The Inkjet Printing Blog

Reflections on Deskjet’s 20th anniversary: A toast to the customers who made it possible!

Stacie Savage — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:25:00 GMT

Posted by Paul Speer, Vice President and General Manager (Retired), Hewlett-Packard Imaging and Printing

This year marks the 20^th anniversary of the introduction of HP’s first Deskjet printer. HP introduced several inkjet products dating back to 1984, but none ultimately achieved the commercial success of Deskjet and its successors.

Think back to 1988. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is 2,168, the average car costs $10,400, gas is $0.91 per gallon, and the Hewlett Packard Deskjet is introduced at $995 under the advertising tagline of “Laser Quality for Under a Thousand Dollars” by a small group of individuals in a corner of a then much smaller HP. Being new and unproven, customers were not quite sure what to make of it, and internal to the company all of the business, technical, and social drama that you would expect of a group trying to do something that had never been done before was unfolding.

It is now 2008, Deskjet has just celebrated its 20^th anniversary, and over 240 million of you have experienced the product. For under $50 you can now purchase a Deskjet with levels of speed, print quality, color, and other features that could only have been imagined back in 1988. As an aside, in constant dollar terms that $995 would now be in the neighborhood of $1,700. Every time one of us pushes the print button we take for granted the amazingly complex orchestra of software, image science, electronics, mechanisms, and fluid systems directing thousands of nozzles to deliver picoliter scale drops of ink. Along the Deskjet journey printing expanded from conveying text based facts and figures to sharing personal stories and emotion through rich images; it grew from the language of business to the language of people. Finally, technology developed for the Deskjet line ultimately migrated to enable the breadth of inkjet printing products you see from HP today; home, office, commercial; and small mobile products up to large format graphics products capable of printing billboard sized images. Early internal debates of whether production capacity of thousands of units per month should be installed at a single location have evolved to a smoothly operating global supply chain routinely delivering millions of products per month from and to every corner of the planet.

So what’s the big deal? For those of you that have been around technology for more than a few years you know that the pace of change is breathtaking and with Darwinian stakes. Moore has made quite a name for himself describing industry and product lifecycles, and what it takes to succeed in each phase. Few products or companies have been able to distinguish themselves by participating as both an early entrant as well as a market leader over this period of time; Deskjet is among them. I’m a bit biased, but my personal belief is that when the history books are written the Deskjet story and its impact on how we all communicate with each other will be viewed on par with the contribution of a certain software firm in Redmond, WA and an iconic Cupertino, CA brand named after fruit. So how did this all happen?

This story actually starts with you, our valued customers. None of this would have happened without your willingness to purchase and use Deskjet products over all these years. Your trust in us to deliver on what we promised each and every day was the fuel for this story. Having completed a 26 year career at Hewlett Packard, most of which was spent in Manufacturing, R&D, and General Management in the Inkjet Product Group, I can tell you that the single greatest source of satisfaction was when we received recognition from you through positive customer surveys and subsequent market share. I still keep framed cover pages from at least one industry publication with a picture of that year’s Deskjet model voted to the top of their review list several years running. I can also say that the single greatest source of disappointment was whenever we fell short of your expectations, receiving poor reviews, calls to customer support lines, or letters of dissatisfaction. We took these seriously and worked very hard to rectify issues when we became aware of them and tried to get better with each and every product. Grove’s Only the Paranoid Survive was definitely a part of our culture. It was not unusual to send teams to individual customer’s homes both in the US and abroad as part of the development process in order to make sure we fully understood how products were being used. While sometimes big corporations can come across as institutional, behind the company name there are real people that care and want to make a difference. I can tell you from personal experience that a lot of people put a lot of their lives’ passion and energy into bringing you Deskjet and making it the best it could be. Again, thank you for all your loyalty over all the years, and the untold pages and personal memories you have entrusted to us. For those of us who have been around for a while Deskjet’s success was both about its commercial success and an enormous source of personal pride.

From a more business oriented perspective those wiser than I have pointed to 5 important ingredients to this story. First, pull together the finest team possible together; infuse them with a monster big vision, a bit of self imposed fear of failure, and enough management “cover” to smooth the inevitable potholes and mountains in the road ahead. Second, take the time to truly understand what customer’s needs are, sometimes before they can recognize and name them. Third, provide a unique solution for their needs at an unmatched value. Fourth, set up a sustainable business model so that you will be around for the long term to be there for your customers. Fifth, constantly innovate, because if you are not moving forward you are moving backwards. These ingredients, I’d argue, when combined with some really hard working and dedicated people both in the original development team and ultimately the worldwide team that now designs and delivers Deskjet is the other half of the success story that started with you our customers.

While it is fun to reflect, and all of us who were a part of the Deskjet story over the past 20 years take a tremendous amount of pride in having been part of it, I am also reminded of the famous phrase “what have you done for me lately?” Stories like this are often not obvious without benefit of the lens of history, as they are the result of millions of daily events taking place between you as customers coming up with new ways to utilize technology, and HP employees working to bring unique and differentiating solutions to the market. What makes me most encouraged about the future for both you as customers, and the people that comprise HP is that the next Deskjet story is most likely under way as I write this blog. I’m excited to see what you both come up with in the next 20 years!

Thanks again to all you Deskjet customers, and congratulations to HP on the 20^th anniversary.

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of HP and may not have been reviewed in advance by HP.

Buyer Beware: Reading Between the Lines

Stacie Savage — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:48:00 GMT

Posted by Jeff Walter, HP Inkjet Marketing

This week, PC World published the results of an OEM vs. third-party inks comparison study. While I applaud the effort to clarify for consumers the best ink cartridge options for their printing needs, I have serious concerns about the testing methodology and thus, the results of this study. Because consumers look to publications such as PC World to help them make more informed purchasing decisions, it is important that studies like these accurately reflect the customer experience. Unfortunately, because of flaws in how PC World conducted these tests, the results do not provide the most accurate evaluation of HP ink cartridges.

