Color MFP suggestion
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It will be a VERY long time before I use a Brother printer again. I have had nothing but problems with them over the years. Received one at the beginning of this year and used it for 2 weeks before it was shelved. Just complete crap. Granted it was just a basic B&W laser.
I know a lot of people like them, but that has just been my personal experience.
In my home office I have a HP LaserJet Pro 300 color MFP (M375nw). I purchased it refurbed off ebay for $160. Prior to that, I used a Samsung CLP-315w for color laser printing and I had a REALLY old HP OfficeJet G55 that I used for scanning. The G55 died about 18 months ago and the Samsung finally needed a new drum ($70 + shipping) last month.
Decided to buy the HP instead of a drum since I really did need a scanner.
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I have had horrible experience with any basic line of printers. Always go with a business line. It solves all sorts of issues.
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@Minion-Queen Plus 1
And a tahnk you for helping me find that Brother Pro MFC inkjet for my client. They oooed and ahhhed over how much different it looked than a consumer product.
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@technobabble said:
@Minion-Queen Plus 1
And a tahnk you for helping me find that Brother Pro MFC inkjet for my client. They oooed and ahhhed over how much different it looked than a consumer product.
I am glad that it worked great for your client. I know I really like mine.
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@Minion-Queen said:
I have had horrible experience with any basic line of printers. Always go with a business line. It solves all sorts of issues.
Yeah, they are designed to be short-term solutions and completely disposable. Brother's basic b/w lasers are solid but don't hold up under heavy load. You buy an HL-2270DW and try printing to it like it's a HL-5450DN and I don't care if you replace the toners and drums as needed...it won't hold up. It's about picking the right tool for the job, and the low-end Brother lasers work but only for the smallest of businesses or when used for an individual user.
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Get managed print services. Best thing I've ever done for a company, saved money too.
You can negotiate for all services to be rendered by them, in advance (ie paper, toner, maintenance, replacements every __ months of the whole printer)
Typically you get the best top quality equipment for the lowest price and no more headaches (because now it's THEIR problem, it's an obvious advantage for them to use the best quality stuff)
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@MattSpeller said:
Get managed print services. Best thing I've ever done for a company, saved money too.
You can negotiate for all services to be rendered by them, in advance (ie paper, toner, maintenance, replacements every __ months of the whole printer)
Typically you get the best top quality equipment for the lowest price and no more headaches (because now it's THEIR problem, it's an obvious advantage for them to use the best quality stuff)
It's rarely cheaper than you can handle this inhouse, but the offload of work is often worth the extra cost.
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We already have our large printer/ copier as managed via Konica Minolta. Our rep suggested the KM bizhub c3350, out right to buy is $1700...
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@Dashrender said:
@MattSpeller said:
Get managed print services. Best thing I've ever done for a company, saved money too.
You can negotiate for all services to be rendered by them, in advance (ie paper, toner, maintenance, replacements every __ months of the whole printer)
Typically you get the best top quality equipment for the lowest price and no more headaches (because now it's THEIR problem, it's an obvious advantage for them to use the best quality stuff)
It's rarely cheaper than you can handle this inhouse, but the offload of work is often worth the extra cost.
Depends on how much time you spend and what you price out your time at. Also does not help when you're supporting freaking dinosaur-aged copiers. Certainly saved us a bunch when I did the math for the business case.
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@g.jacobse said:
We already have our large printer/ copier as managed via Konica Minolta. Our rep suggested the KM bizhub c3350, out right to buy is $1700...
I refuse to recommend Konica. Ever seen their website for drivers, etc? I do not like them.
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@thanksaj said:
@g.jacobse said:
We already have our large printer/ copier as managed via Konica Minolta. Our rep suggested the KM bizhub c3350, out right to buy is $1700...
I refuse to recommend Konica. Ever seen their website for drivers, etc? I do not like them.
Beat me to it.
Stick with Canon and Xerox. I've had the best success with them.
Be careful with Xerox's new wax ink block ones, make sure they explain to your staff that bumping the copier = major maintenance.
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@MattSpeller said:
@thanksaj said:
@g.jacobse said:
We already have our large printer/ copier as managed via Konica Minolta. Our rep suggested the KM bizhub c3350, out right to buy is $1700...
I refuse to recommend Konica. Ever seen their website for drivers, etc? I do not like them.
Beat me to it.
Stick with Canon and Xerox. I've had the best success with them.
Be careful with Xerox's new wax ink block ones, make sure they explain to your staff that bumping the copier = major maintenance.
Both of those brands are pretty expensive to maintain. For SMB, I like Brother. Once you start talking enterprise units, I like HP a lot. Canon isn't horrible but again, very expensive consumables.
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Absolutely! Make sure you do your research, these were spec'd for very high volume locations (one copier was 2mil+ yearly)
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@MattSpeller said:
Absolutely! Make sure you do your research, these were spec'd for very high volume locations (one copier was 2mil+ yearly)
Yup. Never take the vendor's word at face value.
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We had a Toshiba before our current Konica - man the Toshiba was a total POS, but this Konica MFP has been pretty good and service has been fantastic.
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@Dashrender said:
We had a Toshiba before our current Konica - man the Toshiba was a total POS, but this Konica MFP has been pretty good and service has been fantastic.
Yeah, the fact that Toshiba made/makes printers blows my mind. I just don't thinking printing when I hear Toshiba.
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@thanksaj said:
@Dashrender said:
We had a Toshiba before our current Konica - man the Toshiba was a total POS, but this Konica MFP has been pretty good and service has been fantastic.
Yeah, the fact that Toshiba made/makes printers blows my mind. I just don't thinking printing when I hear Toshiba.
And my experience with Toshiba printers was less than impressive.
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@Dashrender said:
We had a Toshiba before our current Konica - man the Toshiba was a total POS, but this Konica MFP has been pretty good and service has been fantastic.
We have a great Konica press-quality printer, it has amazing quality but we have to have the maintenance guy come in every 2-3 weeks to do re-alignment/repairs. During our busy season he is in every 2-3 days... I don't know how they are making money on that support contract. It does a fantastic job printing though...
Our general office MFPs are all Sharps through the same company. Two of them we own outright with a maintenance agreement, the third is still under lease. We see that maintenance guy once every six months or longer.
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@coliver said:
We have a great Konica press-quality printer, it has amazing quality but we have to have the maintenance guy come in every 2-3 weeks to do re-alignment/repairs. During our busy season he is in every 2-3 days...
From talking to other colleagues this happens across all vendors - I'd say we have Konica out every 4-6 weeks to work on something, though this rarely means downtime. It's much better than the near weekly visits from Toshiba (and the Toshiba was offline 1 day in ten while we had it).
Our general office MFPs are all Sharps through the same company. Two of them we own outright with a maintenance agreement, the third is still under lease. We see that maintenance guy once every six months or longer.
Our desktop MFPs, Laniers, have a normal volume around 10K/month. They see service about every 4-6 months.
