Chromatography Forum

Rob; I saw that you worked from 1989 till 2005 for HP/Agilent. I think it is fair that we know that.

I think everybody has the right to speak his/her mind. That’s (or a big part of it anyway) what the internet (and democracy) is all about.
Besides, who says that everybody has nice things to tell about their former employer?
People who don’t agree with the presented opinions can speak their minds too and that should make it up.
Recently I was kind of criticized because I had a certain opinion about some columns (without any association!). Low prices etc. were mentioned as a counterargument and that’s OK. But please don’t discourage people from sharing their opinions, knowledge, hunches etc. just because these don’t fit in others worldview.

Best Regards

I think this forum is for users and I personally am not interested in the opinion of sales representatives. If I want their opinion I will contact them.

You are right that you can have a bad taste about your former employer, but if you are going to react on a user forum I think it is fair to know that you worked for a long time as sales representative at a HPLC company.
It is than up to the reader to judge your input.

I read the thread you referring to. But turn it around if you ask users about a column do you then want information from a sales representative? They will always say their column is the best. What will come of this forum if all column manufacturers are going to react? I want the info from the users because most of the time they will tell me what they actually saw in the lab.

OK, I see it from your angle of view as well. Let’s hope chaos will take care of potential unfair biases.

Best Regards

... and the 1290 will do that at up to 1200bar if you really want to....

To be honest, I don't see an advantage to work above 1000 bar. My observation is that the column manufacturer still have problems to get a grip even on 1000 bar in regards of reliability and robustness.

Another observation that you might be interested in:

I was amazed to get low single figure %RSD for 10 and for 100 injections of 0.1uL.

Hi Rob, just to be clear then are you saying the 1290 resuklts you were involved with achieved less than 1% rsd for a 0.1µL injection from 10 and 100 injections?

rnuijts wrote:

Rob; I saw that you worked from 1989 till 2005 for HP/Agilent. I think it is fair that we know that.

I think this forum is for users and I personally am not interested in the opinion of sales representatives. If I want their opinion I will contact them.

I discussed this offline with rnuijts to reassure him I am not and never was a sales rep. I have mentioned in previous posts that I worked for many years for Agilent – in technical roles. It’s more than 4 years ago and I don't feel the need to list all my previous employers on every post. I think you will find a number of contributors who also work or worked for "commercial" companies. Like many others I now earn my living working for myself using my experience in pharmaceuticals and instruments as a consultant but I am a user running systems almost every day. I will work on any manufacturers system that I can help clients with (i.e. technique orientated - LC, MS, CE, SFC) but clearly I have a lot of experience with HP/Agilent systems and if I can use that to help users on this forum I will. My posts on this forum are my own views and not sponsored by any organisation. Sad though it might be, I love using analytical systems and I have a lot of enthusiasm for the one we are discussing. Sorry for having to go off topic.

Hi Rob Burgess, OK by single figs i meant from 1 to 9 and the figure was 1.9% RSD which I didn't expect and pleasantly surprised me for 0.1ul injection on a 20ul config. BUT I must emphasise that the system is not spec'ed down at that level so please don't expect to always get that at such low inj. 1ul is the lowest spec'ed as indicated above.

Hollow, update regarding s/w. I had an email today from a s/w guy at Agilent who corrected me to say that the 1290 EZChrom Elite driver was in fact already available so contact them if you want to see it.

My two cents on the "biased posts" subject.

It is healthy to challenge people on possible biases as it keeps this forum in check. I have challenged people in the past; sometimes I was right and some times I was just faced with an enthusiastic user. The person challenged should understand that it is nothing personal and as in this case they have the opportunity to reply on it and that as far as it goes... Personally I am mostly worried of first time posters which all they do is just compliment a product...

And finally what choice ?

sadly, still got no approval for either system...

Hollow - did you get quotes for each of these systems? If so, what were the prices of each respective system? My Agilent rep told me he's quoted $100-115k for new 1290 systems, and I'm really wondering what the Waters systems go for, and what your Agilent rep quoted your lab.

I don't have the exact quotes right here, but as far as I remember, the price from Agilent was at the same level (but in swiss franks).
Also Waters offerd some similar prices.

It also depends on the exact configuration of the systems. Be carefull that you realy get the quotes for similar capabilities (e.g. amount of columns that can be installed in the column manager in combination with the switching valve).

Could i ask a little bit off rail. Our lab is going to purchase a UHPLC (probably 1290 because we have already 1100). The big concern now is the lifespan of UHPLC columns. Do they last the same as conventional 5um columns or deteriorate shortly? Anyone who use UHPLC for some time can help me.

Thanks.

Very interesting discussion with a lot of details. Though I am a little disappointed, that there were almost no answers to my question in the thread I started. So I dare asking again: I found some information on a new Shimadzu UHPLC. The specs (acording so far only to the manufacturers website) seem extremely good. How would you say does it fit in the uhplc picture?