As someone who values and understands the importance of using the most rigorous testing methodologies for studies such as this, I take serious issue with quality results of PC World’s study. First, PC World used testing methodologies such as the ASTM 2555 standard which are less rigorous than the ISO/IEC 24711 standard developed and used by most manufacturers. Additionally, PC World’s understanding of the HP printing system selected was incomplete, preventing them from making accurate decisions on how to carry out a precise test. Among the flaws in their testing:

The sample size is not representative or scientific. It is essential to use a robust sample size to fairly report the average yield of a brand’s cartridges. PC World and RIT tested only 3 sets each of 13 competing cartridge brands in the 5 printers tested. This is hardly comprehensive when compared to over 700 cartridges from 13 different refilled brands and 68 HP cartridges alone in a 2007 study conducted by QualityLogic, one of the most respected third-party test organizations in the world.

RIT was unable to provide fade testing results for HP printers because RIT tested OEM and aftermarket inks on the same HP printer. That raises questions about which ink they were really testing. Due to the architecture of the HP printing system tested, ink is recirculated to help maintain the health of the printer. As different types of ink are introduced, the previous ink is not fully purged even after the next one starts appearing on the page. It is almost certain that residual HP inks remained in the printer, continuing to provide a higher level of print quality than HP believes aftermarket inks could deliver. Multiple industry studies and reviewers from respected consumer publications such as Consumer Reports and PC Magazine have found OEM inks consistently deliver superior print quality compared to third-party alternatives.

The article calls into question cartridge reliability but the study results do not account for the failures of several refilled cartridges. PC World highlighted the average cost savings associated with using third-party inks, but neglected to tell consumers how much money was wasted on defective cartridges. In tests conducted by QualityLogic, more than 20% of refill brands of inkjet cartridges were dead-on-arrival or failed prematurely. Sometimes aftermarket inks aren’t such a bargain because reliability problems can affect the total cost to consumers.

We at HP are not the only ones concerned about the validity of PC World’s study. QualityLogic president, Dave Jollota, said in response to PC World’s study, “We were surprised at these test results as they are quite different in the areas of quality and reliability than what we have seen in our years of testing.” Multiple independently validated tests, using robust testing methodologies, have reinforced the fact that HP’s inkjet printing systems offer customers the best overall value with an unrivaled combination of quality, reliability and ease of use. I value the role that consumer publications play in helping customers make choices about their printing supplies, and I can only hope that these publications will take that role seriously, by doing all they can to deliver accurate data.

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of HP and may not have been reviewed in advance by HP.

The Inkjet Printing Blog not Available for Comments until June 1

Stacie Savage — Thu, 22 May 2008 22:11:00 GMT

Posted by Stacie Savage, Inkjet Systems Communications

All Hewlett-Packard blogs will be migrating to a new platform over the next week. We won’t be able to post or receive comments between Friday, May 23 and Sunday, June 1. Please enjoy our existing postings until then, and if you have comments, please submit them after June 1. I’ll miss you!

I Love It when Green Plans Come Together

Stacie Savage — Wed, 21 May 2008 20:10:00 GMT

Posted by Jeff Walter, Inkjet Systems Marketing

Today, HP announced what has been referred to internally as our “green launch.” The green launch is a group of announcements about what HP is doing to minimize our impact on the environment. With all due respect, HP really launched this initiative in 1957 when our founders, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, instituted a corporate Good Citizenship objective encouraging responsible practices within the communities where the company does business. Bill and Dave loved camping, fishing and other outdoor activities. In fact, many HP sites are located in communities where these activities flourish. I sometime wonder if our founders used the ability to be immersed in nature quickly as a criteria for HP site selection.

HP’s dedication to being environmentally responsible is evidenced by our development of one of the first technology hardware remarketing programs in 1981, and that was followed by a global product recycling program six years later. At HP, recycling started before it was really “cool” to do so. In fact, we’ve recycled more than a billion pounds of computing hardware and printing supplies since then, and we expect to hit the milestone of 2 billion pounds by the end of 2010.

But maybe even bigger evidence that HP isn’t new to the environmental party is the recent announcement from the second Climate Counts Company Scorecard. This organization rates companies on their environmental performance and participation. Among electronics companies, HP was ranked fourth. A statement on Climate Counts’ web site says “Climate Counts has found that Hewlett-Packard has established clear goals to reduce its energy use and that the company has reduced its impact on global warming (i.e., its greenhouse gas emissions or climate footprint) via energy conservation and transportation reduction programs. The company has also worked to foster climate awareness among consumers, employees, and other businesses.”

Today's press release and materials explain why HP is continually getting attention for our environmental programs. But today’s announcement is not about what we've done but more about our future. Every day, we’re developing plans on how we can enhance our business while decreasing our impact on the environment. Although we frequently use recycled content in our inkjet printers, one of our specific goals is to increase the amount of recycled content used three times by 2010. To that end, we announced today the HP Deskjet D2545 printer. This is HP’s first printer with an outer plastic shell made from 100% recycled plastic content. The product also uses ink cartridges made from recycled plastic resins. The printer is ENERGY STAR qualified and is packaged in environmentally-friendly materials.

Today’s announcement is a significant step for HP in that we are making our commitments public. We’re ready to be judged on our effectiveness in this area. We feel HP has the ability to provide practical environmental solutions to our customers, and to practice environmental stewardship that is good for customers, good for business and good for the planet.

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of HP and may not have been reviewed in advance by HP.

The Disappearing Singles

Stacie Savage — Thu, 01 May 2008 19:07:00 GMT

Posted by Kevin Wu, HP Inkjet Competitive Analyst

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Would you believe me if I told you that there were a lot of disappearing singles in Las Vegas? A lot of singles are, in fact, missing! Unfortunately, I wasn’t looking for the greenback with George Washington on it (there are lots of those in Vegas), and I’m not talking about the portion of the population who check the first box on the ‘martial status’ section on their 1040 forms. I was looking for the disappearing single function printer (SFP).

From the wise elders I have been learning from since I joined HP, I have heard from time to time that the inkjet technology that we use in most of our present day printers is about 25 years old – launched in 1984. (Not that I’d know anything about it since the inaugural HP inkjet printer shipped when my most compelling conversation included the words da-da, ba-ba and poo.) But after almost a quarter century, the inkjet SFP has mysteriously become an afterthought in most electronic stores. Why has this printer disappeared from most store shelves? Who is the main culprit for this? That was what I set to find out at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) this year.

