Color Printer

[zee]

I am looking to purchase a color printer. It must have 2 sided (duplex) printing and must be fairly fast. I have a color inkjet now, and it is sooooooooo slow. I have looked at some of the color laser printers, but their cost of operation is quite high. I've been reading about the Xerox "solid ink" printers. Has anyone had any experience with Xerox's solid ink printers or Xerox printers in general? Any information you can give me is appreciated.
Zee

[zee]

I am looking to purchase a color printer. It must have 2 sided (duplex) printing and must be fairly fast. I have a color inkjet now, and it is sooooooooo slow. I have looked at some of the color laser printers, but their cost of operation is quite high. I've been reading about the Xerox "solid ink" printers. Has anyone had any experience with Xerox's solid ink printers or Xerox printers in general? Any information you can give me is appreciated.
Zee

[alkolka]

Zee, at home I use Canon inkjet printers (i850 nad ip5000) because they are exceptionaly fast, print 2-sided, and have excellent color. If I were printing a lot of photographs, I'd consider Epson and live with the slower performance.

At work I use a Xerox Phaser (850 or 8500?) solid ink printer and love it. It prints 2-sided and quick quickly. Its color printing is very good. But it has some negatives. It is more expensive. Xerox suggests that it always be turned on so that melted ink is available for printing. Warm up from cold can be 20 minutes. Also, the printed page has a unique feel due to the waxy solid ink. Not bad or unpleasant, just different.

[zee]

Al,
Thanks for the information.
Zee

[Terry]

Zee,

I have a Xerox Phaser 8200DP printer in my office-at-home. It's a network connected printer (I currently have four computers in my network, and all of them use the 8200 as the primary printer).

It's a very nice printer, but rather expensive and a bit overkill for personal use. As Al said, it takes 20 minutes or more to wake up from being shut down completely, so it likes to stay on all the time. Even then it goes into a sleep mode if you're not using it, waking up automatically when you send it something to print, but that little "wake up" takes a minute or two.

As one of my friends remarked, it prints pages like "pages from a magazine," and it works quite nicely when printing web pages loaded with graphics.

Every printer has the downside of the cost of the supplies. The printer manufacturers have figured out that that's where the money is, and Xerox is no exception. They insist that using non-Xerox Colorstix will damage the printer, and they get top dollar for their brand.

BTW, Tektronix and Xerox are the same if you're looking at these printers.

You can get a good idea of what the "ink" costs by looking up "colorstix" on eBay.

I generally purchase Colorstix (Black, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow) about once a year, but my printing volume is very low -- maybe a ream of paper every two months.

Also, the machine badgers you to install a "maintenance kit" once a year. The kit costs around a hundred dollars, and it includes a new roller and various associated plastic parts.

I've had this particular unit since October of 2002, and there have been NO problems with it.

Would I buy another one? Not if it was solely for personal use (it's a bit expensive), but there are cheaper models in the same line that I would consider. And if you're into exact color matching, this printer is not for you -- the rollers get dirty and the colors get darker if you print a lot of black, so you have to clean it frequently to get vibrant color. Cleaning it burns a lot of "ink," so it's expensive... http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[zee]

Terry,
Thanks so much for taking the time to respond and in such detail. All of the issues you have brought up will really help me in making a decision on whether to purchase a new color printer or to continue to use a commerical printer. I don't mind making the initial investment but the high cost of operation is definitely a turn off.
Zee

[stlewis]

I have been watching low end lasers for some time. I want one which can handle a good weight of light card and Konica Minolta do the 5430 range which looks good. BUT I have had some reports of reliability problems and recommendations to go for HP.

Any experience on this, please?

And is 64Mb memory enough?!!!

Thanks

[OklaEd]

Hi Zee,
Xerox (Tektronix) publishes a "cost per print" document on each of their printers that is pretty accurate. I used to have a Tektronix Phaser 850 solid ink printer (letter sized) ... and traded up to a Tektronix Phaser 7700DN (12 x 18 maximum size).

One thing to keep in mind with the "solid ink" printers is that the ink is basically a dye impregnated wax. The color is beautiful ... but if you print business cards ... and put them in your wallet ... they will stick together, and the color will smear. If you print letterhead and run it through a laser printer to add the body of the letter ... the ink on the letterhead will melt and run. That is why I got away from the solid ink and went to the laser printer.

Just thought you should know. If you have any questions specific to the Tektronix (Xerox) laser printers, I'll try to answer them.

Good Luck,

-Ed.

[Albacore]

I was a great believer in Canon inkjets and bought S9000 A3+ printer for my proofing but recently the quality of the inks have gone downhill, they are nor consistent. I have developed a small sideline in Photo Retouching which has allowed me to buy an HP 8450 which is slow when compared to the Canon but what results. The greyscale quality is enough to justify the price and with the large discounts it was too good to miss.

One of my local competitors who is a friend has just bought one of the new Minolta Magicolour 5430DL's which churns out colour pages at 15 ppm and thats not the manufactures time thats mine and the quality is on par with where I do sub contract work. At £630 thats alot of jobs to justify the expense so I just keep on using the local print shop for my work it is so cheap and if I have a large booklet to do, with many copies then it is a quick phone around the printers that I know to get prices

[zee]

Ed & Albacore,
Great information....Thanks!
Zee