Multifunction Devices - Photocopiers

[MatthewL]

We are looking to procure in the region of 10 multi funciton/photocopier type devices but I do not have a clue really where does the best deals. Probably looking to purchase rather than lease if anyone can recommend some where.

Also can anyone recommend any devices, looking for network capable, scan to email type function, pin management to release jobs, colour or a colour model, duplex print and cheap to run also the price of any support contracts would be good as well.

We are looking to pull a load of desktop printers out and replace as we are spending too much money on consumables and we need to put a stop to it.

Thanks in advance.

[teejay]

Ricoh are very good and extremely cheap to run. Make sure you ask for the OGC pricing though ;-)
You can buy the devices and then you pay a cost per copy which includes toner, maintenance and support. If on OGC contract there are no surcharges or minimum print count.

[AWicher]

I could recommend Welcome to Vickers Business Systems - Vickers

We was in the position of havinf 10's of printers all around school and a growing wall of toner we we could have one in stock.
To cut costs we are phasing them out by now having 8 networked copiers in key rooms.

we have 7 MP C4000 colour printer copiers and 1 MP 6000 mono super fast copier printer...

The cool thing we just got installed into the staff room is a SIM.NET module.
We use attendance module within sims a lot and wanted a way to scan to sims direct,
so office staff can now scan AUPs medical forms... right onto the students sims account.

The system has 10's of function some of witch we having had time to play with.
But he main one we are using are that news is scanning to PDF and save onto network.

If there is any info you need im back at my desk on Monday, its a busy weekend i have!
or PM me.

[timbo343]

We are very impressed with Konica devices. The quality from the print is awesome.

[MatthewL]

Cheers for the replies, I have been looking at Richo not sure what to go for yet!!

[teejay]

Cheers for the replies, I have been looking at Richo not sure what to go for yet!!

You need to do some calcs on purchase price and cost per page so you can work out which will be the most cost effective over the lifetime depending on usage.

[john]

I am not a fan of the Ricoh stuff the quality of print and the machines just don't seem to be there, I am howerver a big Toshiba fan, the copiers are great, got 4 where I work now and had 10 at a previous place and they are just brilliant quality, and our local firm The Arena Group are just brilliant, they are prompt and efficient which is great

[SYNACK]

Talk to the competeing companies involved and get test units in for a trial. You need to make sure not only that it is good on paper but also suites your needs in reality. I'd avoid Toshiba without good prior testing if you wat to use Windows 7 and/or Office 2010 at any point. Their drivers stll scatter 2 page excel sheets over 100 or so pages for our soon to (hopefully) be replaced Toshiba. That and an effective 3 year lifespan for quality colour printing.

[john]

I'd avoid Toshiba without good prior testing if you wat to use Windows 7 and/or Office 2010 at any point. Their drivers stll scatter 2 page excel sheets over 100 or so pages for our soon to (hopefully) be replaced Toshiba. That and an effective 3 year lifespan for quality colour printing.

Weird mine is fine and I've been printing to it since Windows 7 came out and its a 4 year old model on old drivers, which model you using?

[SYNACK]

Weird mine is fine and I've been printing to it since Windows 7 came out and its a 4 year old model on old drivers, which model you using?

This is why I strongly suggest a trial period to make sure that whatever you get works for you in the real world. Our Toshiba has been more than a little troublesome over its life, as someone else asked about our experiences with it earlier I'll just repost my earlier review of it.

Hi, I would probably avoid the Toshiba unless you can get it for a month on a no obligation trial to test it throughly with your system as ours has been problematic. I'll give you a breif rundown of our Toshibas history.

