HP Designjet Z2100 Photo Printer – Initial Review

HP recently announced and has begun shipping a new wide format series of printers called the Designjet Z2100 Photo Printer. Available in two sizes, 24” ($3,395) and 44” ($5,595), the new Z2100 printers feature 8 color, pigmented ink systems and carry both photo black and matte black at the same time for seamless and on the fly printing to either glossy or matte papers. From this description you can clearly see that HP (like Canon) is going after market share that Epson has enjoyed exclusively for the last several years. The Epson 7800 and 9800 printers are 8-color, however if users want to switch between photo and matte black they must execute a “black ink change” which wastes approximately $40-$70 in ink and takes about 15 minutes. HP has thrown one interesting wrinkle into the mix of these new printers by including a spectrophotometer built right into the head of these printers which allow users to create a custom profile for any media they wish. Wow!

DTG received a pre-release HP z2100 44 inch printer in mid September and we have been testing on a variety of papers in different print modes. From first uses, we can observe that these Z2100 printers produce the best prints we’ve seen from any HP printer that we’ve ever used. These are the first printers from HP that we feel comfortable selling into the photo and fine-art market. In the following paragraphs we will describe our experience with the HP Z2100 from setting it up and installing, printing, using the built-in profiler, and other day to day operations.

Unpacking and assembly
DTG takes a special interest in how easy it is to assemble and install wide format printers as we offer that service as an option to our customers. The HPZ2100 has both good and bad points on this. HP really thought out the installation process when packaging the printer because there is a method and order to the packing arrangements that makes a lot of sense after assembling it. The stand, to me, seems a bit “over-engineered” in the number of screws needed to assemble it so installing all those screws was a bit annoying and time consuming (I’m no engineer, so who am I to say there are too many screws). After assembling the stand, you attach it to the bottom of the printer (the printer ships upside-down so it’s easy to do this). Then all you do is “rock” or rotate the printer forward off the bottom of the box/pallet to an upright position. Brilliant! I was actually able to do this by myself without any help though I would not recommend it because it can be very heavy. The whole installation process outside of a ton of screws to install was incredibly simple to me and really quite well thought out by HP.

I then proceeded to continue with the install by powering on the printer and following the instructions on the large LCD display on the front of the printer. The printer instructed me to install the ink tanks and print heads. This was very straight forward and took about 5 minutes to physically install. The printer then went through an initialization procedure of “charging” the ink which took approximately 20-30 minutes.

Software installation and connection
I installed the HP software on a Dell computer running windows XP professional. The installation was very straight forward and was pretty much automatic. I connected the printer through Ethernet and used the front panel of the printer to assign an IP address. Again, this was very easy.

Printer Operation
Through the first few weeks I sort of have a love-hate relationship with the physical operation of the Z2100. It has some really nice points and some not so nice points. As in many printers, ink replacement is very simple and is accessed on the left and right side of the printer. I love the large LCD display in the middle top section of the printer as it is very easy to read and feeds back plenty of useful information. Paper loading is cumbersome in my opinion mainly due to the fact that you have to load the paper from the back of the printer. While it’s easy to swing the printer out because of the rollers on the bottom of the stand, you still have to get behind the printer to load roll paper. The load mechanism features the ability to correct paper skew if the paper is fed in crooked. I had hit and miss results with this but it is pretty cool when it works. After loading the paper you have to select the type of media/paper you are loading which at first I thought was very annoying. After further use of the printer and profiling capabilities, it now makes perfect sense why you have to do this and I now see it as a positive feature. I will elaborate on this later in the profiling section.

Print Driver & Utilities
The print driver is pretty standard (non-postscript) and functions very much like you would expect for a wide format printer “free” driver. It gives you the ability to color manage in the print driver or your application. It allows you to create custom page sizes though it is not as easy as it should be to access those custom sizes. The quality settings are a little vague as it simply offers “Fast”, “Normal”, and “Best” modes. The user manual does describe what these equate to.

The utilities that come with the software are very good as they allow you to track ink usage, get printer information, create and manage custom papers/medias, and troubleshoot problems that you may have. I will be describing the paper and media functions in the next section on the built-in spectrophotometer and profiling features.

Spectrophotometer & Profiler
The HP Z2100 features a built in spectrophotometer and bundled software which allows you to create your own custom ICC profile for any paper or media you wish. This is one of the most intriguing features of the Z2100 and something I looked forward to testing. From what I understand, it is basically an Eye-One spectrophotometer from X-Rite (formerly GretagMacbeth) with custom software built into the printer utility.

