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Xerox/Minolta etc. copiers/MFPs

Which is the Superior brand of multifunctional printers?

  • Xerox

    Votes: 6 54.5%

  • Konica Minolta

    Votes: 2 18.2%

  • OKI

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • HP

    Votes: 3 27.3%

  • Canon

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    11
MentalFabric

MentalFabric

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 10, 2004
373
25
Hi there, I would really appreciate help with this:
I'm looking for a new machine to act as the primary colour printer/copier on the network of a publishing company with about 35 members - we currently use a Minolta bizhub c350 but it's so problem prone it needs replacing direly.
We use mostly macs and a few PC's and are looking for about 30 colour ppm.
The budget is around £5000/$10,000 but not set in stone

The priorities are reliability, support and mac compatibility. Can anyone give me any advice on choosing between the main brands (Xerox, Konica Minolta, OKI, Canon, HP etc)? Or specific models you would suggest?

Thanks ahead of time!
 
MentalFabric said:
Hi there, I would really appreciate help with this:
I'm looking for a new machine to act as the primary colour printer/copier on the network of a publishing company with about 35 members - we currently use a Minolta bizhub c350 but it's so problem prone it needs replacing direly.
We use mostly macs and a few PC's and are looking for about 30 colour ppm.
The budget is around £5000/$10,000 but not set in stone

The priorities are reliability, support and mac compatibility. Can anyone give me any advice on choosing between the main brands (Xerox, Konica Minolta, OKI, Canon, HP etc)? Or specific models you would suggest?

Thanks ahead of time!
Click to expand...

At a small office (10 users) with heavy b/w printing needs, we were quite happy with our xerox workcenter. It scanned, copied, printed quite fast and quite reliably (very few service calls--most problems we could handle). Only got hung up sometimes with double sided printing on large jobs (e.g., 50 sets). Scanned really well with individual user boxes, copied just fine. Mac friendly too. Price was well south of your budget, but not color. Not sure on prices, but they're all negotiable and depends on whether you buy or lease.
 
Xerox Phaser: Solid Ink

I've been looking into purchasing a Xerox Phaser 8560MFP/D Color Multifunction printer for use at Global Hemp.

One of the chief reasons for considering this machine is that it uses solid ink technology. Our current HP LaserJet works fine, but since it uses toner, you have to "shake it" towards the end of its life cycle. Its quite annoying to no longer have use of the toner cartridge -- even after shaking -- to know that there is still plenty toner inside. Bottom line: toner is wasteful. Its as if HP has a meter running on the printer and they want their monthly revenue.

Aside from having solid ink technology -- which is somewhat like using a crayon -- it wears down, and once its used, there is little or no waste -- unlike toner. Finally, this particular printer does not have a fuser or image drum -- so, less parts means less expense. This printer only requires a yearly (approximate) maintenance kit, which cleans off any waxy build-up before it starts to gunk-up the machine.

Quality. This is what I would like to ask of fellow Mac Rumors folks. Does anyone have hands-on experience with this machine? While its a Xerox Phaser, keep in mind that it uses solid ink and not toner as some other Phaser machines do.

We at Global Hemp especially like this machine for its more environmentally friendly solid ink technology, since our business is about practicing what we preach: being green.
 
Le Big Mac said:
At a small office (10 users) with heavy b/w printing needs, we were quite happy with our xerox workcenter. It scanned, copied, printed quite fast and quite reliably (very few service calls--most problems we could handle). Only got hung up sometimes with double sided printing on large jobs (e.g., 50 sets). Scanned really well with individual user boxes, copied just fine. Mac friendly too. Price was well south of your budget, but not color. Not sure on prices, but they're all negotiable and depends on whether you buy or lease.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your help! Have you had the chance to compare the Xerox machine with any comparable machines of different branding?

I have considered this model of the Xerox Workcenters -
http://www.office.xerox.com/multifu...ifunction/workcentre-7328-7335-7345/enus.html
which has about the capabilities of a machine I'd be looking for

I'm just having a very hard time figuring out the positives and negatives about each manufacturer!
 
globalhemp said:
I've been looking into purchasing a Xerox Phaser 8560MFP/D Color Multifunction printer for use at Global Hemp.

