What MFDs do people use?

[Valyyn]

Hi all,

We're coming to the end of our current MFD contract with Canon shortly and are chatting to various people for a new system.

 

Currently we're using Uniflow and have about 8 Canon MFDs around the school, of which two are colour, plus a large central b&w one in reprographics, although we're hoping to cut this number down if we can with the new system.

 

Software wise, we're probably going to be looking at Papercut and Equitrac - we're definitely not using Uniflow again and I've used PCounter in a previous job - while it's good when it works, we found the support to be awful.

 

But I was wondering what makes/models of MFDs people are mainly using these days. I've seen a lot of people mentioning Ricoh on these boards and I've used Konica Minoltas in the previous job, but I thought it'd be good to see what people are currently using and what you think of them.

 

I think I've got all the main ones in the poll, but I've put an "other" in case I've missed some!

[sparkeh]

We use Ricoh.

Can't really say I have any complaints, easy to use and reliable.

[localzuk]

We've gone from Toshiba to Canon to Ricoh and are sticking with Ricoh. Toshiba weren't bad, Canon were *awful* and Ricoh have been very reliable.

 

The pricing is also amazing how variable it is. Speak to Ricoh direct for pricing. We've got ourselves an amazing deal this year.

[SYNACK]

Ricoh as voted and cannon, cannon has massive variation, we trialed one and basically laughed at them at which point they shipped us one of the new line which was great, the best of the tested bunch. Ricoh is pretty strong but they also have a few dogs in their product line.

 

The best advice is to get some in for testing for at least a week and get subjective opinions from everyone, toshiba drivers suck in my experience but they seem to use different teams for different devices so it's a case of testing them to see what works.

[twin--turbo]

With Toshiba.

 

Build is flimsy in places (draws are dreadful)

 

Otherwise no major complaints, service guy is good and does come for regular maintenance.

 

Contract is not gr8 though.

 

 

Had Xerox in the past and the machines were gr8 but the service (especialy on the phone) was not as good.

 

Not used Cannon in a long time but would not touch them based on that experience.

 

Rob

[Oaktech]

We use sharp for b&w and konica for colour. the Konica is a total PITA. The sharps are great, easy to configure and cheap to run - despite the best efforts of that well known leasing co.

[crt404]

Used Konica Minolta previously and had no real issues with them. Currently use Canon with the UniFlow solution and can't wait for the contract to end. Machines break constantly, faults occur daily, can't wait to change.

[Gurra]

Olivetti = Kyocera. No problems whatsoever.

[Valyyn]

Thank you guys, this is really useful I'll take some of this feedback to the boss and see where they want to go from there then.

[john]

We use Toshiba and have done for over 12 years now we are on our 3rd or 4th Generation of Toshiba MFDs now with the ones we have just swapped to being very new from them and very impressive and cheap to run. Well worth looking at them and they work perfectly with Office 2010 Spreadsheets so those problems have gone (reported on here that 451s had issues with Excel due to a firmware bug).

[MatthewL]

Sharp all the way, cannot fault them what so ever.

[glennda]

Ricoh with the embedded Papercut option is what I specced out for my last school along with biometric intergration linked to biostore for cashless catering.

[localzuk]

Sharp all the way, cannot fault them what so ever.

 

Only issue is that they may go bust.

[nadeem]

Ricoh (have had Canon - they were rubbish)

 

Probably going for Sharp next time (our Ricoh reseller has been bought by Sharp)

[eddyc]

We have all sharp here, leased via Sharp IOT

[MatthewL]

I have PCounter embedded running on my Sharp's they are just so simple to setup even as a standalone unit I feel they offer most features from other machines I have used in the past.

[dobsonl]

We have had Ricoh for as long as I can remember, just installed a new colour one and a new black and white. Excellent service as always

[mdench]

all new ricohs this year running papercut. good machines easy to set up and run and support is good

[RabbieBurns]

we have 26 Konica Minolta photocopiers.

 

On some sort of contract where we dont pay for the toner we just pay per page and it works out very cheap.

 

Are phasing out colour printers in departments / classrooms and getting everyone to print to the copiers.

[nadeem]

That's who we use - great service (though I used them before they became part of Sharp and hence am using Ricoh kit at the moment

[RTFM]

We have 2x Riso 9050 and 2x Kyocera KM-2560

[Steven_Cleaver]

We use Ricoh with Papercut MF and linked to AD accounts for staff early days but seems ok so far although some departments are going to get big bills.

[mb2k01]

Out of interest, have all those who contributed so far not used/looked in to Xerox? If you have, what were the reasons you didn't go with them ultimately?

We are currently Ricoh but very close to opting for Xerox machines to drive our in-house mono and colour needs when the lease is up.

[localzuk]

Out of interest, have all those who contributed so far not used/looked in to Xerox? If you have, what were the reasons you didn't go with them ultimately?

We are currently Ricoh but very close to opting for Xerox machines to drive our in-house mono and colour needs when the lease is up.

 

I looked at Xerox the last time we went to look at them. The UI was a mess - confusing and odd. They were also significantly more expensive than anyone else.

[glennda]

Out of interest, have all those who contributed so far not used/looked in to Xerox? If you have, what were the reasons you didn't go with them ultimately?

We are currently Ricoh but very close to opting for Xerox machines to drive our in-house mono and colour needs when the lease is up.

 

every xerox printer i have ever come across has had terrible drivers