HP DesignJet T1600 Plotter

Both are 36-inch plotters, but they are designed for different workloads. The T650 is a compact plotter for small practices printing 20 to 50 A1 drawings per week with one or two users. It uses a 4-colour single-printhead ink system and has no internal hard disk. The T1600 is a workgroup plotter for practices with three or more concurrent users and higher daily volumes. Key differences: the T1600 uses a 6-colour ink system including dedicated gray (for GIS and orthophotos), delivers higher sustained throughput (116 A1/hr vs 82 A1/hr), carries 128 GB of file processing memory and a 500 GB self-encrypting hard disk (which prevents PC freezing during complex print jobs), accepts a wider range of media thicknesses (0.8 mm vs 0.3 mm), and includes a dual-roll option. The T1600 also carries HP Secure Boot and PIN printing security. The T650 includes an automatic sheet feeder for mixed A4/A1 output; the T1600 does not have this feature.

The sixth ink is a dedicated gray. In four-colour printers, mid-tones and neutral grays are mixed from black, cyan, magenta, and yellow inks. This mixing produces a visible grain or colour cast, particularly in smooth gradients such as aerial photography, elevation shading, and topographic surveys. A dedicated gray ink allows the printer to render these tones without mixing, producing smooth, neutral gradients that match the source data. For practices that print only line drawings, the gray ink is a minimal advantage. For GIS departments, land surveyors printing orthophotos, civil engineers including elevation models, and architects presenting rendered perspectives, the gray ink produces a measurably better result on every print containing a tonal gradient.

The T1600 is designed for workgroup environments with three or more concurrent users. The 128 GB processing memory and 500 GB hard disk allow it to accept and queue multiple large jobs simultaneously without blocking the sending workstations. The Gigabit Ethernet connection (1000Base-T) provides sufficient bandwidth for multiple large file transfers at once. In practice, the T1600 handles concurrent queues from teams of three to six users without the job delays that compact plotters experience when their limited RAM is saturated by a complex file from one user. Exact performance depends on file size, complexity, and network configuration. Graficomp can advise on the correct network setup for your team size.

The T1600dr (dual-roll) adds a second roll spindle. Both media rolls are loaded simultaneously and the printer selects the correct roll based on the page size of each job, without any operator intervention. For example, A1 bond paper can be loaded on one roll and A0 heavyweight coated paper on the other. When an A1 drawing arrives in the queue, the printer uses the bond roll; when an A0 drawing arrives, it switches to the coated roll automatically. The T1600dr eliminates manual media changes for practices that print across multiple roll sizes in the same day. For single-media operations (e.g., bond paper only), the standard T1600 is sufficient.

The T1600 does not support LDAP or Kerberos user authentication. Its security features are: HP Secure Boot (firmware integrity), self-encrypting hard disk (AES encryption at rest), PIN printing (jobs held until the user enters a PIN at the printer), HTTPS, Secure-IPP, IPsec/Firewall, 802.1X network access control, and TLS 1.0/1.1/1.2 encrypted communications. For organisations requiring full LDAP and Active Directory user authentication with role-based access control and audit-trail logging, the HP DesignJet T2600 MFP provides those controls. The T1600 is appropriate for environments with standard IT security policies that do not require individual user authentication at the printer.

The T1600 makes financial sense over the T650 in three scenarios: (1) Volume exceeds 50 A1 drawings per week, at which point the T1600's higher throughput reduces the time cost of printing and the T650's slower sustained rate creates measurable bottlenecks; (2) Three or more people print concurrently, creating queue delays on a single compact plotter; (3) GIS, orthophoto, or tonal-gradient output is a regular part of the workflow, where the six-colour system produces superior results. The T1600's higher purchase price is recovered through reduced downtime, faster tender turnaround, and the elimination of the gray-ink quality deficit on complex output. Contact Graficomp for a cost comparison based on your actual volume and workflow.

The T1600 uses HP 730 ink cartridges in six colours: cyan, magenta, yellow, photo black, matte black, and gray. Each colour is available in 130 ml and 300 ml sizes. For high-volume operations, the 300 ml cartridges reduce cost per page and the frequency of cartridge changes. HP 730 cartridges are the same series used in the HP DesignJet T2600 MFP, so cartridge stock is interchangeable between the two models if your organisation runs both. The printhead is the HP 727 DesignJet Printhead (B3P06A), a single head covering the entire ink system with an average service life of three to five years. Graficomp stocks HP 730 cartridges and can provide a consumable supply arrangement to suit your usage volume.

The T1600 carries 128 GB of file processing memory and a 500 GB self-encrypting hard disk. When a large GIS raster file, a multi-layer Civil 3D export, or a complex orthophoto PDF is sent to the printer, it processes the file independently of the workstation. Control is returned to the sending PC immediately after the job is queued — the workstation does not freeze or become unresponsive during processing. This is the primary operational advantage over compact plotters with limited RAM, where large files block the workstation for several minutes. For PostScript models, the Adobe PDF Print Engine renders complex PDFs — including those with embedded transparencies, PANTONE spot colours, and smooth shading — without the rendering errors that can occur with standard raster drivers.

At Johannesburg and Cape Town bureau rates of R15 to R25 per A1 sheet, a practice printing 50 sheets per week spends R3,000 to R5,000 per month on outsourced plotting. At that volume, in-house plotting on the T1600 is clearly more economical. Additionally, the T1600's throughput eliminates the same-day or next-day turnaround delay that bureau outsourcing imposes on tender deadline days. Contact Graficomp for a detailed cost comparison based on your actual weekly volume. The comparison will include consumable costs (ink, media, maintenance) and the capital cost amortised over 36 or 60 months.

Yes. The HP DesignJet T1600 is designed for workgroup environments with multiple concurrent users. The 128 GB processing memory accepts and queues multiple large jobs simultaneously. The Gigabit Ethernet connection handles concurrent file transfers without saturating. At 116 A1 pages per hour sustained throughput, a backlog of 20 drawings from three users clears in approximately 12 minutes. For firms with three or more people sending print jobs simultaneously, the T1600 eliminates the queue delays that compact plotters like the T630 and T650 experience under concurrent load. The T650's limited memory creates a processing bottleneck when multiple large jobs arrive simultaneously; the T1600's 128 GB memory and higher-throughput architecture eliminate this.

Graficomp provides on-site installation for every HP DesignJet T1600 purchase. Installation includes: physical setup and stand assembly, Gigabit Ethernet network connection and IP configuration, HP Click software installation and configuration for your print workflow, PostScript driver setup for PostScript models, print quality validation, and operator training covering roll loading, dual-roll switching (T1600dr), cartridge replacement, printhead replacement procedure, and standard HP Click batch plotting workflow. You do not set this up yourself.