Erland Björkvold, assistant director at Holger Hartmann Norway

We are a longtime distributor for Andrex, Yxlon, now called Comet X-ray. The company has been selling X-ray solutions for 30 years next year. Comet X-ray and I have a long history together. We started selling the SMART in the early 90s. So, we have seen the development going through the XPO, the EVO, and now the ECO. It has been a good development.

The weight decrease went from 28kg for a Y.SMART in 1998 to 23kg for an EVO 200D and 14kg for an ECO 200DS.

Yes, that's a considerable development. The weight of the portable systems is where we've seen that we, as Comet distributors, have been challenged. We had a powerful position in the market for a long time but have been challenged for the past seven to eight years with the introduction of competing lower-weight portables.

It's great to be back on track with the market leader, Comet X-ray, and we have been looking forward to the ECO launch.

What is the most significant difference between the Comet ECO low weight and a competing product?

The Comet X-ray reputation, the reliability and the toughness of the Comet system, like the SMART and EVO, are well known to customers. Also, we've seen some downsides with the competing products, and the combined experience is, that for tough jobs; our customers always use their Comet portable system.

Getting to introduce the ECO series, featuring 200 kV with low weight, put us back in the driver's seat, so we've been looking forward to the ECO launch.

The fact that the ECO is low-weight and still keeps the robustness and the EVO capabilities, like compatible cables and control units our customers already have in their inspection fleet, is a significant upside - adding to our strong position. Our customers are used to the old SMART units and the EVOs; it will be a key contributing factor for continuing a Comet relationship.