Like a bloodhound searching for the sly fox in the dense CES show floor, I went looking for the disappearing singles – no, not girls, printers! Mind out of the gutter, please!

After looking at the CES map, I soon found out that I would have no luck with my first two choices: Lexmark was not on the show floor at all, and Epson only focused on (pun intended) showcasing their business projectors.

So I went to Canon’s booth to scour the area for my prey. Unfortunately, after following the red carpet, this bloodhound didn’t find any singles, only All-in-One (AiO) printers.

With nothing to show for my search, I went to the Brother booth and again came up empty on my singles quest.

My final attempt to find the elusive single was at Kodak’s booth. Of course, I already knew they don’t offer singles, but I had to confirm it.

I concluded my search of the Las Vegas Convention Center at the HP booth. I was dejected as I entered since I had failed in my quest to find single function printers. My dejection soon turned to elation as I caught a glimpse of my first single: the Photosmart D7460 printer. Not only did I find a single, I found a printer equivalent to a 96 point Cabernet Sauvignon by Robert Parker. It had a touchscreen color graphics display screen, wireless connectivity, and a sleek design. It was worth the search!

So why are there so few singles left? I think technology is to blame. As we have become more proficient in our ability to micro-size products, we have been able to add a lot of features into a small space -- A cable box also doubles as a video recorder, a cellular phone doubles as an email sender and camera.

And so, our trusty single-function inkjet printers have became copiers, scanners, faxes and even telephones without taking up much more space than a single-function printer.

So, if AiOs offer more functionality than singles in not much more space, why are there singles at all? Is it a niche for people who have separate components for all of their stereo equipment? Are they the same people who can’t let their meat touch their potatoes on their dinner plate?

So here it’s interesting to note that HP still sells single-function scanners and fax machines. There always seems to be a demand for singles, but it’s not as big as it used to be. And some people do just need a printer, not a copier, scanner or fax.

It was good to see that HP at least is still letting the customer choose if they want a single function print or an AiO. And while more of HP’s inkjet printing products are AiOs than singles, there still are a lot of good choices to be had in the single-function market. I don’t think singles are completely disappearing. I think it’s that they are just finding their place in the world. It’s good to be single.

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of HP and may not have been reviewed in advance by HP.

Do HP Inkjet Printers use Different Types of Ink for Photos and Documents?

Stacie Savage — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:53:00 GMT

Posted by Bret Bottger, HP Inkjet Systems Marketing

I received a comment with a few questions from “WithFries2” on a recent posting about HP’s new Officejet Printing System. I thought the answer to these questions would be interesting for other readers.

Here’s the comment from “WithFries2”:

Is Officejet ink different than the ink you use in the photo-centric line of printers and AIOs? What's the effect on photo printing quality? What would you recommend for a home office that prints 80% photos and 20% office documents?

So, on the first part of the question “Is Officejet ink different from HP Vivera ink for a Photosmart printer?”, the answer is yes, it is different.

Officejet ink is an ink system designed for typical business printing on plain office papers or special papers used to print brochures, presentations and other marketing materials.

The black ink is pigment-based which provides laser-quality text that dries quickly and resists smudging and the effects of water. Officejet ink cartridges are designed for the high print volumes that are often required for business – this means the cartridges don’t need to be changed very often and provide low cost per page.

Photosmart printers use HP Vivera inks. While both inks produce excellent photos on photo paper, the ink used in Photosmart printers is optimized to create lab-quality photos on photo paper. While these printers also create high-quality documents, they are designed for the versatility that home users require.

Vivera black inks can either be pigment or dye based. Generally speaking, dye-based black inks are ideal for printing photos on photo paper. Pigment-based black inks do a good job on some photo papers, but not others. We’ll do a future blog on the different types of photo papers and how they interact with different types of ink.

On the second part of the question “What’s the effect on photo printing quality of the Officejet Printing System?”, here’s the answer:

The Officejet ink cartridges are optimized for printing photos which are embedded in documents, which is primarily how business customers use photos -- for example photos are often include in printed newsletters, brochures or presentations. With HP Officejet printing systems, you get professional color and laser quality black on plain paper. The Officejet Printing System is capable of printing great photos, but it is really designed for high-volume printing of text and business graphics, not photography.

And on the final part of the question ”What would I recommend for your home office that prints 80% photos and 20% office documents?”, here’s the answer:

I’m guessing you are printing mostly photos on special photo paper and printing your office documents on plain paper. HP Photosmart printers are focused more on photography and versatile home document printing. I’d suggest an HP Photosmart printer or all-in-one depending on if you’d also like to be able to copy, scan and even fax at home. Photosmart printers and all-in-ones for the home start at $99.

You might want to try the HP Photosmart D7460 Printer . This is a great single function printer that you can add to a wireless network. It prints lab-quality photos in six-ink color or high-quality documents on plain paper—all using vivid and long-lasting HP Vivera inks; it has digital camera card slots, and a touchscreen color graphics display so you can easily print photos without a PC.

If you’d prefer an all-in-one, consider the HP Photosmart C7280 Printer, Fax, Scanner, Copier. This product can be considered an all-in-one version of the D7460 printer with many of the same features including six-ink color with HP Vivera inks, but of course adds the greater versatility of an all-in-one. It also has a 50-page automatic document feeder to help with your office documents for hands free copying, scanning and faxing.

If you do buy a new Photosmart printer or all-in-one, here’s a tip that can help save you money. Consider purchasing Original HP inks in a combo pack which combines more than one ink cartridge in a package, or in a special photo value pack which combines ink cartridges with specialty paper. Purchasing HP ink and paper this way will cost less that buying single ink cartridges or packs of photo paper.

Good luck with your printer decision!

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of HP and may not have been reviewed in advance by HP.

