Mailing and the Xerox Phaser 8860 or the Xerox Phaser 8560…
The Xerox Phaser 8560 and Xerox Phaser 8860 is a Fragile Mailing Experience!
If you speak to a sales rep who sells the Xerox Phaser 8560 or the Xerox Phaser 8860 it will seem like this is the best printer in the history of mankind… if you are speaking to someone who sells another brand of color printer in Denver, it will be the worst printer in mankind! I guess this is how perspective works. We focus on what works for us. I suppose this is the benefit of being a multi-vendor company. We can see strengths and weaknesses and not freak out one way or the other.
FYI — The Phaser 8560 and the Phaser 8860 are basically the same printer – just different supplies (bigger wax blocks in the Phaser 8860 and lower costs for the wax making it have a much lower cost per print)
The Xerox Phaser 8560 is a wax technology. Think of it this way… 4 different colors of crayons are melted, shot through a printhead and pushed into the paper through some pressure. Now, the nice part is that even cheap paper looks like glossy paper since it is wax and not a traditional color laser printer. The disadvantage is this… Mail sorters. How does a mail sorter work? Basically seperation and then it goes through a reader. In order to read correctly it must go through individually. This requires pressure. The volume of mail requires speed. Speed and pressure basically equals heat. Heat melts wax… are you starting to see the issue?
Now, other manufacturers will act as if you will have a clean piece of paper and candle wax in an envelope. It’s not that bad. There is simply some streaking that can occur. Before you decide to buy the Xerox Phaser 8560 or the Xerox Phaser 8860 color printer, just have some print samples run. If you never do mailers, don’t worry. If you do, it may still be OK, but you will want to test the runs so that you do not purchase a color printer that you’ll want to return.
If you send us files, we’d be happy to print and mail you some samples. If you hear that the Xerox Phaser 8560 or the Xerox Phaser 8860 is awful, don’t worry, you are probably talking to someone who sells a competitor’s color box. If you hear no one ever had this problem, you are probably talking to a Xerox employee.
Citrix Printing Challenges… A Customer’s Perspective
Lexmark - A Citrix Friendly Manufacturer!
We have had a few Kyocera printer driver problems as it relates to the Citrix environment. We bought 2 Kyocera FS-4000DN printers and one Kyocera FS-4020DN. The Kyocera FS-4020DN would intermittently freeze in the middle of a print job sent to it by a Windows client or a Citrix client.
The Kyocera FS-4000DNs had formatting problems including minimum margin settings, correct landscape or portrait orientation, and correct fonts. The minimum margin setting would produce print jobs where the last character and a half on the right side would be off the page. The same print job sent to an HP Laserjet printer or Lexmark printer would all be on the page. Some Crystal Reports executed through Citrix would not respect the default orientation setting. Also some Crystal Reports and some Excel spreadsheets would have incorrect fonts or graphics.
We found the Kyocera FS-4000DN KX driver was able to fix most of the formatting problems. However the Kyocera KX driver is not as stable as the Kyocera FS-4000DN driver. Occasionally the drivers will corrupt and the print queue in the Citrix session becomes unresponsive. An administrator must remove the driver from the Citrix servers and the print server and reinstall them.
Our experience with Lexmark devices has been rock solid. We have deployed Lexmark X646, Lexmark X651de, Lexmark X654de, Lexmark X658de, Lexmark T652, Lexmark E260, Lexmark E460, and a Lexmark C534 with no formatting problems and no stability problems. The cost per print for the Lexmarks may not be as low as the Kyocera’s but the fact that they have zero administrative problems more than makes up for that.
How To Find a Printer IP Address Quickly!
Diagnosing Print Issues -- IP Addresses
For one reason or another, people will often want to figure out what the IP Address is for their printer. Maybe a job is failing over and over, but the printer will print the status page fine, etc… The network cable is plugged in, etc. On the printer, the IP Address can generally be in the section of the menu called “Information Pages” or something along those lines. You can see what the IP address is set to in the printer. Then one can see if this IP Address matches the printer driver.
