HP dominates?

Just got through reading the Sept issue of Consumers Reports evaluation of 23 printers, mostly inkjets. I found it very very interesting. Conclusions of their findings were as follows.
1.......HP dominates sales of home inkjets with almost 50% of market share .

2.......C.R. test people assessed the appearance of the color photo quality and found little correlation between quality and dots per inch resolution.

3.......For text and photos , again they found that the HP's earned the highest scores in the ratings.(the last printer testing was in February)

4.......The HP 1215 rated #1 and the 952C #2, 932C#3, 960CSE #4. All 4 HP's were almost identical in quality. (same print engine?) with proprietary layering technology?
5.......Canon s600rated #5
6.......Can you believe the Canon s800 was rated # 13?
7......CompaqIJI200 rated #6
8........s450 rated #7,(a best buy)
9........Epson 880 rated #8
10......Epson 777 rated #9,(a best buy)
11.......Epson 890 rated #10
After that comes the Lexmark Z53 #11 and and the Lexmark Z43 #12

Get the isuue and read it for yourself, as there are many other interesting tidbits in the article.JD

I have a feeling they were testing based on what kind of cash each company could fork over for the list as a payoff. Either that or they have infants looking at which test image has more colors on it then picking it that way.

TZZDC said:

I have a feeling they were testing based on what kind of cash each
company could fork over for the list as a payoff. Either that or
they have infants looking at which test image has more colors on it
then picking it that way.

Click to expand...

Funny you should say that because in one of your arguments as to why Epson was better, you claimed your 4 or 5 year old sibling liked the Epson print better than the HP 932c print.

I feel the 890 is at the top of that heap. If you were judging on photo quality. If you were judging only on office performance with rinky dinky graphics and a lot of text then you may come to another conclusion.
Gerry

Terry Thorn said:

TZZDC said:

I have a feeling they were testing based on what kind of cash each
company could fork over for the list as a payoff. Either that or
they have infants looking at which test image has more colors on it
then picking it that way.

Click to expand...

Funny you should say that because in one of your arguments as to
why Epson was better, you claimed your 4 or 5 year old sibling
liked the Epson print better than the HP 932c print.

Click to expand...

First of all, we all know we have to be careful when we make the subject of a new thread HP Dominates or any printer dominates for that matter. Second of all, Consumer Reports for some reason or another is not recognized as a valid publication when it comes to testing printers according to other forum members.

Mr. TZZDC, first off, let us correct your statements:

Statement #1:

"I have a feeling they were testing based on what kind of cash each company could fork over for the list as a payoff"

Well that would be fine if this magazine was like most computer hardware or digital photography magazines that accept adverstising from manufactures, but consumer reports does not allow advertising or any other bias to enter into its testing processes.

Statement #2:

"Either that or they have infants looking at which test image has more colors on it then picking it that way."

This would be true if if some of the people on this forum were involved in the test process, but Consumer Reports uses some of the most state of the art testing processes, and because there are few real world standards to subject a printed inkjet print to, they use an independent panel to judge results (which is a lot better than most publications which put the decision in the hands of one reviewer).

Consumer Reports does not rate in one individual category, it draws its conclusions based on the perfromance and capabilities as a whole. The report does not say HP is better at photos than Canon or Epson. It does not judge printers based on speculation or a single opinion. I have alot of respect for Consumer Reports, I have been reading it for years and it hard to say anything bad about the reporting that they conduct. Consumer Reports always places the best products at the top of its list (or their sujested best buys where they rank) time and time again, how can anyone that ? How can anyone trust a review from Computer Shopper, or PC Photo Magazine when they allow a printer manufacturer to include a two or four page magazine fold out ?

Dan

That makes me feel good as i came to the same conclusion after spending 2 months comparing print quality, customer satisfaction on the net and with the help/advice of my buddy who's been in the printing business for 20 years. When I started out i was leaning toward the big Epsons. Ended up with the HP 952C.

On another note, HP must be riding high after that article especially after taking the top 4 spots. I'm sure they'll take full advantage of it as they should.
Ricky

JD said:

Just got through reading the Sept issue of Consumers Reports
evaluation of 23 printers, mostly inkjets. I found it very very
interesting. Conclusions of their findings were as follows.
1.......HP dominates sales of home inkjets with almost 50% of
market share .
2.......C.R. test people assessed the appearance of the color photo
quality and found little correlation between quality and dots per
inch resolution.
3.......For text and photos , again they found that the HP's earned
the highest scores in the ratings.(the last printer testing was in
February)
4.......The HP 1215 rated #1 and the 952C #2, 932C#3, 960CSE #4.
All 4 HP's were almost identical in quality. (same print engine?)
with proprietary layering technology?
5.......Canon s600rated #5
6.......Can you believe the Canon s800 was rated # 13?
7......CompaqIJI200 rated #6
8........s450 rated #7,(a best buy)
9........Epson 880 rated #8
10......Epson 777 rated #9,(a best buy)
11.......Epson 890 rated #10
After that comes the Lexmark Z53 #11 and and the Lexmark Z43 #12
Get the isuue and read it for yourself, as there are many other
interesting tidbits in the article.JD

Click to expand...

