Printer Refresh, which brand?

[denzal2k4]

HI all,

 

Our fleet is due for renewal in October, been with Sharp for many years but interested to hear what thoughts are on the other brands, Xerox, Kyocera, Ricoh, Konica any others I'm missing.

 

Requirements:

 

10ish MFD's

A3

Top Feed doc scanner

Colour Laser

Happy to do stickers without a strict set of rules to be followed!

Fast service call outs

Automated toner delivery

 

3 Desktop A4 colour laser

 

Thanks!

[PotNoodleTech]

I'll always go Ricoh now as so many of the other makes have had lots of problems i've got multiple 7 year old ricoh units in service right now that have NEVER had an engineer call.

 

In fact a cover teacher that was leaving said the other week "ive worked in a hundred schools and this is the only school where the photocopiers work all day every day you just go tap card out it comes hey presto"

 

I took that as a very big compliment really.

[Fazza]

For a printer I'd say HP, for a MFD I'd say Ricoh.

[itskdog]

I've only ever used RISO as I'm new to the industry, but I've never had any major issues with them.

 

They seem to work mainly with schools (at least near me), and have native PaperCut MF integration (though no scan to home folder, only scan to pre-set UNC path or to e-mail), and I have been told that for serverless environments, they have PaperCut Hive (print only, no copy control) and directprint.io support (closer to PaperCut MF in features) on the way.

 

Alternatively, if you don't need print/copy control, they do secure print release natively via username/password (either local on-device or LDAP), NFC card or fob (called IC card in the software), or PIN number.

 

You are charged for ink (yes, it's quick-drying ink, not toner) based on the number of pages you print of either black or colour, and the paper size (data is uploaded automatically to RISO's servers), and ink is delivered automatically when the cartridge gets below about 40-50% through that same connection, so no need for collecting your own meter readings or requesting delivery.

 

When there's a breakdown, technicians are usually on-site the same day or the following day in my experience, with no charge in most cases unless it's repeated misuse (e.g. labels printed through the pull-out tray rather than the manual feeder).

[denzal2k4]

Very useful thanks, I did forget to add that we do use print release via NFC cards using Papercut and scan to Onedrive is useful so would be a shame to lose those features

 

I've only ever used RISO as I'm new to the industry, but I've never had any major issues with them.

 

They seem to work mainly with schools (at least near me), and have native PaperCut MF integration (though no scan to home folder, only scan to pre-set UNC path or to e-mail), and I have been told that for serverless environments, they have PaperCut Hive (print only, no copy control) and directprint.io support (closer to PaperCut MF in features) on the way.

 

Alternatively, if you don't need print/copy control, they do secure print release natively via username/password (either local on-device or LDAP), NFC card or fob (called IC card in the software), or PIN number.

 

You are charged for ink (yes, it's quick-drying ink, not toner) based on the number of pages you print of either black or colour, and the paper size (data is uploaded automatically to RISO's servers), and ink is delivered automatically when the cartridge gets below about 40-50% through that same connection, so no need for collecting your own meter readings or requesting delivery.

 

When there's a breakdown, technicians are usually on-site the same day or the following day in my experience, with no charge in most cases unless it's repeated misuse (e.g. labels printed through the pull-out tray rather than the manual feeder).

[psydii]

Used Canon, Riso, Konica, Ricoh, Sharp, and considered several others during tenders. I've not seen a compelling reason to move from Sharp for a decade now. We do also have Riso in the mix though.

 

For desktop printers we have always done them in house with HP, (though I have also inherited Canon/Xerox/Brother/Oki desktop fleets, with no particular problems)

[Bankesy]

@denzal2k4 we did a refresh with Ricoh recently and I recommend them the same as previous posts. We use HID iClass cards, scan to OneDrive, scan to e-mail and it all works as you would expect.

 

Drop me a PM if you would like contact details for our Ricoh account manager, really great guy who has helped us with print and other solutions for a few years now.

[denzal2k4]

I feel like we have Sharp out at least once a week to fix an issue and we only have a dozen printers, wondering if any of these other brands have better reliability, maybe some of it is staff misuse but we have also had 2 with powerboard failures this year and they are only 3 years old.

[Jawloms]

We have just left our AltoDigital\Xerox contract two years early due to how utterly garbage they were. Now with Ricoh for the last six months. I actually had to look up our account manager's name the other day as I couldn't remember it due to not having to talk to him!

[denzal2k4]

Wow great feedback guys, Ricoh is the one to pursue then, luckily they cold emailed me the other day, will follow up, thanks!

[PotNoodleTech]

Just to show you I aint lying - only support call ever on these MFDs was when they were originally commissioned in the summer hols and I was going round and the engineers were conneting them all up.

 

[LeMarchand]

I'll always go Ricoh now as so many of the other makes have had lots of problems i've got multiple 7 year old ricoh units in service right now that have NEVER had an engineer call.

 

Not with our staff! That said, engineers are always quick to respond. Have three at my main school. Oddly, the "office" machine hardly ever has a problem while the "teacher" ones...