Small Businesses use HP Officejet Printing System for “Sixcess”

Stacie Savage — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 21:49:00 GMT

Posted by Bret Bottger, HP Inkjet Systems Marketing

In my last blog posting, I introduced the new HP Officejet Printing System. Today, I’m going to introduce you to real Officejet users and let them describe their experiences with the products.

In December, I met Jann and Laurie Sixx who use an HP Officejet Pro L7680 all-in-one in their business, Sixcess Drug Testing Services. Based in Lancaster, California, this family-owned business has provided drug screening services since 1995.

Photo of Jann and Laurie Sixx in front of Sixcess Drug Testing Services, Lancaster, California.

Jann and Laurie uses their HP Officejet Pro color all-in-one for a wide variety of tasks including printing, faxing, scanning and copying. As the only two employees of the company, this husband and wife team, print about 500 pages a month. Of these pages, about half are printed in color, including promotional brochures, billing statements, business cards, certificates, envelopes and letters. As I started to understand how the Sixxs use their all-in-one, it became clear they appreciate the convenience of having one single device that can handle many functions instead of using several separate devices. Producing marketing materials like brochures in their office with HP products is a real money saver for Sixcess.

Photo of the HP Officejet Pro L7680 All-in-One in the Sixcess office.

If you’re interesting in learning more about how Jann and Laurie use the HP Officejet Printing System, watch the video of Sixcess and the HP Officejet Printing System or visit their home page at www.sixcess.com.

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of HP and may not have been reviewed in advance by HP.

New HP Officejet Printing System Offers Cost Savings and Ease of Use for Small Business Customers

Stacie Savage — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 21:28:00 GMT

Posted by Bret Bottger, Inkjet Systems Marketing

Today, HP is announcing a new approach to branding for Officejet printers, all-in-ones and supplies that will help small businesses get professional quality color printing for significantly less cost per page compared to competing laser printers.

The new HP Officejet Printing System features printers, all-in-ones and supplies designed together to deliver professional, high-impact color documents for small business. HP Officejet and Officejet Pro printers will now use Officejet-branded supplies. Both the Officejet printer and supplies packaging are being refreshed with a new dark green bar that will make it easier to find the HP Officejet ink cartridge to go with a particular Officejet printer.

Using the new HP Officejet Printing System, you can get professional color documents for up to 50% lower cost per page compared to competing laser printers using plain paper (for details, click here). These cartridges and the inks inside are specially designed for the needs of small businesses -- quick dry time and fade resistance. These features are especially important for businesses creating their own marketing materials such as brochures and presentations. The HP Officejet Pro printing system can deliver superior color and black quality compared to competing laser printers using a range of coated papers and HP Officejet ink. (for details, click here.)

For more details about cost-per-page comparisons for HP Officejet color all-in-one devices, click here. For an independent testing report on single-function printers, click here. Both reports are by SpencerLab Digital Color Laboratory, commissioned by Hewlett-Packard.

I invite you to learn more about the new the HP Officejet Printing System at www.hp.com/go/officejet. Feel free to jump into the conversation on this blog.

In my next blog, I’ll tell you about a small business that used HP Officejet products to help make their business a success.

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of HP and may not have been reviewed in advance by HP.

Photo printing – Why most of us still choose to print at home

Stacie Savage — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 20:02:00 GMT

Posted by Kathleen Tandy, Imaging & Printing Supplies Communications

With all the choices we have today for printing our digital photos – drug-store photo counters, in store kiosks, online photo-sites – which is the right choice, and does it still make sense to print at home?

Digital photos

Most of us have switched from using film in our cameras to taking digital photos, and we are taking more photos than ever before. A recent U.S. Home Photo Printing study reported that US consumers took an average of 500 digital photos in 2007, up 38% from the year before.

Our family took even more than that. With several family vacations and two pre-teens who aspire to be photo journalists, our family took several thousand photos in 2007!

When it comes to printing those photos we have more choices than ever before. From full service counters and self-service kiosks in stores to online services such as Snapfish as well as home printers we have more ways than ever to turn those digital photos into printed photos. But despite all these choices, most of us still print our photos at home. Why?

First of all, we can print great quality photos at home. Advances in printing technology and the affordability of home printers means the quality of the photos we can print at home rivals the quality of traditional in-store photo processing, and in many cases exceeds traditional photos when it comes to fade resistance.

Second, printing at home offers a number of unique benefits that other printing choices can’t deliver:

1. Printing at home gives us immediate results. Most of us print photos just after an important event – a birthday, graduation or family vacation and we want to see or share our memories right away. Many of our friends are including photos from parties in thank-you notes as mementos of the occasion. Printing at home allows us to quickly share our photos with family and friends, or put them in a scrapbook, while our memories are still fresh.

2. Printing at home is easy. Cameras, memory cards, docking stations and software have all become easier to use so that printing at home can be simpler and much faster than waiting in line at the photo counter or for the mail.

3. We can be more creative when we print at home. With easy to use photo software we can crop to the size we want, touch up those red-eyes, or choose different sizes – from wallet-size to letter-size for standard printers – to print photos exactly the way we want them, not the way a store has decided to give them to us. And, we can do in this in the privacy of our own homes without people watching over our shoulders at an in-store kiosk.

4. We can save money by printing at home. After taking everything in account, most of us see home photo printing as the most affordable option overall. In store printing may offer some of the lowest prices for 4x6 photo prints but you need to consider the hidden costs of driving to the store and waiting in line. Online services may advertise low prices, but other costs like shipping and fees for small or rush orders and minimum print quantities could result in higher prices than you expect.

And, printing at home is probably the lowest cost option for larger prints, like 5x7 and 8x10 sizes. A side by side comparison shows the prices you pay for a photo print can really vary. While printing at home may cost a bit more for 4x6- photos, it is clearly the lowest cost choice for printing 5x7 and 8x10/letter size prints. Since more of us are printing these larger size photos than ever before, it makes sense that most people choose to print them at home and save.

Printing at Home – A Great Choice

Today there are many great ways to print your photos. Online photo services like Snapfish and HP’s in-store photo solutions offer customers flexibility and high-quality prints. But printing photos at home offers us many unique benefits. Great quality prints, immediate results, privacy and more creative control are just some of the advantages we get from printing our photos at home. It’s also an affordable choice - and probably the lowest cost option for 5x7 and 8 x 10-inch prints. With all these advantages, it makes sense for most of us to continue to print the majority of our photos at home for some time to come.