Ricky said:

That makes me feel good as i came to the same conclusion after
spending 2 months comparing print quality, customer satisfaction on
the net and with the help/advice of my buddy who's been in the
printing business for 20 years. When I started out i was leaning
toward the big Epsons. Ended up with the HP 952C.
On another note, HP must be riding high after that article
especially after taking the top 4 spots. I'm sure they'll take full
advantage of it as they should.
Ricky

Click to expand...

HP has been struggling in the current market. (one example: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-6909015.html?tag=owv ) I've also read some very mixed reports on CEO Fiorina.
There's another article on CNet regarding HP layoffs in Singapore

Joe what does that have to do with the quality of an HP Printer? Hp has and still does dominate the market in that area. What the analyst failed to mention is HP use to make a ton of money in their medical device division. PCs just paid the light bill for HP at onetime. BTW Dell and a few others have laid off too.

Joe S. said:

Ricky said:

That makes me feel good as i came to the same conclusion after
spending 2 months comparing print quality, customer satisfaction on
the net and with the help/advice of my buddy who's been in the
printing business for 20 years. When I started out i was leaning
toward the big Epsons. Ended up with the HP 952C.
On another note, HP must be riding high after that article
especially after taking the top 4 spots. I'm sure they'll take full
advantage of it as they should.
Ricky

Click to expand...

HP has been struggling in the current market. (one example:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-6909015.html?tag=owv ) I've
also read some very mixed reports on CEO Fiorina.
There's another article on CNet regarding HP layoffs in Singapore

Click to expand...

Since I'm an HP stockholder I should be happy about the results, and I probably should have bought an HP printer when I was looking last week. But I don't read Consumer Reports. After researching on CNet and ZDNet, I got an Epson 1280 inkjet, which replaced a still-functioning Epson 700 inkjet. Nothing wrong with the old one, just wanted higher resolution and bigger paper size. The 700 replaced an HP 5L laserjet, which tended to paper-jam 99% of the time toward the end of its fairly brief life.

This is like going into a bar and asking a bunch of drunk cowboys who makes the best pick up truck. Ford, Chevy or Dodge. Now there's the makin of a fight.

I don't trust consumer reports on car ratings. I know their information on cars is slanted. So, why should I trust them on any other product?

It's a very close race between HP, Epson and Canon. Personally, I have the Epson 890 that produces spectacular prints. My father-in-law has an HP, and his prints look great too.

Richard S. wrote:

I just ordered the very last HP 952C from Amazon. My 842C deskjet has been producing flawless pix's...now I want a bit more resolution. The 4 x 6 photo tray will be very convenient. Consumers Report convinced me. I'd been considring the Canon 800...but tooo many reports of malfunction and clogged ink. Hassle free is me.

Ricky said:

JD said:

Just got through reading the Sept issue of Consumers Reports
evaluation of 23 printers, mostly inkjets. I found it very very
interesting. Conclusions of their findings were as follows.
1.......HP dominates sales of home inkjets with almost 50% of
market share .
2.......C.R. test people assessed the appearance of the color photo
quality and found little correlation between quality and dots per
inch resolution.
3.......For text and photos , again they found that the HP's earned
the highest scores in the ratings.(the last printer testing was in
February)
4.......The HP 1215 rated #1 and the 952C #2, 932C#3, 960CSE #4.
All 4 HP's were almost identical in quality. (same print engine?)
with proprietary layering technology?
5.......Canon s600rated #5
6.......Can you believe the Canon s800 was rated # 13?
7......CompaqIJI200 rated #6
8........s450 rated #7,(a best buy)
9........Epson 880 rated #8
10......Epson 777 rated #9,(a best buy)
11.......Epson 890 rated #10
After that comes the Lexmark Z53 #11 and and the Lexmark Z43 #12
Get the isuue and read it for yourself, as there are many other
interesting tidbits in the article.JD

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

DWH said:

This is like going into a bar and asking a bunch of drunk cowboys
who makes the best pick up truck. Ford, Chevy or Dodge. Now
there's the makin of a fight.

I don't trust consumer reports on car ratings. I know their
information on cars is slanted. So, why should I trust them on any
other product?

It's a very close race between HP, Epson and Canon. Personally, I
have the Epson 890 that produces spectacular prints. My
father-in-law has an HP, and his prints look great too.

Click to expand...

Richard S. wrote:

Trucks are evulated based on many factors..reliability being a big determinent. Printer manufacturers should be required to publish reliability ratings to help the consumer decide which model will be more or less reliable than another. Agree with you...the Big 3 all make good printers...some models from some of them are just more reliable. It would be nice to know...guess best way is to stay tuned to this forum and eval users comments and experience.

