Goodbye HP 5500 , Hello iPF 8000

I finally sold my HP 5500 today on Craigslist (www.craigslist.com). Definitely a good place to try and sell higher end gear, and being free sure helps. I had the UV and postscript version, 42", and sold it for $5000. My reason for selling was mainly the fact that the HP 5000 series is basically a 5 year old technology...

My main decision was should I stay with HP with the Z series, or venture out to a new company? Epson has always been one of my favorites, they are very friendly and always look great. I still have 2 small Epson printers. If I did solely giclee, I would buy a Stylus 9800 in a heartbeat. It sure would save some space in my office. But I need something faster and more industrious, so I was in the market for either the Canon line or HP's Z2100. Canon is currently having some excellent rebates, iPF 9000's (60") start around $10k and iPF 8000's (44") start around $3500. No, that is not a typo, they are going for under four thousand dollars. Good deals I found were www.colorHQ.com , www.itsupplies.com. CONTRARY to what is says on Color HQ's website, neither iPF printers can print full bleed at maximum width! I was lucky enough to be informed of this before I purchased one.

As the title states, I ended up buying a iPF 8000. It cost me $3495, including shipping. I would say thats a very good deal. When the original iPF 5000 came out, they're were very mixed reviews (ok, a lot of bad reviews), but as people experiment more and more with these printers they are achieving excellent results. They aren't nearly as "plug and play" as the Epsons, but some photographers claim to be getting better prints now off of their Canons. I will definitely let you know.