[psydii]

We do have engineers here quite often, but we're pushing the bulk of 3.5M copies through 4 devices (we have many more, but the bulk hits one of these four, and they are sized appropriately). Departmental photocopiers almost never have service call outs. Our HP workgroup printers seem to completely die after printing about 300,000 - 500,000 pages, but we've only ever seen three hit that milestone in 15 years, they are usually retired before then because their toner price has gone through the roof. These days there are so few people/departments using the workgroup printers most are 10 years+ and still have 50% left in the toner!

[CHiLL]

We've had experience with Ricoh, Kyocera and Xerox over the past 10 years of managed print services. The Kyocera machines were the least reliable, followed by Xerox and Ricoh respectively (Ricoh weren't without their issues either). We are currently investigating SHARP, following a recommendation with a technician from another local secondary school. If I recall correctly, we are pushing about 2m copies per year, across 4 large MDFs, 3 medium MFDs and 20 smaller MDFs. Edited February 12, 2025 by CHiLL

[Andrew_C]

I've no knowledge of reliability - when users from Science (Canon) had to go to the other end of the school for printing on the Ricoh's the air turned blue. They hated them with a fiery passion. Admittedly, this could be a "trying to do things the way I know, and can't get my head around the other way of working" but...

 

Our Canon are fairly relaible, Agilico call outs quick and good. Most faults are down to teacher pulling out most of a jammed page.

Edited February 12, 2025 by Andrew_C

[MatthewL]

Might be the only one but Sharp all the way for me, used other brands not keen on any of then, Sharp has so much more out the box than others, more user friendly than any other and can be customised to your needs more easily.

 

You all say about call outs alot of it is down to end user, the environment and the paper used but the skill of the engineers is another big factor, don't forget when dealing with some of the companies they are just Sharp resellers and not direct, as a Sharp reseller engineers get sent on courses but its weather they dealers are sending their staff on them to maintain them properly. You will also find some dealers use compatiable toners which goes against everything Sharp say so they can make a few quid more.

 

Xerox only ever used to be used along with Toshiba in print rooms for the quality as it was supposed to be better. Toshiba is another brand I could get behind but has a few quirky ways of doing things I didn't like to Sharp but both solid machines.

[Synkrox]

Check out the CCS Framework for Ricoh - came in cheapest by quite a way for us.

Don't bother calling them as the salespeople don't even have access to the framework pricing, go through CCS and get the fixed price catalogue. You can still add papercut/printinx with them too.

 

https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/agreements/RM6174

[Synkrox]

I've had a bit of a tiff with our Alto sales guy - he was quite upset to be losing our business and quite indignant. New machines from Ricoh arrive next week!

[Edu-IT]

Never had any issues with Konica.

[Bankesy]

@denzal2k4 for us it is a matter of months not days or weeks in terms of how often we need a Ricoh engineer and we have some newer devices, some older, some big, some small

[drutt]

We use our LEA framework, been with Ricoh since 2013 and no plans to go elsewhere as the price is always good, machines are reliable and engineers, when needed, usually come out same or next day.

 

Also recommend PaperCut as the management solution, with PaperCut deploy it makes managing printers and queues an absolute breeze.

[denzal2k4]

Very helpful, I shall have a look, if you go via the framework do you still get an account manager to help spec out what machines are most appropriate before purchasing or is it down to you?

 

 

Check out the CCS Framework for Ricoh - came in cheapest by quite a way for us.

Don't bother calling them as the salespeople don't even have access to the framework pricing, go through CCS and get the fixed price catalogue. You can still add papercut/printinx with them too.

 

https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/agreements/RM6174

[Synkrox]

Very helpful, I shall have a look, if you go via the framework do you still get an account manager to help spec out what machines are most appropriate before purchasing or is it down to you?

 

You do get an account manager, but the reason it's so cheap is it's for you to decide what devices you need and not be assisted. The other lots provide an assisted purchasing experience.

 

Take a look at the catalogue and you'll see there's a nice selection with a few options like finishers and staplers, and the spec is slightly higher than base anyway, extra large paper trays come standard for example.

We went with the C4510 + Card Reader + Integrated Stapler.

[MrEprise]

By all means consider Ricoh if they have what you require; for us last August it wasn't a good first impression and a rocky start and we've still some outstanding issues as of now.

 

It mostly ranges from incorrectly setup copiers, some broken on arrival, some breaking down on a regular basis, engineers turning up early on & not knowing why and some missing parts which have only just turned up. One of our Trust schools still has an issue where if several jobs are released, it'll print the first one or two, then cancel any other jobs.

 

They're not without issues and It's not filled me with much confidence to be honest. Despite what's been said about Kyocera in terms of reliability, ours were very reliable and their engineers were always on the ball for the few times we did have issues. I'd be very happy go back to them at this point but time will tell.

[Andrew_C]

I suppose with engineers, it depends a lot on the guys in your area, whichever brand you go for.