This printer would be a joke if it was funny

I am a semi pro with about 8 years of experience in photography and printing. you can view my pics at

The printer used 8 pigment inks which Wilhelm has tested to be fade resistant to 200 years.

The printer has a specialty media tray and can print on canvas as large as 13 x 19, unless you look at the printer the wrong way and then it stops working.

This is the only printer I know of on the market in this price range that has closed loop calibration built into the print process.

Impressive specs if it actually worked reliably.

See my work at www.pbase.com/markcas

and decide for yourself if I know what I am talking about.

PREVIOUS PRINTER EXPERIENCE:
I have had a lot of Epson printers and had abandoned them because I got feed up with the notorious print nozzle clogs.

I have an HP 7960 which I had always raved about so decided to get an HP, and two other lower end HP desktop inkjets that lasted forever.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU HAD THE B9180?

About six months(now I have probably had it about 9 months, three of which it was a useless paper weight as it didn't work and I didn't want to bother with it).

HOW MUCH HAVE YOU USED THIS PRINTER?

I have went through over a 30 sheets of HP photo advanced 13 x 19 paper and probably over a box of the 8.5 x 11 photo advanced paper because of the difficulties I had with these printers. Also probably five 13*19 canvas prints

IS THERE ANYTHING YOU ARE SATISFIED WITH ABOUT THIS PRINTER?

the prints are much better in reference to moire(sp) which is when you print someone wearing a striped shirt the pattern gets messed up on lesser printers. The B9180 does a much better job than my 7960 with stripped patterns.

HOW DOES THE B9180 DO WITH 13 X 19 PRINTS WITH HP ADVANCED PHOTO PAPER?

Ok. I wasn't blown away by the quality. Is is adequate though. I personally haven't printed 13 by 19 at home but have had them printed professionally. The quality just isn't there.

MY EXPERIENCE WITH THIS PRINTER:

I swear I don't know what all of the praise is about when I read the reviews of this printer. I am on my third printer. Let me tell you about my experiences with this printer.

The first printer I got wouldn't go through the calibration step when you first turn the printer on. I kept feeding in HP advanced photo paper and it kept taking it in and then telling me it was out of paper and to load hp advanced photo paper. After I swear hours on the phone, they said they would replace the printer. It would seem although they didn't say, that there was a problem with the sensor that reads the small bar code on the back of the paper.

I got the second printer which I refused to accept because it was obvious that they took a used printer or refurb printer and threw it in a plain brown cardboard box. The foam that was supposed to hold the printer in place was crushed and when I tried to pick the printer up, something was rattling inside of the printer.

After much arm twisting they agreed this time to send me a new printer in factory packaging.

I got this one to go through call and printed two canvas prints that came out beautiful. It is a few months later and I went back to print more canvas and guess what suddenly I cant load canvas or even photo advanced paper into the specialty media tray. I hear a click and then the printer doesn't pull in the paper and it tells me to load media and then press ok.

I guess this is the cheapest "pro" printer you can buy but I don't care how cheap it is in reference, if I spend that kind of money I expect the product to work without too much aggravation. This printer has been a nightmare. Next time I will buy an canon. I already with I had!!

SUMMARY:

What a waste of time and money this purchase has been. I paid a lot for it, can't make money with it to print my prints and sell them. Am still stuck with having them printed. have wasted probably what amounts to days now hassling with this printer and trying to get it to work, and wish I had bought the Canon 9500!

Recommended:!!

UPDATE AS OF 2/8/08 NOW IT STOPPED PRINTING ALTOGETHER AND GIVES ME FALSE "PAPER JAM" ERROR MESSAGES. ANOTHER THREE CALLS TO TECH SUPPORT AND TWO PROMISES TO ESCALATE WITHOUT A CALL BACK. WAS THANKED FOR MY OUTSTANDING PATIENCE THOUGH(GREAT FOR ME) I THINK THIS IS SOME KIND OF PSYCHOLOGICAL GAME TO TRY AND WEAR ME DOWN, lol

Update as of 2/15/08. I am on my fourth printer and 3rd new printer. We'll see how it goes but I don't have much faith.

I am so glad that I bought the extended warranty for once in my life. Next time it malfunctions, I won't have to call someone in India as the case had been escalated for the second time and this time I will keep the number and name in my cell phone. I will call the case manager directly and make sure he gets as tired of talking to me, as I am with this cantankerous printer!!!

UPDATE AS OF 6/14/08
I am now on my fourth and it is doing the same things. It seems if you leave the printer idle for more than a week you get these errors. I think it must be a software feature that makes people print more so they use more ink and paper and increase HP revenues. LOL except I'm not laughing. WHAT EVER YOU DO, DON'T EVER TURN IT OFF! Then it stops working altogher and just spits out blank paper at you!! Wish someone could tell me how to reinitialize the printer so it works again. I a have tried turning them off again, unplugging them, on one of the four printers I tried caned air blown through the printer to clean any sensors off. I have tried prayers, swear words, "the force", anger. about five hours of talking on the phone with India, I mean customer support. Is there some little dance I can do to get it to work and keep working? You know similar to some sort of rain dance? Can I call on the printer gods to help me? Can I have a catholic cleric come over and bless it or drive out the demons?

The printer before this one I asked for my money back and they refused. I have the extended service contract but am about to give up and just pitch the thing. Maybe that is there plan to wear me down. After all, they have my money and even more since I bought the extended contract.

By comparison my old HP 7900 series works every time not mater how long it sits. It still prints beautifully as designed.

Update 6-21-08:

Make your life a lot easier and make sure to turn off "Advanced print features" This will take more investigation but it seemed to help me print what I needed to. I did not try canvas again, as I am out of canvas paper after wasting much of it. Turning off advanced print features did help me print 3 prints I couldn't print previously.

Of course, if this does help, then all of the "support techs" I spoke with in India and Canada should have been able to tell me to try that and why it would work.

Update on 6-22-08:
Un-checking "enable advanced print features" has worked so far. Now I can get prints reliably and even found a helpful article on this not well know feature. Apparently some specialty printers can't handle this feature.according to the article I read at the following link. Now if someone could have just told me this, it might have saved a lot of time wasted, and money for both parties.

http://www.steves-digicams.com/techcorner/august_2006.html