Epson 7800 or 9800?

[ojardnas]

Anyone have any experience with the new Epson 7800 or 9800 plotters?

[Travis]

I've "test driven" them at our Epson Pro dealer but we haven't yet decided to replace our 7600. They're much faster. Quality for linework looks the same; for photos, it's noticeably better.

Be aware that Epson's print driver doesn't do a very good job of orienting a sheet across the direction of the paper. Meaning, you'll almost certainly get a 24x36 sheet printed in the same orientation on both 24"-wide paper as well 36"-wide. That's the only complaint I've ever had with Epson.

Would like to get your feedback if/when you try one.

Good luck,

[Christiaan]

quote:

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Originally posted by Travis:

Be aware that Epson's print driver doesn't do a very good job of orienting a sheet across the direction of the paper. Meaning, you'll almost certainly get a 24x36 sheet printed in the same orientation on both 24"-wide paper as well 36"-wide. That's the only complaint I've ever had with Epson.

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Epson is pretty hopeless at responding to its customers. This is just with the Mac OS X driver though right? It gives us no end of irritation too. We keep complaining and they keep shifting the blame onto Apple. My understanding is that there are no longer any technical issues relating to Apple's coding as of Mac OS X 10.4.

[ojardnas]

Is there a consensus on the best large format production oriented B&W plotter? HP800? Epson?

[Jeffrey W Ouellette]

For two years I was using a HP500 (color) 42". The first year I was forced to use ESP Print Pro for MacOS X drivers. But last year HP finally came out with a OS X driver. Now, it is supported natively by 10.4 (Tiger). I think the B&W output with the HP/Apple drivers was very good and the color output was also very good with some extensive tweaking of various driver and application settings.

Don't get the 'PS' model. It is a waste of money with the native drivers available now. But you will need an HP internal print server if you print via ethernet. Get as much RAM as you can afford (HP's memory is very pricey).

[Alan M]

The 9800 is a fantastic machine, However the HP5500 seems to be the Plotter of choice for Architects for many reasons.

Are you looking for a machine with an inbuilt RIP or external ?

[Kevin]

quote:

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Originally posted by Alan M:

The 9800 is a fantastic machine, However the HP5500 seems to be the Plotter of choice for Architects for many reasons.

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The HP5500 costs around $9,000 for 42" and $12,000 for postscript. The 60" is over $15,000. How do you figure that this is the plotter of choice for Architects. This is a big expensive machine that I do not have the need, or room for.

I would be interested in your expanding upon your opinion.

[Jason Turley]

The practice I work for in the UK have just purchased the HP DesignJet 4000ps to replace 2 ageing HP DesignJet 750C +'s, and I have to tell you that it is a fantastic machine and my users love it.

It has good Mac drivers (built in with Tiger), is extremely quick printing/processing, near photo quality prints, has a fantastic built in web server for browser based job management, huge ink capacity, good paper capacity (90 meter rolls) and much more.

I would highly recommend it!!!

J