Riso printers

[amacken]

Anyone had any dealings with these ? I've been talking to them recently and offered a very very attractive proposal which will cut leasing and printing costs by nearly 50% (we currently spend 40k) 8O

Just wondering if anyone has come across them, or maybe using their printer HC5500

Thanks

[contink]

Never heard of them personally but I'll ask around and see if my contacts in the inkjet industry have heard of them and have an opinion or not. Somehow I doubt I'll get much back though.

If you get more info yourself, please share I'd be interested to hear how it works out... or not..

[localzuk]

We have one - good for high speed printing (ie, exam papers and the like). Only one member of staff has permissions to use it though.

Seems ok, not sure on whether it is actually cost effective though - I've been lead to believe that there isn't that much difference per print when compared with our main photocopier/printer.

[amacken]

I'll certainly keep you info'd, this does look very attractive.

In a nutshell, they are offering to pay off our current contract with another dealer (standing at 28k!!!!), give us free colour prints for a year up to £2000, and certain other little bits and bobs including sponsorship. The print costs for both b+w and colour are very good compared with our current supplier, and as mentioned earlier it will cut our current costs by roughly 50%, saving 16k....it sounds too good to be true, but it's in black and white.

There's got to be a catch...I just haven't found it yet 8O

[contink]

In a nutshell, they are offering to pay off our current contract with another dealer (standing at 28k!!!!), give us free colour prints for a year up to £2000, and certain other little bits and bobs including sponsorship.

That would immediately set the alarm bells ringing for me as they're going to want to recoup that income somwhere.

My advice would be to request.. a 30 to 90 day, no ties, test period so you can evaluate the unit and find out just what your consumables and usage would actually be so you can get a true cost per page. For what it's worth the 3cents (2p) per page @ 20% coverage IS doable but only if they're offering you VERY cheap consumables... I would hazzard a guess that you'd need to be printing off a 40,000 sheets a month to get even close to that figure though.

The other thing to bear in mind though is that you'd be putting all your eggs in a single basket/printer so reliability is obviously a key issue.

The print costs for both b+w and colour are very good compared with our current supplier, and as mentioned earlier it will cut our current costs by roughly 50%, saving 16k....it sounds too good to be true, but it's in black and white.

There's got to be a catch...I just haven't found it yet 8O

If you'd care to share the info you got I'd be interested to see if I can spot the catch in there.

[amacken]

Consumables are included in the price, it's wet ink as opposed to toner so heat is massively cut down and also enviromentally friendly. Although I haven't had a very close look through the documentation yet (i'll do that when I go back into work on Friday) it suggests that there is a no quibble guarantee...in other words if we don't like it, call them, get it taken out, cancel lease with no penalty.

They are very new, so there is an obvious risk, but by all accounts they are trying to get themselves established and doing it with very good offers. They have even offered a free printer exactly the same to be put in our new conference room which is open to local businesses, on the understanding that now and again they can showcase the printer.

[contink]

Ah... that makes a bit more sense..

Sounds like you've not got a lot to lose really.. Would still be interested to get an idea of just how much the actual per page cost could be but based on what I know about CIS's it's likely they've decided it's worth providing in a high end system. The Piezzo printhead technology is very durable.. much more so than the heated/bubble tech that Canon and HP use so it does sound like they've done the work.

One to watch

[john]

I take it that this is a Risograph we are talking about here but maybe not being sold as one. I am not a big fan of them, photocopiers are just as cheap to run and better quality. I had someone from Riso a few years ago trying to flog one of them, pay of the existing lease etc and it looked great on paper, but when it came to the finer points, basically the first 2 years were great, but in year 3 of the 5 year lease they had the right to increase the cost of the rental charges and no longer had to supply ink and masters for it. Basically they have very very clever wording in the contracts and in the end we didn't bother with it.

[localzuk]

They are very new, so there is an obvious risk, but by all accounts they are trying to get themselves established and doing it with very good offers. They have even offered a free printer exactly the same to be put in our new conference room which is open to local businesses, on the understanding that now and again they can showcase the printer.

They are not new. They have been around longer then I can remember. It may be a new venture into colour/general printing but the company is definitely not new... Just so you know.

[amacken]

They are very new, so there is an obvious risk, but by all accounts they are trying to get themselves established and doing it with very good offers. They have even offered a free printer exactly the same to be put in our new conference room which is open to local businesses, on the understanding that now and again they can showcase the printer.

They are not new. They have been around longer then I can remember. It may be a new venture into colour/general printing but the company is definitely not new... Just so you know.

Thanks localzuk...slip of the tongue/fingers there ops: I meant they are new in the area, but looking round the net they seem to be very established, and I haven't found one bad write up or complaint yet about this particular printer/photocopier/scanner.

If I remember when I'm in work tomorrow, I will post up the per copy prices...maybe we can do a comparison on here

[amacken]

Okay, got the printout for printout/copies.

Black and white at 0.004p
Colour at 0.02p

First 100,000 colour copies are free under this offer.

Anyone else got comparisons ?

[localzuk]

Okay, got the printout for printout/copies.

Black and white at 0.004p
Colour at 0.02p

First 100,000 colour copies are free under this offer.

Anyone else got comparisons ?

8O We pay 1p per b&w and about 5p per colour print + paper here! Are you sure that isn't £0.004 and £0.02?

[amacken]

Okay, got the printout for printout/copies.

Black and white at 0.004p
Colour at 0.02p

First 100,000 colour copies are free under this offer.

Anyone else got comparisons ?

8O We pay 1p per b&w and about 5p per colour print + paper here! Are you sure that isn't £0.004 and £0.02?

They're definitely the figures they have given me in the quotation. Just to double check, they have quoted "First 100,000 colour copies free saving £2000" unquote, and that certainly works out.

[john]

Ok, I pay 0.0035 for my B&W copies on my photocopiers (IE much less mess etc), fine I dont get the first 100,000 free, but its cheaper, my colour costs are not as low as that (I think its about 8p a page) but they are better quality by far and again less mess, and the new ones will be cheaper to run, and when balancing it out with black usage (mines very low colour so I pay more on the black to off-set the colour costs at the time about 4 years ago now) so I bet the colour is coming into a fairly similar price area now.

I really would think hard about these Riso printers, I hate them with a pasion, I have a Riso, fine its a traditional Riso IE a master and ink solution, and its now starting to jam now its done about a million pages in total and basically being a heap of junk, but they are not a patch on a real photocopier as they are a laser design so will always produce a crisper image and printout than an Inkjet system which is what that Riso is, its just a big Inkjet Printer.

Also, if its anything inside like my Riso after a good few pages when they jam you don't want to be wearing anything you like as you get absolutely covered in the gouey ink its a horrid job, I hate it when I get a call to it.

I cannot wait to chuck it in a big skip. Photocopiers are the best solution by far to these problems, very cheap running, reliable and a good bit of kit, and clean.

[amacken]

I'll take your comments onboard John, thankyou. But may I ask, if you are having so many problems with it why have you still got it ? You have grounds whether it's in the contract or not, and the quotation I have includes the clause that should I be dissatisfied in any way, at any time, the contract can be cancelled without penalty. Not very often you see that, and certainly shows confidence in the product. Is it a HC5500 you have ? We all know well and good that different companies have good and bad printers, even the big companies like HP and Canons.

The quality on this printer is good, even if it is an elephant sized inkjet. You don't need nor want superior quality for everyday school stuff as that is a waste. We have a reprographics unit for that.

I would argue about the cheaper to run bit. This huge unit uses the equivalent of 7 x 100 watt bulbs, so is therefore environmentally sound, and doesn't need to heat half of England to work.