Hewlett-Packard Designjet 4500ps, HP Designjet 4500 scanner, and HP Designjet 4500mfp system.

So many printers are coming out that we had no idea the HP Designjet 4500ps, HP Designjet 4500 scanner, and HP Designjet 4500mfp even existed until we saw it on the Internet on January 20th. I have not seen this at any European trade show, nor did I notice it at SGIA as recently as mid-December 2005. So I was rather surprised to see the HP Designjet 4500 printer series on the HP website.

There is a lot at stake here for printer manufacturers. Previously HP had about 90% market share, since Encad has not produced a significant CAD printer in this millennium. But several other printer manufacturers are now after this technical market, since this is the only market where solvent ink printers currently have no choice.

The technical drawings printing market consists of: CAD of every way, shape, and for such as CAD floor plans, high-end technical drawings, GIS maps, cartography, electronic layouts, engineering drawings, scientific drawings, designers drawings, monochrome, 3D graphic design, 3-D visualizations, plotter, graphs, AEC, CAM. Since three generations of the Hellmuth family have been architects (and since the Director of FLAAR studied architecture at Harvard), we do have some experience with CAD and printers for architectural drawings.

So if you are looking for a wide format copy/scan system, the HP Designjet 4500 printer and HP 4500 scanner is a system to look at. These are also sold as a combo, “HP Designjet 4500mfp.”

HP Designjet 4500 CAD Gis Printer.

Competition for CAD Printers

Now that Encad is demised, both Canon and Mutoh are trying to enter this market. Canon is showing the first of their new CAD printers, the Canon imagePROGRAF iPF500, iPF 600, iPF700 More will come later. Mutoh is showing their Mutoh DrafStation RJ-900 and RJ-901.

Every two years there is either a new Canon iPF printer or a new Epson or a new HP water-based printer. It is hard to keep track of the new models. FLAAR is keeping track by visiting printshops that have these various brands. Each brand has its good points and a few deficiencies. Since FLAAR itself does not sell printers, for you to find out information on prices and availability of each model, we suggest you contact a company that offers all three brands: Canon, HP, and Epson. This way they are not going to push just one brand because they offer all three. One company that we know is LexJet. Dr Hellmuth has visited their national headquarters twice. LexJet sells all across the USA and to Latin America as well. Contact info is sales@lexjet.com.

Most recently updated April 10, 2006.
Previous updates: January 23, 2006.

Most of our updates for 2008 onward are in the FLAAR Reports in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. It is more efficient for us to make new information available in PDF format. So if the web page itself is not updated, check out www.wide-format-printers.NET to see if the printer, RIP, color management ICC profiles, or other subject is covered in an update which can be easily ordered in a PDF download.