Notes:

· Photofinishing News – Global Photo Services Price Review August 2007. Reported prices exclude sales tax. Survey included familiar vendors, such as CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Sam’s Club, Costco and Target Stores, as well as specialty camera stores and online services.

· HP self reported printing prices. Photo costs calculated using prices of HP Photo Value Packs (PVPs) – which include HP ink cartridges and photo paper – from www.shopping.hp.com. The cost of 4x6 photos printed is determined by dividing the cost of the pack by the number of pieces of photo paper included.

· Other sources include InfoTrends Home Photo Printing End-User Research: 2007 and BestWebBuys Online Digital Photo Print Service Comparison, September 2007.

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of HP and may not have been reviewed in advance by HP.

How Good are HP Printers? Find out from HP Customers.

Stacie Savage — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 17:17:00 GMT

Posted by Stacie Savage, Inkjet Systems Communications

I’ve started my holiday shopping, and because I never seem to have enough time, I do a fair amount of it online. I still go to brick and mortar stores too because I actually like the hustle and bustle of the holidays, and the holidays wouldn’t be complete for me if I didn’t get to hear elevator music versions of Christmas carols while standing in long check-out lines with the handles of heavy shopping bags cutting a line in my hands, but I digress.

Back to online shopping. I find this type of shopping most convenient when I either know exactly what I want, and I just need to order it, or the opposite, when I know I want a particular type of product, but I don’t know which one to buy. One trend I’ve seen on shopping web sites is the customer review. I’m a little skeptical of reviewers. For example our local newspaper movie critic in San Diego seems to love to pan the movies everybody loves and praise the movies most people don’t enjoy. (I feel he owes my husband and me $18 for Magnolia which was the last time I went to see a movie based on one of his reviews.) More digression, sorry.

Back to online shopping. Although I am skeptical of reviewers, I have very much enjoyed reading online customer reviews of products I’m considering purchasing. Customers call out things that are very hard to evaluate by manufacturer-supplied information. For example, at HP, we strive to make our printers easy to set up and use, and we try to call out features that provide a concrete example of this. And, I personally write a lot of this information. However, I must admit that it seems so much more genuine and credible (even to me) to read a customer review that testifies to ease of use based on actual customer experience.

So if you are considering purchasing an HP printer for a holiday gift or for yourself, please visit the HP Home & Home Office Store (www.hpshopping.com). Once you find a printer or all-in-one (or any other HP product), click on the customer review link and see what other folks like you have to say. I think you’ll learn some interesting things. The customer feedback is uncensored, so on occasion you’ll read something that makes us cringe at HP. But the good news for us is it’s another way to get customer feedback, and if there are things about our products that customers don’t like, we have a chance to address those issues. Also, if you read something naughty (using bad language and such), please report that to us. HP runs a clean web site.

I hope your holiday shopping goes well whichever road you choose – the virtual one, or the one with eight lanes where few people use their turn signals before they change lanes. (Really, how hard is it to flip a lever up or down? I can’t read your mind!) Oops, more digression, better sign off now.

Happy Holidays!

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of HP and may not have been reviewed in advance by HP.

Halloween Projects – Being Scared can Actually be Fun!

Stacie Savage — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:43:00 GMT

Posted by Stacie Savage, Inkjet Systems Communications

The week before Halloween has been a very scary one in Southern California. I’m writing this from home because the HP San Diego Site has been closed all week. The site is located in a neighborhood called Rancho Bernardo, and if you were following the news, you’ll know that President Bush visited there yesterday because it was one of the areas hardest hit by the San Diego wild fires. Many HP employees live near the site, and we know of several who have lost their homes.

I was very fortunate in that the fires didn’t get very close to my neighborhood. The 2003 fires came within a mile of my house, and to this day, I still smile whenever I see a firefighter. This year, my home became an impromptu evacuation center for a large extended family from four separate households in San Diego County. If you’ve ever experienced anything like this – waiting to see if you have to evacuate your home or not, and wondering if your friends’ homes will be there when they go back -- you know the feeling that is a mixture of anxiety, boredom and helplessness.

Everything reminds you of the potential danger. The local TV channels are suddenly 24-hour news channels that cover every aspect of the fire, from road closures, to the direction of the wind, to which evacuation center had to be shut down because the fire was heading toward it. Even if you dare to take a break and watch Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO, the emergency broadcast system interrupts it to tell you which neighborhoods are now evacuating. And you’re hoping with all your heart that you don’t know anyone who lives there because that makes it even more painful.

After two days of waiting, some neighborhoods got the all clear nod. When my friends went home, all to discover that their houses, though ashy, were all still standing, I had a profound sense of loneliness. Things were slowly getting back to normal, but they weren’t quite there yet. And now, that the fires are mostly contained (some neighborhoods are still threatened), it’s getting more normal, but everything is still a little bit off.

I’m working, but I’m doing spacey things. I sent and recalled the same e-mail three times because there was something glaringly wrong with it every time. I’ve had to proofread documents four or five times and have still found stuff I missed before. I hope you don’t find any typos in this post.

It will be a very long time before things are back to normal. In fact, some folks who lost homes in the fire four years ago haven’t recovered yet. I’ve learned in life that I’m less affected by what happens to me than I am by how I respond to it. I believe doing normal things helps you get back to normal.

And so, finally, I’m going to talk about something normal for me, printing. Halloween is next week, and I’m going to the store later to get some big bags of candy to hide from my husband so that they will still be around for me to hand out next week. I’m also going to buy a big pumpkin. And I’m printing out pumpkin carving stencils. The Snapfish website has some fantastic stencils from the World Wildlife Fund. The tiger stencil is the one I’m going to use for my pumpkin. Also, you can take a picture of your creation and post it on Snapfish, and other users can vote on their favorites. Prizes like HP photo printers and cameras and World Wildlife Fund T-shirts will be awarded to the carvers of the best pumpkins.

