unless you print a lot the print head reliability and cost will annoy you and make this printer series highly inefficient (Info: 2000CP/2500CP/2800CP is the 36" model, 3000CP/3500CP/3800CP is the 54" model - differences: x000CP is the base model, x500CP has a built-in Adobe Level2 RIP chip and x800CP use an external Fiery LX - the machine is around 15 years old, with an expected life cycle of 5 years!).
The successor models 5000 and then 5500 were much more dependable, in fact so dependable that most are still being used in some cases outliving their successors z6100/z6200/z5200. Models of the 5000/5500 use a completely different naming (in fact their naming structure became standard for HP from then on): the 5000 was available in 42" and 60" and the PostScript option came with an internal HDD and the model was simply named 5000PS. A model change included a heater on the output, some changes to the mainboard and a darker gray for the plastic panels and a name change from 5000 to 5500.
The 5500 has been retired around 5 years ago, but models are still widely used in the business.
Current models you might want to have a look at:
- HP Designjet z5200, z6100, z6200
- Epson Stylus Pro 9700, 9890, 9900 (= 4c, 8c, 10c models)
- Canon iPF 815/825 (5c), iPF 8000 (8c), iPF 8300 (12c)
All above are 44" models, smaller or larger models are also available. Epson models have permanent print heads (replace after a few years by Epson service), the others have user replaceable long life print heads, which typically last > 10 ink sets.
Printer models vary in the amount of different inks they use. 4c models use only CMYK, which makes them very fast and cheap to operate and are great for posters, but in highlights you can see the dot structure.
6c-8c models use light inks like light-cyan and light-magenta (plus 2 additional gray on the 9890) to hide the dot structure in highlights providing photo quality (yes, you can cut the prints down to wallet size and they still look like photos - in fact many super-markets with in-house photo labs use these printers to produce posters).
Models like z6200, SP9900 and iPF8300 use additional Red, Orange+Green or Red+Green+Blue to increase the gamut for matching spot colors or producing even more vibrant photos. From your description I doubt that these functions are important to you.
Something else noteworthy: several of the above models use internal color measuring devices (or add-on modules) to measure the color appearance of what they print. Proofing or photo reproduction can greatly benefit from getting "colors just right". In most cases though you might need additional tools and software (sometimes 3rd party) to take advantage of this feature.
Hope this helps - Juergen
