Kyocera \ UTAX MFD's

[caffrey]

Anyone have any experience of Kyocera \ UTAX MFDs? In particular the 3206ci and the C7505. Our photocopy contract is coming up for renewal and we've been offered these as replacements, there doesn't appear to be a lot of information about them online anywhere apart from specs.

 

Should start a survey really to find out the most popular brand of MFD in schools

[MatthewL]

You will always get different response from different people on this topic, I see a lot going for what ever is the cheapest option is on everything including the cost per copy. Also all depends who services in your area and what experience people have had.

 

My choice would always be Sharp with PaperCut from a print management point of view, having used many different machines over the years I find these the most user friendly and to the point where they have actually won an award for this. If you are wanting really high end print room stuff in colour then I see many go for Xerox or Toshiba.

 

What do you have at the moment, what sort of volume is going through them, do you need any with finishers i.e. stapler and or booklet maker, extra paper trays i.e. large capacity bin to the side. Do you actually know what you want or are you reliant on them coming in and making that decision for you?

 

I would personally look at where you want them, what volumes are been done in the areas to make sure you get the right machine in that area that fits with the volumes and can handle what is been put through it, what do your repro need in terms of feature wise, as part of their package what do they offer, what costs extra i.e. visits for this that or the other, are you wanting to go print management route as part of that, if so PaperCut is vendor neutral so you use with what ever in the future without changing your entire system.

 

If you know what you are doing and what you want then you are in a good place to start.

[caffrey]

Thanks, I've heard Sharp mentioned a lot here

 

Cheapest isn't always the best if the hardware is unreliable and the service is poor. We've been using the same local supplier for longer than I've been at this school and their service is second to none, they are making the decision for us based on our volume which isn't a lot compared to other schools. This is due to a pretty strict printing regime which is only Papercut NG for the moment, the supplier will be supplying MF at my request as I'm pushing Follow Me printing to further help stopping wastage.

We're still in early stages of talks and we're getting people involved in the process who actually use them day to day.

[MatthewL]

Have a shop around, go and see different machines, those who use them most get them involved and you cannot go wrong.

 

Sharp will always be my preference and has been for 10+ years and that is unlikely to change.

[Big_Ted]

Kyocera is one of the most popular platforms for PaperCut.

[MatthewL]

That is true, Sharp & Kyocera were the first to get the integrated scanning released to them. There is going to be some significant update for Sharp machines come v19 of PaperCut I am told so watch out for that too.

[caffrey]

I think UTAX is the German arm of Kyocera

[TomHD]

We have had a Kyocera 3051 for 5 years and its been excellent. We are due for a renewal March next year. It has done 55000 pages in the last 90 days and hasn't complained once Papercut works perfectly on it.