caffrey Posted January 12, 2020 Posted January 12, 2020 Currently tendered to a few MFD suppliers and have narrowed it down to 4 makes Toshiba, Kyocera, Xerox and Konica Minolta Personally I like Konica, as we have a few of those in our current fleet plus the new ones would be one single driver Anyone have any experience they'd like to share ?
Jamman960 Posted January 12, 2020 Posted January 12, 2020 I’ve found Toshiba MFD’s to be very reliable, our current 5 devices have barely required any servicing, even the previous batch wasn’t too bad at 1-2 calls a month We went from having various manufacturers of copiers to just Toshiba’s, if your users are used to Konica I’d stick with that, I’m guessing they’ve improved their interface significantly since we had them I’d personally avoid Kyocera, we had nothing but trouble with the two we had although a lot of that may have been down to being supported by D*****d 2
chris11256 Posted January 12, 2020 Posted January 12, 2020 (edited) We have a Kyocera TaskAlfa 6052ci and two 8002i's. The 8002i is good, reliable and fast enough. Print quality is also good for a mono copier The 6052 on the other hand has been less than great. Colour print quality honestly isn't that good, especially when compared side by side to a Ricoh copier we have. It's also been very unreliable(one fault rendered it out of action for two months with multiple engineers not knowing whats wrong) Just to add to what Jammam960 said, personally I wouldn't go with Kyocera again. My previous school was all Canon and the difference is profound, sadly I'm stuck with the Kyocera's until the lease expires in October next year. Edited January 12, 2020 by chris11256 1
MatthewL Posted January 12, 2020 Posted January 12, 2020 Out of them I would pick Toshiba, find them a far more reliable machine but personally I'm Sharp through and through, been using them for 15 years now. 1
DrBeaker Posted January 12, 2020 Posted January 12, 2020 Used Ricoh and Konica Miniolta in one place - The KM's were brilliant. Few minor issues but really nothing worth discussing. Sharp machines in this place out SBM sorted out with the copier company on a lease. These are fab. Had one issue and the support from Midshires was excellent. 1
Guest Guest Posted January 12, 2020 Posted January 12, 2020 We've got Sharp's via Midshire and there rock solid, on the few occasions we've needed support they've been very good
caffrey Posted January 12, 2020 Author Posted January 12, 2020 Thanks all, just what I need I was quoted for :- Konica Bizhub C759 and Bizhub C300i Toshiba ES7515AC and ES3015AC Kyocera 8052ci and 3253ci XEROX altalinks and versalinks Interesting to hear about the Kyoceras, especially with them having the keypoint award for reliability (https://ca.kyoceradocumentsolutions.com/content/dam/kdc/kdag/downloads/marketing/certificates-awards/product/kyoceradocumentsolutions/ca/en/KYOCERA%20Buyers%20Lab%20(BLI)%20award%20for%20Most%20Reliable%20Colour%20MFP%20Brand.pdf)
Chuckster Posted January 13, 2020 Posted January 13, 2020 It's very interesting to hear people's views on Kyocera MFDs. Here, at my school, we have a range of TASKalfa devices: 3351ci, 4551ci and 5551ci. They have had their few share of issues (end user produced) but none that couldn't be resolved easily, and have been fantastic for my school. Moreover, with the aid of Papercut software, then it's even much better. With that said, our MFDs are refurbs - we own them outright and our print per page charges cover the cost of toner and engineer call outs. I have used Sharp MFDs in a previous setting and they were terrible. Ricoh's were fantastic and highly reliable. Xerox are too expensive, and trying to get someone out to service/fix their equipment is like trying to extract blood from a stone. 1
howartp Posted January 13, 2020 Posted January 13, 2020 We had Kyocera's on last contract (to 2018). Now on Konica's. Far less callouts and far less thirsty on the toners than the Kyo's. 1
steveg Posted January 13, 2020 Posted January 13, 2020 We had all Konicas installed over the summer holidays, all but 1 are the newer i series. At the moment i'd never get them again! We've had a major fault with 2 out of the 8 of them, one taking a couple of weeks to fix and the other a month because no parts were in the country. The drivers are flakey at best, the firmware is a long way off being stable, the machine we have in the office freezes at least 3 times a week needing powering off to get it working again, had to tweak various settings to stop them randomly going off-line (following advice of their engineer who had problems with them in a lot of places). The older series one that we have seems to be fairly reliable! 1
caffrey Posted January 13, 2020 Author Posted January 13, 2020 (edited) We had all Konicas installed over the summer holidays, all but 1 are the newer i series. At the moment i'd never get them again! We've had a major fault with 2 out of the 8 of them, one taking a couple of weeks to fix and the other a month because no parts were in the country. The drivers are flakey at best, the firmware is a long way off being stable, the machine we have in the office freezes at least 3 times a week needing powering off to get it working again, had to tweak various settings to stop them randomly going off-line (following advice of their engineer who had problems with them in a lot of places). The older series one that we have seems to be fairly reliable! Which models were those ? We've been quoted for the Konica Bizhub C759 and Bizhub C300i All this info is great everyone, but makes the choice harder as they all appear to be a bit rubbish! Edited January 13, 2020 by caffrey
MYK-IT Posted January 13, 2020 Posted January 13, 2020 (edited) Been using Toshiba E-Studio MFDs for many years, and recently upgraded to using the newer 3015/4515 models. We've been very happy with these models as well as Arena, our Managed Print Provider. Edited January 13, 2020 by MYK-IT 1