One of the chief reasons for considering this machine is that it uses solid ink technology. Our current HP LaserJet works fine, but since it uses toner, you have to "shake it" towards the end of its life cycle. Its quite annoying to no longer have use of the toner cartridge -- even after shaking -- to know that there is still plenty toner inside. Bottom line: toner is wasteful. Its as if HP has a meter running on the printer and they want their monthly revenue.

Aside from having solid ink technology -- which is somewhat like using a crayon -- it wears down, and once its used, there is little or no waste -- unlike toner. Finally, this particular printer does not have a fuser or image drum -- so, less parts means less expense. This printer only requires a yearly (approximate) maintenance kit, which cleans off any waxy build-up before it starts to gunk-up the machine.

Quality. This is what I would like to ask of fellow Mac Rumors folks. Does anyone have hands-on experience with this machine? While its a Xerox Phaser, keep in mind that it uses solid ink and not toner as some other Phaser machines do.

We at Global Hemp especially like this machine for its more environmentally friendly solid ink technology, since our business is about practicing what we preach: being green.
Click to expand...

That's one of my top choices too for the solid ink, I'd also like more information and if anyone knows, the difference between the 8560MFP and the 8860MFP...

N.B - Go Go Global Hemp :D
 
8560 vs 8860

I believe that the 8860 is a newer model, but it also better suited to larger offices that our own. This info has not been validated, ... I just "think" this is the case from when I looked at cost per print @5% and 20% coverage. The extra costs for the 8860 are not justified unless -- I think -- you're printing 5,000 of more pages per month. I'm pretty sure that this is the biggest "real" difference between these two machines: demand / capacity per month. Of course, I could be wrong...

Xerox Phaser 8860 MFP
Starting at $3899
Duty Cycle: up to 120,000 pages per month.

Web page for more info: 8860 MFP
Xerox Phaser 8560MFP/D (Network and Duplex)
$1749
Duty cycle: up to 85,000 pages per month

Web page for more info: 8560 MFP
 
MentalFabric said:
Thanks for your help! Have you had the chance to compare the Xerox machine with any comparable machines of different branding?
!
Click to expand...

It's not in your list, and shouldn't be, but we had to ditch a Kyocera, which they simply could not make to run properly with Macs. It printed and copied okay, but was a disaster getting hooked up to our Mac network (in other words, if you could get it to print, it printed nicely, but rarely could one get it to print).

Bear in mind that we did basically no graphics, so I can't evaluate on that basis.
 
Xerox 8860 vs. 8560

The biggest difference between the 8860 and the 8560 is the cost per page for color.the 8860 uses a new solid ink that actually gets the color price almost to what you pay for a black and white page on HP.
 
I am also very interested in solid ink since it came out, but I haven't actually used it.
 
prntrguy said:
The biggest difference between the 8860 and the 8560 is the cost per page for color.the 8860 uses a new solid ink that actually gets the color price almost to what you pay for a black and white page on HP.
Click to expand...

the xerox websites claims both models use solid ink... are you sure about this?

Now I've narrowed it down to either the 8860/8560 OR three 6180MFPs for different departments.

Can anyone comment on the 'burning smell' that comes with the solid ink?
 
Solid Ink Cost

I had a Xerox rep contact me about the 8560 vs 8860. Well, the 8860 costs twice as much, can handle much more, but where it really shines is that its costs for color printing are the same as what you would pay for black and white with HP. So, they are marketing the 8860 as "color for the price of b&w."

The more color printing you do, the less expensive the upfront cost / lease of the machine will be.

I'm not familiar with a "burn smell" from solid ink, ... you got me on that one.

It looks like a 3 year fair market value lease -- including all maintenance -- is the best way to go. It should come to no more than $200 month including everything expect paper and power for the 8860 model with the duplex printing upgrade and of course networking.
 
MentalFabric said:
the xerox websites claims both models use solid ink... are you sure about this?

