Business printing solutions

[bucknut11]

Question for any of you IT folks out there...

We are using mostly Xerox printers at my place of employment. We have an assortment of laser printers (3150, 4500) and solid-state crayon printers (8400, 8500) as well as a few oddballs here and there. We have been having terrible times with both types of printers and our patience with Xerox is wearing thin. We're currently thinking about looking into HP printers or maybe Ricoh.

What do you guys use? Anything you recommend? Things to stay away from?

 

[Taosman]

The HP laser printers are anvil reliable, workaholics. Black and white printers are generally very reliable. Pitney Bowes has used HP business printers for years. When you get into color printers they are just not quite as reliable.
But, HP makes some fine printers.
We (at home)have used a HP 4L for years with no trouble. It's a black and white laser printer.

 

[CleveBucks]

I've got several 10+ year old HP b&w lasers that still work just fine. And agree, the colors haven't been as reliable, but not horrible either.

 

[bucknut11]

I've got several 10+ year old HP b&w lasers that still work just fine. And agree, the colors haven't been as reliable, but not horrible either.

We have a few older HP4 & HP5 lasers. They've held up very well, but they're slowly disappearing. It's these new machines that are junk.

 

[iambrutus]

HP printers tend to go through rollers more often (leading to jams) - HP color laser printers are expensive to operate on a per page basis. we switched to Kyocera printers/copiers a while back and have found that kyocera is Japanese for "piece of shit".

how big is your office (staff/number of printers) ?

 

[Dryden]

We use the HP LaserJet 5Si almost exclusively for B&W laser. We have at least three dozen active, and another half-dozen in storage for parts. All of them have the duplexers, 2000 sheet feeders, etc ...

Tanks. The 5Si is virtually unbreakable, unless you run a fork lift through one or hit it with a towmotor -- that seems to break 'em pretty good.

Color laser, on the other hand, is a total crapshoot. We've tried Xerox & HP, and they're nothing but maintenance headaches and moneysinks, both old models and new. We tried the Xerox 7300 DN two years ago, which worked beautifully for about 50 sheets before the quality went to crap unless you spent four hours cleaning it. After that experiment with Xerox, we picked up the HP4700 DN last year, and it behaves the same way.

Frankly, I'm about ready to just give up on color lasers and instead order $25 inkjet printers and pitch them completely when they clog or break.

 

[Big Papa]

HP printers tend to go through rollers more often (leading to jams) - HP color laser printers are expensive to operate on a per page basis. we switched to Kyocera printers/copiers a while back and have found that kyocera is Japanese for "piece of shit".

how big is your office (staff/number of printers) ?

Yeah, the Kyocera's are kinda shitty, but they are a lot cheaper to operate (consumables) and I like the service we get from Meritech as far as their support for when they break down or need service. We got a good deal on replacing our HP's at the time and I would not got back to the HP's. Ricoh's could be worth looking into, I don't know a lot about them, but they make good equipment from what exposure I have had with them.

 

[bucknut11]

how big is your office (staff/number of printers) ?

College campus of 2200 kids. As far as the number of networked printers.... It's somewhere above 50, I'm not certain on that one. We're not looking to replace everything, but the Xerox crayon printers (about 20 of them) must be replaced soon.

 

[Pheasant]

If you want to save money I'd go this route....