray ink is 
often used up to 2.5 times more than the other colors 
according to HP
http://www.inkjetart.com/news/archive/IJN_07-27-06.html
To me an indication that HP is substituting a lot of the 
composite grey with this grey ink (more than the competition) 
and that grey ink is already made more neutral in the cart 
(which makes the first possible too), both should be a good 
thing for B&W printing. Pictures of B&W output show grey ink 
only but it will be interesting to see to what degree it is 
happening in color printing

con:
sharing the same heads the wide format models get is probably 
the reason why it has a minimum droplet that seems to be 
bigger than the competition has on 13" printers.


This doesn't make it a good A3 B&W printer right away but the 
same technology + the extra grey ink + gloss enhancer in the 
Z3100 models will be enough to bring the Z3100 printers at the 
front of the wide format models for B&W printing. In that 
range a minimum droplet size of 4 picoliter is sufficient. How 
good the Z2100 8 ink models are on B&W printing if compared to 
other 24-44" models could be checked with the B9180, there 
will not be much difference other than the even more advanced 
color calibration of the wide format models.

Ernst
                    --
           Ernst Dinkla


www.pigment-print.com
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