Now I've narrowed it down to either the 8860/8560 OR three 6180MFPs for different departments.
Click to expand...

The 6180 series uses toner. We purchased a 6180MFP in December. I have been generally satisfied with it overall, but the scan-to-Mac using Windows filing sharing doesn't work. Scanning with FTP does, fortunately.
 
IJ Reilly said:
The 6180 series uses toner. We purchased a 6180MFP in December. I have been generally satisfied with it overall, but the scan-to-Mac using Windows filing sharing doesn't work. Scanning with FTP does, fortunately.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info - I assume this will be the same with all the Xerox scanners on MFP's as they all use the same software? How is scanning over FTP for ease?
 
MentalFabric said:
Thanks for the info - I assume this will be the same with all the Xerox scanners on MFP's as they all use the same software? How is scanning over FTP for ease?
Click to expand...

I don't know if this is a universal issue, but I assume so. Tech support was surprised, but they never came up with a solution, either. I think I might try it again when I move to Leopard and see if that helps. Using FTP works fine once it is set up, no more difficult to use than SMB -- I was just a little wary of activating FTP file sharing. Also, the setup is a bit arcane I thought, as you really need to assign a static IP to your client Macs, which of course the instructions did not say. If you don't, your router will eventually reassign a new IP to your Mac and the printer will fail to connect.
 
We are using xerox 8560 here in the office and so far it prints well and we haven't experience any problems with it yet. It was easy to setup and easy to use. I even bought another one for home/office use.

Why waste money? Save up to 70% on toner cartridges by purchasing toner printer supplies from ConcordSupplies.com http://www.concordsupplies.com/type/Toner.html
 
globalhemp said:
I've been looking into purchasing a Xerox Phaser 8560MFP/D Color Multifunction printer for use at Global Hemp.

One of the chief reasons for considering this machine is that it uses solid ink technology. Our current HP LaserJet works fine, but since it uses toner, you have to "shake it" towards the end of its life cycle. Its quite annoying to no longer have use of the toner cartridge -- even after shaking -- to know that there is still plenty toner inside. Bottom line: toner is wasteful. Its as if HP has a meter running on the printer and they want their monthly revenue.

Aside from having solid ink technology -- which is somewhat like using a crayon -- it wears down, and once its used, there is little or no waste -- unlike toner. Finally, this particular printer does not have a fuser or image drum -- so, less parts means less expense. This printer only requires a yearly (approximate) maintenance kit, which cleans off any waxy build-up before it starts to gunk-up the machine.

Quality. This is what I would like to ask of fellow Mac Rumors folks. Does anyone have hands-on experience with this machine? While its a Xerox Phaser, keep in mind that it uses solid ink and not toner as some other Phaser machines do.

We at Global Hemp especially like this machine for its more environmentally friendly solid ink technology, since our business is about practicing what we preach: being green.
Click to expand...

the 8560 has nice print quality, but it is SLOW. Definitely not useful for high volume.
 
MentalFabric said:
Hi there, I would really appreciate help with this:
I'm looking for a new machine to act as the primary colour printer/copier on the network of a publishing company with about 35 members - we currently use a Minolta bizhub c350 but it's so problem prone it needs replacing direly.
We use mostly macs and a few PC's and are looking for about 30 colour ppm.
The budget is around £5000/$10,000 but not set in stone

The priorities are reliability, support and mac compatibility. Can anyone give me any advice on choosing between the main brands (Xerox, Konica Minolta, OKI, Canon, HP etc)? Or specific models you would suggest?

Thanks ahead of time!
Click to expand...

Xerox DocuColor is very nice, and has modular construction which lets the user replace commonly worn out items (drums, fuser) without having to call for support. Good speed, nice picture quality. The 260 is top of the line, but the 242 is very good as well. Just my opinion.
 
Thanks for all your help everyone! I'm now definitely going with a xerox 7328, with some smaller machines here and there, I have one more important question I can't find the answer to however:
can anyone tell me the diffrence between the Fiery X3e drivers minolta put out and the hardware Fiery units?

many thanks!
 
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