If that’s a little too much for you, the HP project site has some really simple projects like a Halloween door bell cover. One is a cute little ghost, and your doorbell can become his mouth. There are lots of other projects as well. They are all quite simple and don’t require lots of supplies – there’s a good chance that you have what you need on hand.

What I’m really trying to say is “Hug your kids and your spouse, call a friend, pet your cat. Do normal things like go trick-or-treating or carve a pumpkin.” It might take a while, but you’ll feel better.

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of HP and may not have been reviewed in advance by HP.

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Should You Turn Your Printer Off when You aren’t Using It?

Stacie Savage — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:48:00 GMT

Posted by David Bufford, HP Inkjet Printing Efficiency

You’re not planning to print for the rest of the day. Should you power your printer off or leave it on? What about overnight? Over the weekend? When you leave for vacation? What are the implications for leaving it on vs. turning it off?

First, let’s talk about what it means to power off the printer. Most printers have a low-power mode (standby mode) that they automatically initiate it you haven’t printed for awhile. In this state, the printer will print if you send it a print job. Printers normally have a power button, which is typically lit when on. Push the button, and the printer shuts down…mostly. Printers typically do not respond to print jobs in this state, but are using a very small amount of power. Finally, you can pull the cord or shut off the power strip. Now it’s really totally off, no power is consumed, and the printer will definitely not respond if you send it a print job.

There are primarily 3 areas of interest affected by this decision. They are:

· Power consumption
· Printhead health
· Ink usage

Power Consumption:

Your printer definitely uses more power on than off. How much more power? It depends on your printer, of course. For example, HP’s Deskjet D4160 in standby mode (also sometimes called Energy Star mode in printers like the D4160 that meet that standard) consumes about 3 watts of power. That’s less than half the electricity consumed by a typical nightlight. Costs for electricity vary widely, but the US average is close to $0.10 per Kwh. At that rate, it costs about $2.50 a year for your D4160 printer to operate in stand-by mode continuously. In power-off mode (the power light is off), it consumes less than 1 watt, which would cost about $0.85 a year. Pull the plug…well, I’ll let you do the math.

Printhead Health:

All inkjet printers have semiconductor printheads. Some have an integrated printhead (IPH), while others are separate from the cartridge (as in IIC or Individual Ink Cartridge architectures). Regardless of the architecture, the printhead needs to be kept healthy to allow you to print high quality documents.

HP inkjet printers have shut-down routines, where the printer “parks” the printhead and “caps” the cartridge. There are a couple of triggers that cause this. One is if the “Off” button is pushed on the printer. The other is when the printer has been idle for a while, and it puts itself into power save mode. The printer moves the printhead to what our engineers call a “service station” where the printhead is covered, with very limited flow of air to the printhead. The printer can sit for an extended time without drying out the ink in the printhead and without harming the printer.

How long? As with so many such questions, the answer depends upon many variables, and it’s hard to give a definite answer. But it would be reasonably safe to assume that a month or so is ok, and that if you don’t print for a year or so, you risk having difficulty getting clean, streak-free prints without significant maintenance/servicing or repair/replacement of the printhead.

If you remove power (pull the plug) to the printer while it is in the middle of printing or shortly after it has finished a print job, without using the power off button, you could leave the printer in a much less desirable state. In this case, the ink would have a higher likelihood of drying in the printhead, and clogging up nozzles. Ink can no longer flow through those nozzles, and you will get streaky output. To keep the nozzles working properly, inkjet printers routinely maintain the printhead nozzles. Many inkjet printers also have user-initiated cleaning cycles. In many situations, your printer can recover from clogging with one or more cleaning cycles. If it can’t, you will need a new printhead. For an IPH product, replace the cartridge and you get a brand new printhead. For an IIC printer, your choices are to send the printer for service or to replace the printer (though some office-type IIC printers have user- replaceable printheads).

Ink Usage:

Maintaining the printhead in your printer is kind of like changing the oil in your car. If you don’t do it regularly, not only will it not function optimally, but eventually it may not function at all. And the cost of the maintenance is negligible compared to the cost of the repair if you don’t do the maintenance - in the case of your printer, it uses a small amount of ink to flow through the printhead and keep it clear.

Unlike your car, you don’t have to bring your printer in to get it maintained. HP has designed the printer to do the job for you, with minimum impact on your ability to print the documents you want when you want them. Some inkjet printers will periodically run maintenance cycles that use small amounts of ink to flush the nozzles and keep them clear if the printer has not been used for some time. This is because our engineers have determined that extended periods of time without printing could harm the printhead. If you have a printer that does this, you can stop these cycles by removing power, but your printhead may become clogged and cease to print the beautiful documents you expect from it.

Some inkjet printers run a maintenance cycle when the printer is powered on, while others know when they were last used at all times and only run maintenance cycles if it’s been a long time since the last print. The deciding factor here is whether the printer contains a “real time clock”, which is kept alive by a battery. Typically mid-range and high-end printers contain such a clock. These printers know when they last printed, and may not run a maintenance cycle at all, or may wait until the next print job and perform the maintenance routines at that time. Printers without battery backed real time clocks do not know if power was off for a few minutes or a few months or something in between.

Unless the printer recycles the ink used for maintenance, ink will be consumed from all of the cartridges in your printer. If you are having streaky output and start a user-initiated cleaning cycle, that will typically use more ink than a routine maintenance cycle initiated by the printer. If you have to do multiple cleaning cycles or a “deep cleaning” cycle offered by some printers to get your printhead working properly again, those cycles will likely consume even more ink. If you have to replace the cartridge in an IPH printer, of course you lose all of the ink that was in the cartridge at the time.

So what should you do? If you have a relatively modern inkjet printer, your printer has been designed to shut down to very low power usage if it hasn’t been used for a while. It does consume some energy to keep the printer running, but a very modest amount. It won’t hurt your printer if you power it down every night when you power down your computer, as long as the printhead is parked either by entering power save mode or by pushing the power button on the printer. Our recommendation would be that you leave your printer powered on in normal usage conditions, and power it down if you will not use it for an extended period of time, on the order of a month or more. What you should not do is finish work on a project, print it out, and then immediately shut the printer down by killing the power to the printer. If you need to shut down right away, push the power button on the printer and it will prepare itself to shut down usually in less time than it takes for your PC to shut down.

