Photocopiers…

[dantheitman]

Our 5 year lease is up, and we’re looking at options. We’re currently with Konica, but a mixture of toner supply issues and lack of account management/escalation are forcing us to look elsewhere.

 

So far, Canon are coming out far cheaper than KM or Apogee (HP). Does anyone have experience with Canon photocopiers? Are they any good?!

 

thanks in advance

[dapaulio]

I work in a number of schools, and I have first hand experience practically with most managed service print solution. I have had experience with Konica and canon and agree with your opinion over Konica but I find this just normal in comparison across all vendors. having worked or currently working with sharp, canon, Konica, ricoh, xerox they all have some bad qualities most related to the sector issues they currently face. Eg chip shortage which we will have to believe is still true and not just a excuse.

 

Out of all in my opinion sharp and canon were or are the worse vendors I have dealt with in terms of reliability, after support, account management etc tbh account management across the all of them is a notable problem. They tend to be the cheapest solution also

 

canon and sharp had several issues with supply delivery and sharp specifically always seemed to have more reliability issues with engineers not being able to fix the more difficult problems in a timely manner. Rating 4/10 at a stretch

 

Konica generally good. I briefly had issues with supply during last year chip shortage but this seems to be ok now.

Engineers generally tend to be knowledgeable and fix even the more difficult problems within an acceptable time frame. rating 7/10

 

Ricoh generally good technical service , reliable and good engineers who are able to fix the more difficult issues in an acceptable timeframe. Their onboarding was a nightmare though. They lied to the customer and ended up not been able to fulfil the whole solutions for 8 months after the expected delivery date. The school was left with only two printers in that time. No alternative solution temporary workaround offered they had to lump it. Rating 7/10

[ITGuyNW]

My experience

 

Konica - Initially good but the printers fell apart 3 years into a 5 year contract. Toner replacements were easy. Accounting was a nightmare. AM was absent and would only answer calls when contracts were expiring or we needed additional equipment.

Ricoh - Good reliability. Toner replacements good. Never had an issue with them but we've had to look elsewhere for our most recent contract due to a lack of stock.

Canon - Feel and look cheap, had issues with drivers, I'm sure this is an issue with most but toners have no chips in so cannot judge toner levels and cannot auto replenish.

 

We looked at HP for our latest contract too however we couldn't justify the cost.

 

If I had to choose again, I'd go Ricoh.

[atcoates]

We have Ricoh across all my sites and are pretty happy with them. When an engineer turns up onsite they are nearly always able to fix any issues on the first visit. We haven't chosen Ricoh on price, but for my schools, they have been the best overall solution when factoring in downtime, ease of use for staff, auto toner ordering, and a lot of things that won't show up on a comparison spreadsheet.

 

On the odd occasion they can't get the device we requested quickly, they have loaned us other older models until the new one becomes available. There still seems to be very long lead times on some device post covid.

[JATSO]

You could try http://www.agilico.co.uk, Toshiba machines we haven't had any issues with them.

[DGardiner]

You could try www.agilico.co.uk, Toshiba machines we haven't had any issues with them.

 

got loads of the toshiba machines, theyre great until theyre not! once they hit 4 they tend to be a nightmare! though our lot tend to be rough with the machines....

[howartp]

We've had Kyocera for 3 years, extended them for further 2 years, and we've just awarded the next tender for 3 years to them for delivery in Summer.

[Sharkman]

I've got some Sharp, Ricoh and Konica machines at my sites. I can't say I've got any major gripes about any of them, but we did have a few strange run-ins with KM engineers complaining that the company has gone down the toilet and they actually advised us to jump ship when our contract was up... since then, I've not had any issues or strange experiences. Though I can't speak for the service from Sharp/Ricoh because I haven't needed any of mine serviced or repaired yet.

[andy_b]

Re Konica:

 

Never had problems with machines falling apart.

During / since COVID toner ordering has been all over the place. Auto ordering seems not to match what we require even though we go and update the stock manually.

Engineers can be a little moany and awkward. They tend not to replace certain consumables until they cause the machine to stop running - which is frustrating.

[pete]

Konica:

Currently with Konica at 4 schools. Onsite technical support and general reliability is excellent. Backend services (parts delivery, accounting, account manager being empowered to improve things for the clients) are awful. Recently had a lot of "are you sure you need a new drum / fuser?" pushback on parts which makes me think they've got shortages as well. Wouldn't recommend.