Once you have a configuration page, you can go START>CONTROL PANEL>PRINTERS AND FAXES>Select your device, RIGHT CLICK> PORTS — Widen column and see if the number listed there is the same as the IP Address on the printer itself. If it is not, there is your printing problem. They need to match!
Give us a call if you need printer driver help, we can do this for $50. Or just read the blog and do it yourself! ;)
Please call us for laser printers in Denver!
A Weird Way to Save Money on a Xerox 8860 Color Printer
Xerox Phaser 8860 tricks
We had a customer who really liked how cheap color printing was on the Xerox Phaser 8860. They had low coverage, so a cost per print plan didn’t make a lot of sense. They had an idea on how to make prints cheaper, and I was skeptical until I ran the analytics. Their solution, print text in blue rather than black.
We all know black and white prints are cheaper than color prints, so the blue text idea seemed weird. I ran their document, ran it through my color coverage analyzer, and the black page with 2 small pictures cost $.0247 per print. I changed the text color, that’s all, to dark blue and the cost went down to $.0226 per print. I then changed it to light blue and it went all the way down to $.0144 per print. Over a panny a print cheaper.
How could this happen? With the Xerox Phaser 8860 you need to remember the color blocks of wax cost 1/3 what the black blocks cost. Essentially, if you used only cyan for your text, the prints would literally cost 1/3 what the black and white prints cost. If it doesn’t matter and you own a Xerox Phaser 8860 printer, use cyan! If you own ANY OTHER color printer on the market, this advice DOES NOT APPLY!!
Color Printer Rental in Denver
Xerox Phaser 8860
Are you looking for a color printer, but don’t want to spend $2,000 right now to get a quality color printer? We have a Xerox Phaser 8860 available for rental right now, it’s brand new!! It would be just $245 per month for the printer and all of the supplies and maintenance you need to print 2,000 color pages a month! That’s less than $.125 a page regardless of coverage and including the equipment! What happens if you go over 2,o00 color prints? Perfect, it then is only $.06 per print!!
If you do Real Estate color printing or just don’t want to have to but a color laser printer in Denver, please give us a call!
Kyocera FS4020 Product Option vs The HP LaserJet P4015 Laser Printer
Kyocera FS 4020DN Laser Printer
HP has had shortages on their laserjet line for months and the Kyocera FS4020DN has been a nice replacement for the HP Laserjet P4015 Laser Printer. They have differences you may want to be aware of. Here are some of the basic differences you should be aware of.
DRUM — Kyocera uses a ceramic drum, which tends to last a long time and makes the printers cost of ownership be a lot lower than HP. However, if it is bad, you will want a technician to replace this componet (rated at 300,000 pages) instead of just changing the toner cartridge.
COST — The Kyocera is nearly 40% lower in price than the HP Laserjet series
DRIVERS — Everyone, and I mean everyone, supports HP printers, Kyocera can struggle in specialty applications. you’ll want to test a Kyocera if you have specialty software.
We feel Kyocera has a compelling story, we just want to make sure you know the benefits and limitations before taking the plunge!
Xerox Phaser 8560 vs Xerox Phaser 8860 — Marketing!
Xerox Phaser 8560 or Xerox Phaser 8860??
This post is going to annoy you if you don’t already know the score here. Almost everyone I chat with about this gets kind of annoyed. Xerox has come up with some strange marketing, but this is the one that really seems to bug people. The Xerox Phaser 8560 printer vs the Xerox Phaser 8860 printer, what is the difference?
Not Much. The price, sure, it’s $1,500 different. Why? Basically mother Xerox, in her infinite wisdom has decided you have a choice. Pay now or pay later. They sell the same machine with differing ink costs so that if you purchase the wrong one it will cost you thousands more than it should. Good for Xerox, right?