steveg Posted January 13, 2020 Posted January 13, 2020 Which models were those ? We've been quoted for the Konica Bizhub C759 and Bizhub C300i All this info is great everyone, but makes the choice harder as they all appear to be a bit rubbish! We have a c360i and 6 c3350i, then one older model which seems ok. The c360i has mostly been ok, but needed a complete new system board after about 4 weeks, and since it was changed comes up with security errors every so often that they haven't yet resolved (does work though) the c3350i's have the issues with going offline and needing tweaks to make them work. 1
bald_pig Posted January 13, 2020 Posted January 13, 2020 It's not on your shortlist, but we have Ricoh MFD's here, I've never had to call out an engineer, I've only had a couple of paper jams that were usually down to crumpled paper in the tray, and seem to do well with toner. We're with Ricoh, and have it set up so when a toner gets low it automatically orders the replacement, which then gets posted to us, labelled with which printer requested it. 1
Katy Posted January 13, 2020 Posted January 13, 2020 We've just put in 2 x Toshiba e-Studio 7518a (mono) and a 7516ac (colour) into reprographics and they seem good so far, only had them a month though. Elsewhere we're Sharp. Repro used to run Kyocera and when we got towards year 3 it was falling apart quite badly, gears were being replaced very frequently and wouldn't touch them again. Although that was about 8 years ago. 1
CHiLL Posted January 13, 2020 Posted January 13, 2020 We had some Ricoh MFDs on a three year contract from 2015-2018 and they broke down quite a lot, though we had printed over a million copies on each of the three main staff printers by the end of the contract. We had an engineer on-site every few days towards the end of the contract. We now have some Kyocera MFDs on another three year contract from 2018-2021 and they don't break down anywhere near as much, however they still do from time to time and admittedly our printing volume appears lower now. We must have an engineer on-site once every two weeks now. I expect that to increase as we get towards the end of the contract in 2021 though. For both contracts we have had a automatic ordering software installed to send a replacement when a toner goes below a certain threshold. It makes life so much easier and reduces staff stress because they don't have to wait a couple of days for a replacement to be ordered, delivered and replaced. I think a lot of the reliability issues come down to volumes of printing and general misuse, such as scanning multi-documents with staples, glue or blutack. Slamming doors or being oo aggressive removing paperjams. 2
PrimaryNetMan Posted January 14, 2020 Posted January 14, 2020 Recently moved from 4yo Ricoh's over to Kyocera after a tender process via a framework. Kyocera came in with the best value tender, however after 8 months in use (and with quite low usage to be fair) I'm having to call engineers on a regular basis for all number of issues. 1
caffrey Posted January 14, 2020 Author Posted January 14, 2020 Not hearing good things here about Kyocera here, and yes at the moment they are the lowest tender
DrCheese Posted January 14, 2020 Posted January 14, 2020 ^ Likewise Kyocera are the cheapest on our tender... (Via a framework) We have Konica at the moment, tho our machines are reaching 7 years old so they are starting to suffer. I've not really had any complaints about the general usage of them that aren't related to their age. 1
chris11256 Posted January 14, 2020 Posted January 14, 2020 (edited) Kyocera are good when they work... we're happy with the mono copier. Hower we aren't happy with the colour model, print quality is somewhat poor. So if you're only after black & white copiers, then don't worry as much. Edited January 14, 2020 by chris11256 1
caffrey Posted January 14, 2020 Author Posted January 14, 2020 Same, we have a mix of Konica and Samsung, the Samsungs are starting to show their age (And HP bought them out) The Konica machines are pretty reliable but old but reading comments here - especially the i series they've gone downhill. From meeting with companies one thing that was common is that there is no money in the copying game anymore (tell that to schools...) and most of them are now diversifying in trying to sell services - e.g Konica want to sell remote manage services like Papercut
john Posted January 14, 2020 Posted January 14, 2020 Not hearing good things here about Kyocera here, and yes at the moment they are the lowest tender Buy Cheap Buy Twice I had Kyocera on one site the vendor swapped them out for Toshiba at there expense as they literally had to have an engineer on-site twice a week to keep the Kyocera going in year 2 of ownership that experience was enough to ensure I never touch any print kit from them again. 1
caffrey Posted January 14, 2020 Author Posted January 14, 2020 End of the day, I guess it boils down to SLA, time to site etc. but if the machines are down all the time then it's moot 1
sbrade47 Posted January 14, 2020 Posted January 14, 2020 Have a Kyocera fleet here, 7052ci, 3252ci, 356ci and P3045dn. I really like them, they generally cause me very few issues. We've had parts replaced but only what you would expect in line with their usage. PaperCut integration is excellent too as already mentioned. Compared to the Toshiba's we had previously they were absolutely goosed 3 years into a 5 year contract and left us in a difficult situation with the supplier who shall remain nameless. 1
ITGURU Posted January 15, 2020 Posted January 15, 2020 We have a fleet of 15 Samsung MFPs, never had any major issues and all integrated with follow-me on Papercut. 1
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