 

Kyocera:

One school (just joined the trust) has Kyocera through a reseller and it's a little too early to tell if they're decent. I haven't had any complaints from the school or our finance team, but I haven't really had to do much with them.

 

Ricoh:

About to trial a copier at one of ours schools to see how they perform.

[jmak]

Current place is mostly Konica Minolta and they seem ok. A lot of them are out of support and they mostly work. In my view they're way over-specified which probably explains why they work better than my experience in schools

 

At my last place we had Ricoh and my experience was good.

 

Main thing is to look at the purchasing Frameworks. The prices were very competitive and no need to go out to tender.

[HTCPCP]

I've used a few over the years.

Sharp - never had any issues, but the engineers from our supplier (not direct) were always top notch. I think we only had one occasion where the parts weren't quick to come, and that was because someone tried to print to stapled pages on the bypass tray.

Kyocera - No real issues with them. They weren't heavily used, because they were in specific offices. Used devices were rock solid even when they hit 6 years old.

Konica - bought the machines outright at the end of the lease with maintenance contract, and since then they have just been unreliable, with at least 1 of them being down at any point waiting parts. We have 1 waiting for parts for over a month now and totally inoperable, another one making the same noises and will need the same work doing on it, but it's still printing as we can't afford a second printer out of action, and the others having only recently come back into service. Quality of the toner cartridges coming in have fallen too, with 3 in recent months that have broken either in shipping or when installing it to the machine.

Ricoh - always found their sales really pushy, and the printers a bit more show than substance, but they work, and parts were always quite quick to fix when it did go wrong.

[Lcornwall]

Our Trust (30+ schools) Has Konica in the majority of the schools. But we have had nothing but issues with them. We have experienced toner shortages which really affected us around exam time, then to fix this they issued us with half-filled toners without telling anyone. When we ordered spare toner (against Konica wishes) all arrived except black, which when I asked about this they said they could not give me a eta on black. Their remote support is often clueless and constantly loses connection with us regarding their reporting software, unlike other brands. We have found their tech support good when you get an engineer but abysmal otherwise. The build quality of the machines is okay but the software leaves something to be desired. As some of our schools were coming up to the end of their contact Konica could not even provide new machines and offered us black and white machines only until they can get them in, so we had to go elsewhere for a few of our schools.

 

Sharp we have in 3 of our schools and so far has been okay. No real issues there but they are not used as much as the others.

 

Kyocera so far has been the best in my opinion, solid machines that break very rarely, and most callouts are quarterly maintenance related even though some of these printers are 5+ years old. Staff are very happy as the software is easy to use and often if there is a paper jam it shows it in a very end user-friendly way so most issues we don't see. I also like the fact that we always saw the same engineer as it helps to build a good relationship. No issues with toners or waste toner collection just all round very solid.

 

HP I had in one of my schools before and whilst they were very good machines that had a very very nice UI and made it really simple for staff to use they often broke. And a lot of the time the engineers who came on site said "two steps to fix these 1. reinstall firmware 2. Replace machine" so we ended up with a lot of machines down which was not good for the school long term.

 

We also had a couple of Ricoh Machines that had engineers replacing parts at least twice a week. I think we ended up rebuilding them a few times over with the amount of new parts. not sure if they were just at there breaking point though as the support and other background-type stuff was solid.

[Andrew_C]

When we changed from Canon to Ricoh, the staff hated them with a burning passion. Admittedly a few years ago now, the interface may have improved.

 

We went back to Canon.

[mikeprice]

It was a while ago 5 year contract must have finished at the end of last year) but at my last school we went witha local company that supplied Ricoh

 

WHen I asked the engineers they reckoned the owner of the company was an engineer and used Ricoh because they gave less problems once set up

 

mind you - the config interface required the sacrifice of 3 goats and 7 chickens under full moon by 2 virgin riding unicorns

(have you ever tried to find a v

 

err - forget that one)

 

 

but did work once you got your head round it

 

once they were working they just worked unless something wore out - which was unusual and normally after several years of heavy use

 

auto toner refresh seems to mostly work fine

 

Prices were better via the local firm than direct and I reckoned that service was better from the smaller company

mind you - a couple that quoted I would not trust to run a 'business event' in a beer making establishment - so you do have to choose carefully

[MatthewL]

In the last 17 years I have been exposed to all brands of copier and many of them are garbage in terms to useability or what they actually come with out the box. For the last 12 years or so I have mainly used Sharp and I would say they are by far the best machine with what you get on base machines and the way that they can be setup and customised to make it easier for use also the plus point is the integrate into PaperCut and other such systems really well.