Honestly, I kind of expected a marginally adequate, cheesy profiling solution from this configuration. However, HP has done a truly brilliant job with this. From the quality of its profile, to the incredibly simple and seamless way to create the profiles, HP has added a unique and very valuable feature to the Z series of wide format photo printers.

Here’s how it works. Let’s say I want to be able to print on Hahnemuhle smooth photo rag paper. First, you just launch the HP Color Center software by clicking the icon on your desktop. You then click “manage papers”, and add a new media type. You then type in a name and it not only adds it to the software list but it uploads it to the printer as well. I then “calibrate” the media by clicking a button. The printer prints out a linearization swatch, reads it with the built in sensor, and stores the custom linearization for that media in the printer and software.

After that, I click “Create and Install ICC Profile”. The printer automatically prints out several hundred patches of color, dries (or cures) the print, reads the profile with the spectrophotometer, and creates the ICC profile. It stores this profile on the printer and automatically installs it on your computer (so that you can use it to soft proof). It does all of this from that initial push of the button and I don’t have to watch or baby sit the printer. With this product, HP has taken what is normally an intimidating and somewhat complex process to one of the most simple and fun things to do…with no additional hardware or software to buy.

Remember how I thought that selecting a media type was annoying? Well it all makes sense now. When you add custom papers you get to name them to the exact paper name like “Hahnemuhle Smooth Photo Rag 308”. I don’t have to remember which generic HP media type I’m supposed to use when I print on this paper. It has its own name, calibration, and profile. This is important not only for convenience but also accuracy and quality. I don’t have to “piggy-back” off one of the generic HP linearizations…my media gets its own custom linearization and ICC profile! Very cool!

Quality& Speed
The HP Z2100 as mentioned earlier is in our opinion HP’s first real world entry into the wide format photographic and fine art markets. This printer certainly produces very sellable prints in both markets. To the naked eye, prints coming out of this printer are very good. But since this printer will certainly be compared to similar products from Epson and Canon, we went ahead and did some initial print tests from all three manufacturer’s wide format products. The printers used in these tests are the Epson Stylus Pro 9800 (44”), The Canon ipf9000 (60”), and the HP Z2100 44 inch of course.

First, let’s get speed out of the way. Generally speaking, the Epson and HP printers are very similar in their print speeds. In other words, these printers are no speed demons. The Canon series of wide format printers including the ipf 9000 and ipf 8000 are in a class by themselves, however. The Canon’s offer a minimum of twice the throughput compared to the HP and Epson and in real world “sellable” prints the Canon is nearly 4 times faster. 

As far as print quality, I did tests on a third party photo paper (Kodak Professional Photo Glossy Paper) on all three printers. Look for a future addendum to this review in which I do testing on canvas including Fredrix and BullDog inkjet canvas, as well as fine art papers from Hahnemuhle and Moab. I chose to do the tests on high quality photo paper because it is easier to discern gamut and dot/dithering differences. Also please note, these tests were done with the standard driver software that comes with each printer, not a RIP. RIP companies like ImagePrint and Onyx will certainly be able to push the limits of quality with each of these printers.

First, on the dot or dithering or smoothness of the prints: I would rate the Epson 9800 the best, the HPZ2100 a close second, and the Canon ipf9000 a close third. All three printers dot pattern and dithering looked pretty good, though the Epson was certainly the smoothest and cleanest. On color gamut, the Epson and Canon were almost identical in total gamut volume but they were definitely different in their color shape. The Epson was superior in the reds where the Canon was better in the blues and purples. The HP was about 10% smaller overall in total gamut volume when compared with the Epson and Canon which surprised me. I went ahead and profiled the HP with their HP Premium Glossy paper and it was a lot closer to the Epson and Canon gamut on the Kodak paper, but still smaller when you compare the Epson and Canon on their respective high quality photo papers. I also measured all three printers’ black point (in L*) on the Kodak paper. The Canon measured at 5.3, the Epson at 5.6, and the HP at 6.3 (lower number better). Again, this is on a third party paper and you will definitely see different numbers (and probably better) on each manufacturer’s respective photo papers.

Conclusions
The new HP Designjet Z2100 series of wide format photo printers will definitely make a big impact on the photo and fine art markets. What used to be exclusively Epson territory is now also HP and Canon territory. The HP Z2100 produces great output at moderate speeds but adds an incredibly easy to use, built-in ability to create ICC profiles with the printer, an HP exclusive. The bottom line on these Z printers from HP is that they produce high quality prints on photo and fine art papers, are very easy to use, and are incredibly versatile wide format printers.