Yeah, I can't wait for Dell to lay of Steve the pimple faced dip huckstering crappy e-machine makeovers so he can go to work for Consumer Reports ! I wish everybody would keep buying this junk because it keeps me busy fixing it so I can make money to buy something good like an Epson or Canon. LJ

Ricky said:

Joe S. said:

Ricky said:

That makes me feel good as i came to the same conclusion after
spending 2 months comparing print quality, customer satisfaction on
the net and with the help/advice of my buddy who's been in the
printing business for 20 years. When I started out i was leaning
toward the big Epsons. Ended up with the HP 952C.
On another note, HP must be riding high after that article
especially after taking the top 4 spots. I'm sure they'll take full
advantage of it as they should.
Ricky

Click to expand...

HP has been struggling in the current market. (one example:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-6909015.html?tag=owv ) I've
also read some very mixed reports on CEO Fiorina.
There's another article on CNet regarding HP layoffs in Singapore

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Joe S. said:

HP has been struggling in the current market. (one example:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-6909015.html?tag=owv ) I've
also read some very mixed reports on CEO Fiorina.
There's another article on CNet regarding HP layoffs in Singapore

Click to expand...

In case you haven't noticed, a LOT of companies are struggling lately and divesting themselves of their less profitable ventures. Canon and Epson aren't immune to this economic downturn and I would expect that HP's printer business is more profitable than either of those companies'.

LJ Silver said:

Yeah, I can't wait for Dell to lay of Steve the pimple faced dip
huckstering crappy e-machine makeovers so he can go to work for
Consumer Reports ! I wish everybody would keep buying this junk
because it keeps me busy fixing it so I can make money to buy
something good like an Epson or Canon. LJ

Click to expand...

A buddy of mine just bought a Dell (Model 8100 with 1.5 GHz P4) and it wouldn't even boot reliably right out of the box. Even when it WOULD boot, it would quickly lock up. After many calls to their "award winning tech support", they concluded that my buddy, their customer, would have to format the hard drive and install ALL the software MANUALLY. I'm not talking about an automated system restore but re-installing Windows ME and ALL the software AND drivers they packed in the box one piece at a time. This shocked me that they expected a customer with one of their brand new two day-old units units to go through all that hassle. My buddy has little computer savvy but fortunately he knew someone who could do it for him. Needless to say, my opinion of Dell has dropped a few notches. I'm not saying their equipment isn't good but I don't agree with the way they handled the problem. Anyway, everything is running smoothly now and he LOVES his new HP 960. After I printed out a few images from my digital camera on it, he immediately bought a digital camera and is having a ball with it.

Ricky said:

Joe what does that have to do with the quality of an HP Printer? Hp
has and still does dominate the market in that area. What the
analyst failed to mention is HP use to make a ton of money in their
medical device division. PCs just paid the light bill for HP at
onetime. BTW Dell and a few others have laid off too.

Click to expand...

Would you rather buy a printer from a company that's struggling or one that's more secure? If Epson and Canon are going through the same thing, they are hiding it well. I haven't seen any negative tech news from either of those companies.
A lot of analysts are wondering what's going to happen with HP.

Terry Thorn said:

In case you haven't noticed, a LOT of companies are struggling
lately and divesting themselves of their less profitable ventures.
Canon and Epson aren't immune to this economic downturn and I would
expect that HP's printer business is more profitable than either of
those companies'.

Click to expand...

Point me to an article that indicate economic struggles for Epson and/or Canon.

Joe S. said:

Terry Thorn said:

In case you haven't noticed, a LOT of companies are struggling
lately and divesting themselves of their less profitable ventures.
Canon and Epson aren't immune to this economic downturn and I would
expect that HP's printer business is more profitable than either of
those companies'.

Click to expand...

Point me to an article that indicate economic struggles for Epson
and/or Canon.

Click to expand...

Canon is doing very well through the first half of 2001:

Joe S. said:

Ricky said:

Joe what does that have to do with the quality of an HP Printer? Hp
has and still does dominate the market in that area. What the
analyst failed to mention is HP use to make a ton of money in their
medical device division. PCs just paid the light bill for HP at
onetime. BTW Dell and a few others have laid off too.

Click to expand...

Would you rather buy a printer from a company that's struggling or
one that's more secure? If Epson and Canon are going through the
same thing, they are hiding it well. I haven't seen any negative
tech news from either of those companies.
A lot of analysts are wondering what's going to happen with HP.

Click to expand...

Canon MIGHT not be doing as badly as HP is RIGHT NOW but that doesn't mean they wouldn't jettison their personal printer business to maintain their profit margins if need be so I wouldn't be so cocky if I were you. This scare tactic you're employing is something I'd expect some of the Epson zealots to use.

Terry Thorn said:

Canon MIGHT not be doing as badly as HP is RIGHT NOW but that
doesn't mean they wouldn't jettison their personal printer business
to maintain their profit margins if need be so I wouldn't be so
cocky if I were you. This scare tactic you're employing is
something I'd expect some of the Epson zealots to use.

Click to expand...

Why are you zeroing in on Canon? My comments pertained to both Epson and Canon.

Here you go again with the labels and name calling ("Epson zealots"). Besides, I'm still convinced you fall into the category of a 1280 zealot.

And so what if I am pro Canon or a Canon zealot or whatever you call it now. At least I'm honest enough to admit it.