 

I spent just under 8 years working for a copier company installing all manor of makes and models but mainly Sharp & Toshiba for one biggest Sharp dealers and now UK wide companies. I've just installed 12 replacement ones than were 8 year old and got another 20 to do in the next 2 months and they are all good as gold but some of this maybe to how they have been looked after by engineers servicing them which may not be the same up and down the country but this does make a big difference. If the machine is looked after well it cost them less to manage and keeps working for the end user.

 

They all have their plus and minus points but the fact you can get desktop A4 and floor standing machines and you can have the same interface and setup to all act the same not sure all manufactures can do that easily.

 

Sharp machines are just so nice to work with in my opinion, alot say they work out more expensive but then it could be their buying power isn't as good so cannot get you the good price, have a look at some of the frameworks out there, most of the work is done for you.

 

If Sharp doesn't work for you Toshiba are good machines and they have developed their machines quite a bit, would quite happily put one of these in a print room, they also have some nice little features but are qwerky in the way they do some things and they don't flow like you would expect it to in an IT way.

 

Happy to answer any questions.

[PotNoodleTech]

Gotta admit - been using ricoh for like a decade - no issues good copiers papercut just works and the engineers are generally good.

 

Have heared plenty of horror stories from other schools who have deviated to others and had a bad time, kyocers, toshiba, xerox, etc.

[Gigagator]

I'll throw my two pence in...

 

Our school has been with Ricoh for 5 years (3 initially and then extended for 12 months, twice).

I'm super happy with them and contract is up for renewal soon and I can't think of one reason to move away.

We have about 30 machines, a mix of smaller machines in some offices and classrooms to larger floor-standing photocopiers all the way up to our beast in the reprographics room (which is the only mono machine, all others full colour).

 

From a practical standpoint, they are generally very reliable machines.

When we do have issues their support is phenomenally good. We seem to receive the same two or three engineers who are all very good at what they do and very friendly and knowledgeable.

I am always amazed at how quickly they turn up - in the last half term break I logged a call with Ricoh due to dirty printouts (coloured bands appearing up the page) and I was surprised to find the engineer in the building only a couple of hours later already half way through fixing the machine!

 

I guess it does depend on where you are located though; I can't fault the engineers that serve this area.

 

When I took up my position at this school the toner replenishment system was a complete mess - they had about two spare cartridges for the whole site and were regularly running out and then arguing with Ricoh about getting spare supplies.

 

As it turned out, nobody was managing the toner deliveries so it was a free for all. Cartridges would turn up at reception and would either be snatched by random staff members who were stockpiling for their own machines, or immediately slammed into the wrong machine i.e. the cartridge destined for the Art printer ended up going into one of the IT rooms.

 

It caused chaos for the ordering system as you can imagine.

 

Since then, I have taken on all the toner replenishment duties and they all get locked in my store room and at last count I had about 35 spare cartridges on the shelf ready to go in when users report they have run out. The system is running flawlessly so it certainly does pay to be thorough in managing the system. As long as you put the right cartridge in the right machine (each postage label has the printer serial number and printer name on it) it's pretty foolproof.

Just don't let teachers get involved in any capacity.

 

You can request that Ricoh set the machines to either automatically order a cartridge when a colour hits 20%, or a new cartridge will be ordered on replacement of the old one.

We went with the former as it made more sense to me, especially as some of our smaller devices are very low volume and 20% could last a good chunk of the academic year.

 

They've also recently launched a new web portal for managing your devices including ordering toner supplies if ever required and logging faults on.

The new portal is eons better than the old one which was slow and behaved erratically when a session timed out.

 

I have previously had good experience with Toshiba machines when working at a private school, I recall having an abundance of supplies (almost too many, I had to find a new cupboard to store them in).

I think they are comparatively expensive though to other suppliers and their service on the repair side of things was definitely slower than Ricoh.

 

I'd definitely be looking at those two at the top of my list though.