HP DesignJet Z9ps 24" - Customer review and comparison to the Z3200

12 December 2022

This is the second report in our series of DesignJet reviews which takes you behind the scenes with a business to provide an insight into how they really got on with their new DesignJet printer – offering the Pro’s and Con’s as they see it - rather than typical reseller reviews.

This particular review is from a YouTuber called Mark Lindquist. He originally purchased a Z3200 which was the “all singing, all dancing” gallery-quality A1 printer and then upgraded it with the latest HP DesignJet Z9+ 24” printer. Like many people, he was a little worried about changing something that worked really well as he had a reasonably large studio setup containing 3 x Z3200s.

Mark’s background is that he used to create large wooden sculptures using a lathe, which have been sold into various Art Museums and private collections around the world. He initially used his photographic skills to document his core business, but now photography has became his primary focus.

With photography Mark has a lot of ‘freedom and control’ using current technologies of today - including taking digital photos (where he can take as many shots as needed), software editing tools and most importantly he could control the print output according to his very exacting standards, within his own studio. He achieved amazing colour and accuracy in his prints. Not surprisingly he was nervous when the Z3200 range was being replaced, because it was a setup that worked particularly well for him.

HP offered to send him a Z9ps to test and evaluate, so he gladly accepted this. His experience was as follows:

1. The new vivid Z9 inks produced the same or better-quality prints versus the Z3200, with many new improvements such as using very little ink when printing. The inks in the Z9 are 300ml versus the 130ml provided with the Z3200 - which is a big improvement in size.

2. It prints faster when compared to the Z3200.

3. The printheads are universal (generic / all the same) – so you can keep a few in stock to replace the printhead of any colour, although they rarely clog.

4. The Z9 is ‘whisper’ quiet and you don’t notice it in the studio – it prints quietly with no loud fans blowing. It does an exercise every now and again which is also very quiet. The sound level and lack of noise is significantly reduced compared to the Z3200 model and helps to maintain a peaceful studio environment.

5. The new user interfaces, the embedded web server and the touchscreen are easy to use and easy to learn.

6. The Z9 touchscreen is particularly user-friendly with several different categories, and you just touch it or hit the home button to go back – it has many different options such as optimised quality, clean printheads, printhead alignment, paper advance calibration etc and this differs markedly from the Z3200 because it’s as simple as using your phone.

7. All papers need to be calibrated and the Z9 calibrates the paper very fast. The embedded spectrophotometer works quickly to do its job. Calibration is much faster with the Z9 versus the Z3200.

8. With every paper you can make a custom profile. With the Z3200 and Z9 it’s a very similar process, with the only difference being that the Z9 allows you to go 2.5 times faster, so you can quickly make lots of profiles going from 1 paper to another. Using the embedded spectrophotometer with the 464 patch target you print out the ICC profile which, once dried, is fed back into the printer which the printer then scans in order to make the ICC profile. This profile is then installed into your library - which makes it very convenient. The embedded spectrophotometer travels lightning fast which enables speedy calibrations and fast creation of ICC profiles.

9. The Z9 produces accurate prints with very pleasing end results. For the most part most prints are about the same as the Z3200. In some cases “not”, and in some cases “better”. Mark advises overall he’s extremely happy with the Z9.

10. Mark doesn’t see any bronzing on a ‘tough’ print where one might typically expect bronzing. (We’ve noticed this with other customers as well, so we do advise not to purchase the optional kit until you find issues with bronzing).

11. Two boat prints are displayed in the video - where 1 print was made with the Z3200 and the other with the Z9. Watching the video they look the same. Mark confirms in a blind test it would be very difficult to figure out which print came from which printer.

12. The Z3200 has long been known as great for ‘black and white’ prints, it was completely neutral with no colour casts and basically classed as the ‘King of the hill’. Prints from the Z9 are the same great quality and Mark confirms he’s thrilled with his black and white prints.

Brief summing up!

It’s like a Z3200 with a rocket engine, but ‘whisper’ quiet. It’s indispensable.
The Z9ps is an amazing printer!