Well, we prefer to help you get the right product right up front. The supplies cost about 1/3 the amount for the Xerox Phaser 8860 when compared to the Xerox Phaser 8560. So, if you print a lot, or use a lot of color per print… you should buy the Xerox Phaser 8860. If you do small amounts of printing, you should buy the Xerox Phaser 8560. I tell my customers they should consider the breakeven point right now to be 500 color sheets which are not fully loaded in color. This would be the best advice. Less than 500 sheets per month, use the Xerox Phaser 8560. More than 500 color sheets per moth, use the Xerox Phaser 8860 color printer.
I would be happy to take you through the math if you are still confused.
Used HP Laserjet 4350’s for Sale!
Used HP Laserjet 4350 Printers
We recently received 20 of the HP Laserjet 4350’s back from a lease contract. All of the used HP Laserjet 4350’s are in excellent shape and have less than 100,000 pages on them. These are work horse printers and are great for any office. We also have compatible toner available for $119 for 20,000 pages so you are spending less than $.006 per print to use these high quality used laser printers!
Do you have an old HP Laserjet 4000, an HP Laserjet 4050, HP Laserjet 4100, or an old HP Laserjet 5si or even an HP Laserjet 4? It may be time to upgrade. With the supply constraint on the HP Laserjet 4014, HP Laserjet 4015DN and HP Laserjet 4515TN, this may be the perfect fit to your problems. Save a few thousand bucks and still get an HP Laserjet Printer!!
The HP Laserjet 4350 is one of the most popular office laser printers of all time, and we think this printer is perfect for anyone who wants to stay with HP and buy a refurbished laser printer in Denver! All of these used laser printers come with a 30 day on-site warranty for those in the Denver Metro area and a non-doa warranty for everyone else!
How Much?
HP Laserjet 4350N — $500.00 with 30 day on-site warranty
HP Laserjet 4350DN — $575.00 with 30 Day warranty
HP Laserjet 4350DTN — $650.00 with 30 Day on-site warranty!
BULK DISCOUNTS WILL APPLY!!
Xerox Phaser 7760 Supplies Issues
I was working on a Xerox Phaser 7760 and there were streaking issues which can happen in a color laser, especially one which has as many consumable items as the Xerox Phaser 7760 has. In fact, if you don’t believe this printer has a lot of consumble items, here is a list of consumable items.
So when you have issues, often you are going to get told by your service provider that you have a consumable issue. And you very well may. I was thinking it was an imaging unit issue in this case, the weird part was that the life from the Supplies Usage Profile said that there was over 50% of the life remaining. We called up Xerox and something interesting happened, Xerox replaced the imaging unit at no charge.
What’s the point of this post? Basically, it is that there are definate reasons to consider buying OEM toner, and when color quality matters and you can’t take lines at all in the print or something similar… Well, it is nice when the manufacturer stands behind their supplies rating (most manufacturers don’t)! In this case the actual solution was to replace the transfer roller.
Xerox Phaser 6360 — Unusual Problem Encountered
Xerox_Phaser_6360
We recently sold a Xerox Phaser 6360DN to a customer here in Denver and they had some issues we are not used to experiencing. Basically, the print kept “banding” … meaning it looked like there was very thin horizontal stripes printing on the pages and it made the print quality seem less than desireable. Customers freak out when things don’t look perfect, the point of this post is to make sure you know every printer can have issues coming out of the box. What you have to decide is if you want a technician to come fix the issues or if you want to just send back the laser printer. Generally, either are valid options, but the sooner you decide, the better it is for us all!
If you had bought the Xerox Phaser 8560, you may have had a single stripe going across the whole page… Every printer has the propensity to have a certain kind of error. The Lexmark X654de can slightly skew scans so copiers are crooked. The Ricoh C420DN’s seem to get messed up in shipping. What’s the point? Basically, it is if you get a printer with an issue out of the box, it is not the end of the world, you just have to decide what you want to do.