Printer Refresh, which brand?

[mikes]

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.

 

Funny because our repro department is always having support calls for our big Repro mfp's - an engineer is out every week from Ricoh to fix the things. The smaller MFP's (classroom based) we've had very little issues with but the big ones seem to fail on us every week (the ones that do stapled booklets etc)

[PotNoodleTech]

Funny because our repro department is always having support calls for our big Repro mfp's - an engineer is out every week from Ricoh to fix the things. The smaller MFP's (classroom based) we've had very little issues with but the big ones seem to fail on us every week (the ones that do stapled booklets etc)

 

Our big ones are not too reliable any more but to be fair I went against ricoh reccomendations and kept them, rather than replacing with new on the last refresh so kinda my fault. If I were doing it again - I wouldnt bother with the pro units at all - just put 3-4 smaller colour MFD's in with booklet finishers.

 

Ah well

[Brummytech]

I have only had experience seeing MFDs, you get less issues with any of the brands if you pay extra for a better mfds.

 

RISO - Had nothing but problems with them, they print quick but jam quicker.

 

Ricoh - Seem very reliable, does have occasional engineer visits.

 

Cannon Works well, Engineer sorts any issues relatively quickly, there printing partner Uniflow seems to work well as a cloud printing solution (No print servers)

Downsides if something is wrong with Uniflow its very hard to get hold of anyone (No major problems as of yet)

[Ditto]

Recently a couple of Xerox MFDs/Printers bought. 6 months later they still aren't doing what we want of them! Scanning to email still not working. It's perhaps more a technical competency issue, so hard to say about reliability as they've been so little used, but if they are that hard to get working, then maybe that's worth noting. I should add, I'm not responsible for the installation

[SPM99]

Always had Konicas and no real issues. Over they years I think the schools have tried a few different makes and always go back to Konica. 

One school went with RISO and now regret it. Cheap but Inkjet rather than Laserjet so quality very poor

 

[psydii]

On 12/02/2025 at 12:00, psydii said:

…these days there are so few people/departments using the workgroup printers most are 10 years+ and still have 50% left in the toner…

I just replaced a toner cartridge installed in 2018, it’s was the second cartridge the printer has had since we bought it in 2014.

[denzal2k4]

On 12/02/2025 at 14:56, Synkrox said:

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!

How did you get on with the install? With the CCS framework did you still have a named person to contact with regards to getting the right finishers, etc? I assume staples toner etc all gets ordered automajically and along with service calls is covered by the cost per print?

 

Ta

[Synkrox]

On 16/05/2025 at 15:50, denzal2k4 said:

How did you get on with the install? With the CCS framework did you still have a named person to contact with regards to getting the right finishers, etc? I assume staples toner etc all gets ordered automajically and along with service calls is covered by the cost per print?

 

Ta

When buying you purchase from CCS framework/catalogue, the reason it's so cheap is there is no sales help. But the catalogue has bundles so you won't be able to order incompatible bits anyway. On install there were 2/3 guys for 3 days making sure everything was totally sorted to our satisfaction, even asked for the school logo and colours to brand the control panels. Yes, price is all-inclusive.

 

We've now had them installed just over a month. Totally faultless so far. Toners have been delivered with no interaction from us.

No issues other than someone getting blutack in the top scanner feeder (wrapped around a gear we couldn't see) - logged call online, engineer here a couple of hours later. Sorted.

 

[denzal2k4]

2 hours ago, Synkrox said:

When buying you purchase from CCS framework/catalogue, the reason it's so cheap is there is no sales help. But the catalogue has bundles so you won't be able to order incompatible bits anyway. On install there were 2/3 guys for 3 days making sure everything was totally sorted to our satisfaction, even asked for the school logo and colours to brand the control panels. Yes, price is all-inclusive.

 

We've now had them installed just over a month. Totally faultless so far. Toners have been delivered with no interaction from us.

No issues other than someone getting blutack in the top scanner feeder (wrapped around a gear we couldn't see) - logged call online, engineer here a couple of hours later. Sorted.

 

I appreciate your response Synkrox. Can you clarify I'm looking at the online catalogue and it has one for example that says IM C8000 80ppm A3 Colour booklet, that would include the additional finisher unit? The picture doesn't show one is the only reason I ask.

Many Thanks

[ITGuyNW]

We have approx 25 printers (with papercut) around school which are Canon and Ricoh, and they very rarely produce an error.

 

Contract is up next Summer. Currently with ASL. Looking elsewhere..

 

Reprographics stayed with KM direct as they were the cheapest. Broken down half a dozen times since September so far..

[Synkrox]

49 minutes ago, denzal2k4 said:

I appreciate your response Synkrox. Can you clarify I'm looking at the online catalogue and it has one for example that says IM C8000 80ppm A3 Colour booklet, that would include the additional finisher unit? The picture doesn't show one is the only reason I ask.

Many Thanks

If you are reading the CCS RM6174 model selection catalogue - page 6 says:

 

For your convenience we have created some pre-configured bundles that you can order with 
just one click. Those bundles are:
IM C6500 - 65ppm A3 Colour staple – includes a staple finisher 
IM C6500 - 65ppm A3 Colour booklet – includes a booklet finisher, hole punch
and additional paper supply 
IM C8000 - 80ppm A3 Colour staple – includes a staple finisher 
IM C8000 - 80ppm A3 Colour booklet – includes a booklet finisher, hole punch and additional 
paper supply

[Danp]

We've changed our schools over to Epson heatfree ink devices, such a massive saving on electricity costs and for the most part, there is no change in quality. As in, normal day to day printing is the same, if not better.

[talksr]

We always swore by Canon but support has really gone downhill. Initial support now seems to be farmed out to India. If you get an engineer out to site, they are fantastic. 

[CraigM]

We have 4 contract-based units at our school, all Ricoh units. I love Ricoh machines and am actually in the process of getting proposals for a new contract to upgrade 3 of the machines, 1 of which is a Pro 8310S production machine we make incredibly heavy use of. That machine has done over 10 million clicks in its life so far and the company who supplied it is becoming increasingly frustrating to deal with. The other 3 units we have work super well.

 

For smaller machines around the school we mostly have Samsung units, but we just purchased 5 Brother MFP units this morning so we can do some musical chair swapping of units and I can then retire some much older Samsung units. I'm trying to standardise on all Brother machines for the small desktop/MFP scenario - our existing Brother units work incredibly well.