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of HP and may not have been reviewed in advance by HP.

A Guide to Greener Printing

Stacie Savage — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 17:37:00 GMT

Posted by Erin Gately, HP Deskjet Environmental Steward

Ever wondered how to print in a more environmentally friendly way? As an Environmental Product Steward working on HP Deskjet printers, part of my job is to know all the green features of our products. What if I told you that you could go green and save money when printing with all HP’s Deskjet, Photosmart and Officejet printers? Here are 7 tips for utilizing the green features of your HP inkjet printer.

HP Smart Web Printing – Down load the free HP Smart Web Printing software from HP and you can print smarter from the web. This software allows you to decide how and what you want to print off the web. Printing only the pages you need saves paper and reduces waste.

Print on both sides of your paper – Did you know your HP inkjet printer has the ability to print on both sides of the page? This saves paper which saves money and our planet. Why should you care about printing on both sides of the page? It turns out that in a Life Cycle Analysis of a Deskjet printer, the number one thing you can do to reduce the environmental impact of printing is to print on both sides of the page. It is a great habit to get into. Plus, it saves paper which saves you money! If you have an HP inkjet printer then you can print on both sides of the page with the manual duplexing option standard in all HP products. To see how it is done, check out this HP Uncut Video.

Print multiple pages on a sheet – For certain documents; you may want to print more than one page on a single sheet. You can print up to 16 pages on a single sheet of paper! This is a cost effective way to print draft pages.

Figure 1: Sample layout options (1-up, 2-up, and 4-up)*

Make sure you have paper loaded in the input tray.
On the File menu in your software application, click Print.
Make sure your product is the selected printer.
Click the button that opens the Properties dialog box.
Depending on your software application, this button might be called Properties, Options, Printer Setup, Printer, or Preferences.
Click the Features tab.
In the Pages per sheet list, click 2, 4, 6, 9, or 16.
If you want a border to appear around each page image printed on the sheet of paper, select the Print page borders check box.
In the Page order list, click an appropriate page order option.
The sample output graphic is numbered to show how the pages will be ordered if you select each option.
Click OK, and then click Print or OK in the Print dialog box.

Use the correct print mode – Did you know that your printer has several different print modes that provide different levels of print quality? You can choose a print mode based on the print quality and speed you need for what you are printing. Using the correct print mode means you are always using the correct amount of ink. Printing in Fast Draft mode uses less ink while Best mode uses more. Print quality options include: Fast Draft, Fast Normal, Normal, Best, Maximum dpi. For important documents you may want to use the “Best” mode. For draft documents, you can use the “Fast Draft” mode. For photos you may want to pick the Best mode for the photo paper you are using. Use the print quality that matches your print job. Which print mode matches your everyday printing? Use the Control Panel of your computer to set the print mode you most often use.

Optimize your print area – Documents in academia often have strict rules which define the print area of a page. For the rest of us, we can optimize our print area of the page. By expanding your margins, you can utilize more print area. Many word processing documents have a default template so every time you open a new document; it is formatted in a particular way. Play around with this default template to optimize your print area.

Enjoy your printer’s low power mode – Most HP inkjet printers automatically go into a low power state after a few minutes of inactivity. You don’t need to do anything – just enjoy the fact that HP has worked to reduce your overall power consumption.

Turn off your printer – You might be able to save energy by turning your printer off. There are several implications of doing so. Look for an upcoming blog to give you all the inside info on when you should and shouldn't turn your printer off. Why would you want to turn off your printer (or computer or task lights)? Even when you are not using your printer, it is still using energy. You might be surprised at how much energy your printer might be drawing while it is just sitting on your desk. Generally, depending on the model, it will draw between 0.1 and 2 Watts of power - just sitting there. But if you aren't sitting there, turn it off. This goes for all your electrical devices.

Certainly, in some instances, you won't want to turn your printer off. If your printer is on a network and is used by many people, you may not want to turn it off. If you have a multifunction device that needs to be able to accept faxes, you probably don't want to turn it off. But all the rest of you can save money and reduce the amount of power drawn which is good for our planet. So how exactly do you turn off your printer (or computer)? Just find and push the button that looks like the line drawing above. If you have an older printer or multifunction device, you may need to press and hold the button for a few seconds to get it into its lowest power state. In the lowest power state, it is likely drawing less than one watt of power. In order to draw zero watts of power, unplug your device.

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of HP and may not have been reviewed in advance by HP.

HP Photosmart Printers are the Easiest and Fastest way to Print Lab-quality Photos at Home – How do We Know That?!

Stacie Savage — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 17:26:00 GMT

Posted by Stacie Savage, Inkjet Systems Communications

One of the most fun parts of my job is creating breakthrough messages. I define breakthrough messages as something that we can say to consumers that reassures them that they are buying the best product available. These are often superlative statements like the one in the headline of this post.

On October 5, a research company called Doxus issued a press release about an ease of use study that HP commissioned. This was partially in response to some customers who advised us of difficulties printing a photo at home on an inkjet printer.

Many of these customers were not using some of the key ease of use features that are available on their printers. On HP printers with digital camera memory card slots, the easiest way to print a photo is to insert the card into the slot and follow the instructions on the printer display screen. It usually just takes a couple of minutes to print a photo. However, a lot of people who own printers with this feature have never used it, and instead print photos through software or using a USB camera cable. These are also good ways to print photos, but they are not always the easiest way.

One thing I want to demonstrate to customers is that photo printing is really easy, and HP makes it especially easy. So I asked the people at Doxus to look into it. They did, and you can check out the results of the study.

Today, I don’t want to talk about this particular study so much, as I want to talk about using “3^rd-party” studies to validate product features and marketing claims. HP and other printer vendors use this approach with some frequency. We sometimes commission studies with external research agencies to validate our internal testing to ensure that the customer will indeed have the experience we expect them to have. While we’re at it, we also benchmark against competitors’ products, and, if that test also results in a messagable competitive advantage, we use the 3^rd-party study results to support that message.

