Colour Photocopiers

[enjay]

I've been asked to look into colour photocopiers, possibly networked ones. Can anyone recommend any particularly good or bad models? Other than the obvious consumables cost and product lifecycle, are they any other factors I should consider in a TCO analysis?

[teejay]

If you are going contract based, watch out for nasties in the contract such as maintenance charges, minumum page counts, very dodgy constantly renewing contracts etc.

I personally have moved over to Ricoh under their Catalyst framework agreement, by far the most cost effective solution I found, but make sure you get the Catalyst framework contract as this is much better than their standard contract and has no hidden gotchas to worry about.

Their service is excellent as well.

[localzuk]

We currently have a couple of Ricoh machines, and apart from what appeared to be a design problem with the brand new MP7001 machine (this has now been solved), they've been very good.

 

We have a full 3 year lease contract for them - for this we pay a quarterly charge, plus a cost per page - which includes servicing, toner, staples and parts.

[Oggie66]

Hi, agree with teejay, check and double check the contracts and hammer down the cost per copy price. You may also want to concider Canon but stay away from the HP so call copiers.

[enjay]

If people are willing to share this, can I ask what you're paying per page?

[localzuk]

If people are willing to share this, can I ask what you're paying per page?

 

It *really* depends on copy volume. Our machine is a high volume one, (ie. 145k pages a quarter) and we pay 0.33p per page. Our colour is relatively low volume (as in 4k per quarter) and we pay 3.9p per page.

 

These, from what I'm aware, are very good prices also.

[localzuk]

Hi, agree with teejay, check and double check the contracts and hammer down the cost per copy price. You may also want to concider Canon but stay away from the HP so call copiers.

 

We had nothing but problems with our Canon machine. ie. major callouts pretty much every week for 2 years, sometimes 2 or more times a week.

[teejay]

@enjay

What sort of copy count are you looking at?

[enjay]

Page count on depends which copier we replace - either 65,000 or 260,000 pages/year.

[plexer]

We have just started with a Konica colour copier, reproduction quality is superb.

 

Make sure whatever you go for is a full colour copier and not just a colour capable one.

 

Ben

[enjay]

Make sure whatever you go for is a full colour copier and not just a colour capable one.

 

The difference being...?

[localzuk]

The difference being...?

 

Colour capable is where they take a black and white copier and add the colour parts to it - this is usually visible by the copy speeds. Our old Canon was colour capable. It did 45ppm mono, or 15ppm colour. A full colour machine will do both at similarly high speeds (like 50ppm mono, 45ppm colour).

 

The colour capable tech is very old fashioned and out of date now - it is also more unreliable.

[plexer]

What he said

 

Ben

[pete]

Make sure it can scan to network shares as well - incredibly useful feature.

[john]

I use Toshiba copiers with great success, and they are very much worth it. I've had Ricoh in the past and not been impressed with them really, much preferred the Toshiba.

[mac_shinobi]

Make sure it can scan to network shares as well - incredibly useful feature.

 

assuming the Ricoh's have the scanner features / options installed then it can scan to folder / email / twain scanning via driver over the network ( some over usb ) and also same again for printing over the network needs printer features / options installed and also need to ensure you have the relevant printer languages installed to print in those printer languages / drivers ie rpcs, pcl 5 or 6, post script etc

 

Never seen or come across a toshiba one so cant comment on those but was wondering what xerox ones would be like

 

Not going to comment on which are better as work for Ricoh tech support desk so trying to stay neutral lol

[laserblazer]

We recently got 4 Canon network copiers. 2 mono and 2 colour. They do seem to jam up a fair bit and the netwrok connection dropes out for no apparent reason. No idea what they cost to run and the great thing is that it's not my concern. Apart from keeping them running on the network, they are all down to the Bursar.

[Xippa]

Great thread and many good points. After being in the copier industry and an Attorney for over 20 years, I can not impress upon you enough to make sure the contract structure is proper and you understand exactly what you are getting. Please do not rely on your vendor for this information. Minimum impressions and escalators are always suspect as are 5 or 6 other areas. There is a right way to "set the contract up" so you are in a favorable position when your vendor of choice gives you their best price - which by the way is not their best price I typically save customers 8-15% from their vendors "best price" to the final contract price. Recently, I saved a company 40% on a one copier lease with a service/supply agreement. Shame on that vendor for trying what he did.

 

At the end of the day, the machine of your choice will be delivered and the sales rep will go away. What you are really "buying" is the strength of the service organization to keep your machine up and functioning in an acceptable manner. All is normally fine with the contract until there is a problem or you need to change something (volumes go down or upgrade a machine). You are left with the teeth of your contract. If I can be of assistance, don't hesitate to reach out to me. We are 100% end-user centric and are here to help.

[imiddleton25]

Replaced our 4 canon machines 2 years ago with sharp copiers

have been excellent with all the features we need including scanning direct to SIMS and sharepoint

as well as normal functions

 

The canon machine were twice the cost to buy and needed lots of service compared to sharp machines

[enjay]

No idea what they cost to run and the great thing is that it's not my concern. Apart from keeping them running on the network, they are all down to the Bursar.

 

That's one thing which would need to be addressed here too. At present, printers are my area and the photocopiers and the Bursar's (possibly for no reason other than history), but a networked copier blurs that line somewhat.