limited paper choice for Designjet, why?

[jeehaa]

I'm thinking about getting a Designjet (the 90) as printing sizes above A3 look tempting. I will mainly use glossy or satin papers. In some posts over here I read about limited paper choice for the Designjet printers. Why is that? Is it so hard to get good results with other brands (for instance Ilford Classic Pearl)? Or is it a fading issue with papers other than HP? (why are other brands inferior in this respect?)

[jo-1]

1st of all - I would rather get the 130 series due to the size.

If smaller is enough the 3800 Pro from Epson might be the better choice due to the pigmented inks that last longer.

In other words - the result on HP Permium Plus satin and glossy media is simply superb but only on these papers the maximum lightfastness is possible.

On plain paper e.g. Hahnemuehle the lightfastness is lower than 2 years.

So if you like FineArt papers from Hahnemuehle go for pigmented inks - if the two excellent HP papers are fulfilling your needs @ 80% of the time (for me the satin paper fullfills the needs 90 % of the time) the DesignJet 30 / 90 / 130 series is a nobrainer due to the much lower running costs and initial costs,

jo-1