As a matter of fact, press outlets do product comparisons at their own expense, and sometimes HP is allowed to use the results and sometime we’re not. And, because the press decides what product attributes they want to study, those attributes aren’t always what HP wants to talk about to consumers. Also, the studies we pay for are typically quantitative studies that involve hundreds if not thousands of consumer respondents all over the world. Most press outlets cannot afford to study attributes on that scale.

One example I like to point to in the U.S. is JD Power and Associates. Every time I’ve bought a car, I look at what JD Power has to say about it. I also look at publications like Motor Trend. Car companies pay JD Power to be included in their product testing. Motor Trends is a press outlet, so car companies don’t pay them, but they do loan vehicles to them for testing. JD Power and Motor Trend test products from other companies and report on the results because that is their business and they can make a profit doing so. That’s why research companies do product testing for companies like HP.

These studies help us understand what customers do and do not like about our products, and we can incorporate this feedback when we design new ones. Also, many of the studies that research companies do on our behalf are not published or used for marketing claims. Often we just want to know what consumers think about us so that we can better address their printing needs.

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of HP and may not have been reviewed in advance by HP.

Journalists Design Inkjet Printers at HP University- Part II

Stacie Savage — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Posted by Nils Miller, Ph.D., HP Ink and Media Senior Scientist

In my last post I described the press event in general and explained why we wanted the journalists to experience the challenges of designing a printer. In this post, I'll describe how this DaPS ‘Virtual Printer’ works and the insights the journalists (and HP) obtained.

Let’s start with the left-hand column in the blue-bordered table below – the engineering inputs -- starting at the top with ‘Inkset Type’. The journalists had 5 inkset types from which to choose. They had about half an hour to inspect various print samples on plain paper and photo paper, as well as perform their own tests directly on some samples to determine the water resistance and scratch resistance performance of each inkset. I also showed them faded sample prints so they could visualize what each inkset would look like after approximately 5 years of display in a customer’s home.

Inkset B was the most popular choice by a large margin because the journalists felt that Inkset B combined good photo vibrancy, durability and fade resistance, while still being vivid and sharp on plain paper. It was fascinating for me to listen in on each team’s internal discussions (arguments, in many cases) about the relative importance of each attribute, and how much to trade off one attribute in order to improve another. HP has found that most of our home-printing customers expect good-looking, long-lasting photographs from their HP printer, but also want their plain paper prints to look vibrant and sharp. The journalists tended to agree with this approach.

The journalists were given just two choices of photo paper to optimize the printer around: a less-expensive and thinner photo paper, and a higher-quality, better-looking, more expensive photo paper. The vote was roughly 50%/50% on this choice, as we expected.

The number of inks in the printer is another very important design decision. Sometimes when you read magazines you get the impression that journalists think ‘more is better’, but these experienced reviewers of computers and printers, tended to practicality, and chose 4 or 6 ink configurations. They understood that more ink colors make the printer bigger and more expensive, and this exercise was focused on designing a relatively inexpensive (less than $150) ‘do it all’ printer. HP’s desktop printers have for many years been primarily 4 and 6 ink configurations, for many of the same reasons the journalists identified.

The next decision concerned Drop Volume. Smaller is better, right? Well, the journalists quickly learned that the answer is ‘not necessarily’. Small can be good for photo image quality, but it slows down plain paper print speeds. After carefully inspecting real-life print samples for ‘grain’, most of the journalists chose drop volumes in the 3 or 4 pl range as an optimal size.

‘Nozzles per inch’ – this sounded a bit technical, but they soon learned that packing lots of nozzles per inch has many benefits for speed and quality, without significantly adding cost to the printer. Because of the ‘dpi (dots per inch) wars’ of years past, we expected that many would choose the highest nozzle per inch number, but surprisingly most journalists thought that 600 nozzles per inch was high enough.

‘Swath Height’ is another techy engineering term, but it simply indictes how many nozzles the print head has. Surprisingly, most resisted the urge to choose the biggest, and went for the moderate (1/2 inch) size. Good thing too – had they chosen the 1 inch size, the size and cost of the printer would have increased dramatically.

‘Ink Delivery System’ touched on another sometimes controversial area. For many years, HP has researched customer printing behavior at home and concluded that for many, an ‘integrated print head’ (IPH) design was a good choice. IPH means the printhead and ink supply cartridge are all on one easy-to-replace unit, with no extra tubes. HP has had ‘Separate Ink and Silicon’ (SIS) designs for well over a decade, but has tended to use them only for applications that use a lot more ink per month. SIS is also known as individual ink tanks meaning each ink color can be replaced separately. Apparently journalists have become more educated on this topic over the years, because many of them chose an IPH design for this printer. However, SIS was still the more popular choice made by more than half of the teams.

‘Ink Supply Page Yield’ relates to the size of the ink supplies. As we expected, some of the journalists wanted to know the ‘milliliters’, but we explained that since some inks are more efficient than others, what really matters is the number of pages the ink supply can produce. The journalists resisted the urge to choose a really big supply, since this increases the size and cost of the printer.

After an hour of learning the background necessary to make reasonable input decisions, each team of journalists chose a final set of inputs and handed them to us. While they took a break, we calculated the predicted performance of their printer on the 11 customer attributes you see listed on the right hand side of the chart above. Most of these attributes are self-explanatory, except ‘Ink Supply Replacement Rate’ (which indictes how often the customer will have to replace one of the ink supplies). In each of the 5 sessions, we let the journalists vote on what customer attributes are the most important, and based on that vote we were able to give extra weighting to those attributes. While each session voted differently, in general most agreed that cost – either of the printer, or on a cost-per-photo basis – was very important.

It was a very fun and interesting week. The journalists did a great job in learning the key principles behind the engineering and ink chemistry decisions that HP makes. Their comments indicated they learned the importance of looking at the overall ability of a printer to meet the needs of all customers—rather than focusing on one or two exciting specs that sound good but detract from other important attributes.

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of HP and may not have been reviewed in advance by HP.