The Toshiba we have is an e-Studio 281c and while it is about five years old now it has been trouble from day one. Initial problems included driver issues with Office 2003 where is printed all the letters for each horozontal line in the same place leading to oddly shaped black blobs down one side of the page and no printing else where. Problematicly the driver then fed this back to office corrupting the document. This was when it was new and took a while for new drivers to come out to fix it. It also needed new firmware as it printed out any jobs from our student managment system scaled to postage stamp size on paper. The move to Windows Vista and Office 2007 was just as eventful requireing another firmware upgrade before the drivers would work, this firmware corrupted the entire config and the machine needed to be wiped and reprogrammed loosing all accounts and counters. The move to Windows 7x64 went ok compatibility wise as it already had the latest firmware but would have required another service visit if this had not been the case. Windows 7 does have an issue where the copier actually needs to be hard powered off and on again every so often as it simply refuses to print for anyone, it accepts the jobs off teh windows spooler then does nothing with them, they just dissapear. We then moved to Office 2010 which has these weird issues with spliting up excel documents to hundres of pages as as before feeding this corruption back to office ruining the original document. This is all with the latest drivers and firmware on a machine that has been fully serviced at three monthly intervals for its entire life. Tried the PCL 5,6 and PS drivers all with the same results.

To top it off after about three and a half years the colour print quality went right down and people now print elsewhere if they want a colour document that does not look ragidy. There are also no internal tonner sensors in the one we have meaning that there is no way to moniter the levels so you always get caught out, it either has tonner or it does not, no warning, no middle ground.

When I was at a recent event I got the big sales push from a Toshiba representitive trying to sell me the new version of this copier and so asked him about the driver support and whether it was better than the support for the one we already had. His response was that all their drivers were great and that our coppier was "really old" now anyway. As I have had HP printers last twice as long with better driver support for their entire lifecycle I was not impressed at all.

In short unless you are able to test it out to your complete satisfaction beforehand and are thinking of replacing it in about three years I would steer well clear of their gear. Their new copiers may be different but from my experience their attitude appears to be poor and their gear does not last. I have had no luck in fixing the error and their support people are no use simply telling me to check for a newer driver on the website each time.

Please excuse my bitterness but I do really hate our Toshiba printer and would personally run in the opposite direction if presented with another one.

Hope that this provides enough information to aid in your decision.
SYNACK.

It looks that I forgot the issue in my previous writeup where it would print anything from our MIS scaled to postage stamp size for several months till another firmware upgrade. The printer itself was not my decision, luckily we had other printers that could be used to the numerous things that the Toshiba simply could not print.

[glennda]

We have richo photocopies, they work fine its just the drivers can be a pain in the backside to install, but once up and running no major problems we have about 8 of them

[john]

Interesting issues with the 281 as I have the 451 which is the same beast just geared higher, i've had 4 of them over 2 sites and never had any of those issues you mention, I wonder if they have different firmwares or something for those in your part of the world? Mine has been great from the MIS and Windows XP, Vista and 7, Office 2003,2007 and 2010 with none of those issues you mention.

You reference loosing your pin numbers etc, you do know about the backup option in the copier where you download a file with all that data etc don't you?

[SYNACK]

I wonder if they have different firmwares or something for those in your part of the world?

You reference loosing your pin numbers etc, you do know about the backup option in the copier where you download a file with all that data etc don't you?

Don't know about the firmware but I doubt that they would purposfully spend extra money sabotaging their products for different reigons, there again given our experience with their gear perhaps they do.

Yes I was aware of the backup functionality but saw no real need to back it up unless I was doing something major to it myself. All of the firmware work has to be carried out by their service techs as we have no access to them, it is also under a support contract with them (Toshiba). As such given that they don't trust lowley computer techs to upgrade their terrible firmware and limit it to their own techs I expected them to carry out any required backup if there was a need.

This is where my problem lay, in the expectation of competence.

[CopierTech101]

Well Danwood are based in Lincoln they are the biggest dealer in the uk

main machines they sell

Sharp - Good Kit !
HP
Samsung
KM
Ricoh

And more ...

again OGC too

[MatthewL]

Personally I would avoid Danwood like the plague they are so sneeky with some of their contracts!