Here's a response from my friend Ken Mardle re my comments on the quality of
HP products.
Ken runs a very capable electronic development company which uses a large
range of test equipment.


        RM


______________________________

Russell,

Concur wholeheartedly on all points.

We have HP, Tek, Philips/Fluke, and Wavetek gear (plus some other more
specialised stuff).

Agilent make the best general purpose DMM (the HP34401A).  Nothing else come
close.  Their low-end Arb (HP33120A) is less impressive and I understand now
has a bigger brother.

Overall Tek make the best scopes (but have a stupid philosophy re add-ons
and interfaces).  HP try very hard and in a couple of instances overtake Tek
with extra features but IMHO the basic scope engine is not as good.  Le Croy
make some very nice scopes too but you need deep pockets.  Tek make some
very nice high-end logic analysers but very little else that I would be very
interested in.  Agilent have by far the widest and deepest product range in
all other categories (except handheld stuff).

Philips/Fluke make some very nice handheld gear (although in my experience
their flagship Scopemeter products have been a great disappointment).  We
have a Philips/Fluke logic analyser which is in everyday use and while now
rather elderly was once far and away the best logic analyser in its class.

I have four HP printers and suspect their marketing guru probably learned
his trade selling crack cocaine  - get em hooked with a $99 engine and then
charge more than that for each set of cartridges.  Then when after-market
people start to take some of the action embed technologies in the cartridges
which cannot cost-effectively be duplictaed and hike the price even further.
Sad thing is they are very nice printers, and I have never seen much
evidence that the printers from the other guys in the game are substantially
cheaper to run.

You also forgot to mention that most of HP's software for the office
products is a cruel joke.  The software for the their scanner I have at home
(can't remember the model) is almost usable, but that for the G85 combo we
have at work is completely useless  - so much so that it now is only used as
a stand-alone fax machine.

Regards,

Ken Mardle

--
http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us!
email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body