HP DesignJet Studio Wood review
The plotter designed to live in a studio rather than a plan room, and the three-year warranty that is half the price.
A 36-inch large format plotter for technical drawings, renders, posters and maps, with sheet and roll feed, automatic switching, a media bin and a three-year onsite warranty.
Check price on AmazonSpecifications
| Spec | Detail |
|---|---|
| Media width | Up to 36-inch wide rolls, and up to 13 by 19-inch sheets |
| Media handling | Sheet feed, roll feed, automatic sheet and roll switching, media bin, automatic horizontal cutter |
| Intended output | Technical line drawings, renders, posters and maps |
| Job submission | HP Click, multiple files in as little as one click |
| Warranty | 3-year care pack with remote technical support and onsite coverage |
| Sheet feeder | Automatic sheet feeder included |
Specifications above come from HP's published specifications. Treat pricing as approximate, since Amazon pricing moves.
What it does well
- Automatic roll and sheet switching removes the single most annoying part of running a plotter, which is loading the right media for each job.
- The three-year onsite care pack is included rather than sold separately, and on a machine of this cost that is a substantial part of the value.
- HP Click submits a batch of drawings in one action, which matters when a set is thirty sheets rather than one.
- A media bin means output stacks rather than curling onto the floor, which sounds trivial until you print a full drawing set.
- The enclosed wood cabinet is the reason this model exists: it is a plotter you can put in a client-facing studio.
Where it falls short
- You are paying a premium for the cabinet. The DesignJet T650 prints the same 36-inch width for meaningfully less, in a machine that looks like a plotter.
- Large format ink is expensive and the cartridges are not small. Budget the consumables before the printer, not after, and use our ink cost calculator to see what a drawing set actually costs.
- It needs floor space and clearance in front for output, which studios routinely underestimate.
- 36 inches is only useful if your drawings need it. An awful lot of architectural output is printed at 24 inches, and the wider machine costs more to buy and more to feed.
- Roll media stored badly curls, and curled media is the main cause of skewed prints on any plotter. That is a storage problem you inherit with the machine.
What owners report
Owner reports on the Studio line consistently mention the same two things: the cabinet, which people either value highly or consider an expensive box, and HP Click, which comes up repeatedly as the feature that made batch printing painless.
The recurring criticism across all DesignJet models rather than this one specifically is ink cost, and it is a fair one. Owners who priced the cartridges before buying report no surprise; owners who did not are the ones writing about it afterwards.
Who it suits
- Architecture, engineering and design studios producing full-size drawing sets.
- Client-facing spaces where the machine is visible.
- Anyone who wants a warranty included rather than as an upsell.
Who should skip it
- Practices printing at 24 inches, who should look at the T230 and keep the difference.
- Photographers, who need a pigment photo printer rather than a technical plotter. Our photo printer versus all-in-one comparison covers why the two are not interchangeable.
- Anyone printing occasionally, where an outside repro service is cheaper than owning and feeding a plotter.
Alternatives worth considering
The same 36-inch width, the same automatic sheet and roll switching and cutter, with a two-year care pack instead of three and no cabinet. If the machine lives in a plan room rather than a showroom, this is the rational buy.
Check price on Amazon24 inches, a 5-colour set with UV and water-resistant ink, 2400 by 1200 dpi and printer calibration for consistent colour. Half the money, and the water resistance matters if drawings go to site. We set the brands against each other in our HP versus Canon comparison.
Check price on AmazonCommon questions
Do I need a 36-inch plotter or is 24 enough?
It depends on your largest drawing, not your largest ambition. ARCH D at 24 by 36 inches prints on a 24-inch roll in portrait or a 36-inch roll in landscape, so the honest question is whether you regularly output ARCH E or ANSI E. If you do not, 24 inches saves money on the machine and on every roll you buy.
How much does large format printing cost per print?
Ink and media together, and both matter. A full-coverage render costs several times what a line drawing costs on the same paper, because the ink volume is completely different. Our ink cost calculator lets you put in your cartridge price and coverage to get a realistic figure.
What is HP Click?
HP's simplified job submission tool for DesignJet printers. It takes PDFs and other files, previews them, and sends a batch to the printer without going through a full print dialogue for each one. On a thirty-sheet drawing set that is the difference between one action and thirty.
Can a plotter print photographs?
It can print an image, and it is not a photo printer. Technical plotters use a small ink set optimised for line accuracy and text, not the eight to eleven pigment inks a fine art printer uses for tonal range and grey balance. For photographic output, a dedicated photo printer is a different machine and the difference is obvious.
Is the wood cabinet worth the extra cost?
Only if the printer is somewhere clients see it. Functionally the Studio and the T650 do the same job at the same width, and the T650 costs less. Buying the cabinet is an interior design decision, and there is nothing wrong with that as long as you know that is what you are buying.
Keep reading
- HP vs Canon compared
- Best wide format printers
- Best printers for architects
- Ink cost calculator
- HP DesignJet T650 review
- Canon imagePROGRAF TM-240 review
This review draws on published specifications, manufacturer figures and the consensus of verified owner reviews. We have not tested this product ourselves, and we say so rather than implying otherwise. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.