I Need a printer recommendation

[schwags]

I have a small office client that is in the market for a sub $1000 color laser multifunction printer (fax not needed) for his new office. I originally ordered him a Samsung ProXpress SL-C2670FW and it worked great for 2 months, then it started showing "please wait" on the screen and could not be resurrected. I put in a service request with Samsung and a week and a half later, it's still not fixed after many calls to them. I have had pretty good luck with the Samsung printers in the past, so that is why I recommended it. A local printer repair guy actually recommended it. But, it seems that that same service provider in this area has stopped doing warranty work for Samsung, but they don't know that yet! I guess they don't pay enough for warranty calls. Anyway, the customer is burnt on Samsung now. He is willing to drop another $1000 on a printer ASAP so he can get back up and running, but I am at a loss of what to recommend, Samsung had always been my go-to for this price range. He has had a Canon 8040cn in the past, and it was OK but he wasn't impressed as it died after a couple of years too. I actually had the same model and it has died on me as well.

So, I'm left with lower end commercial HPs, Brother, Lexmark...any opinions? There are only a few users, low volume, but he wants something that is easy to use (especially the bypass tray as he prints a lot of envelopes), reasonably inexpensive to operate and RELIABLE above all. Wireless connectivity is preferred as there is no wire to the print area, however we could add one if it was necessary. Are there the any people here who have seen enough of the recent models of these brands to have an informed opinion?

 

[Markverhyden]

Don't forget about Canon imageRUNNER and Xerox WorkCentre. But I usually recommend for people to stay with HP if they want to buy. There are plenty of HP ASP's compare to the others. Like an LaserJet Pro M521dn. The others are fine if you are doing managed print services.

 

[coffee]

I am into Brother printers. Currently, I run a MFC-9125CN in the shop and have never had an issue with it. Its in the 400 dollar range when new. There are a lot more models available according to your printing requirements. I usually suggest the Brother printers for my clients also. My one really large client just rents a Xerox printer.

 

[leomag]

For anyone else that reads this I have some questions about the actual post.
1. Definitely not enough info here
2. What sort of print volumes are you talking about? This is in fact the most critical part, before anyone can or should offer advice you and we need to know how many estimated copies per month. If the customer says 100 prints per day, then: 100x5x4=2000 prints per month, I then usually double the estimated volume to 4000 per month, and believe me this is not an exaggeration. This should now determine the type of machine and if it's a purchase or a rental with built in copy cost for toners and maintenance (this is a great option for over 2kcpm).
3. I find it hard to believe a customer would be willing to drop another 1000 after having a brand new machine for only a month that has failed, there are consumer laws in in Aus as I am sure there are where you are.

The keys are,
Get details of what your customers needs are (probably double them).
Know the limits of the printers you might recommend, and possibly it may be best to bring in a copier company to give a proper proposal based on needs both current and estimated.
Make the recommendation based on the questions you ask and answers you receive.
Take ownership - if you recommend a printer and it fails you need to manage it from start to fix.
If you offer printers/mfc as part of what you sell then make sure you have a printer and mfc as a spare/loaner, after all you made the recommendation, you made the profit, you charge to install and setup the drivers etc so make sure you are equip to support your customer and your business.

There is great profit to be made offering printers and print services, just make sure you have a backup for the times things do go wrong as inevitably they will sometime.

 

[freedomit]

We have sold quiet a few HP Officejet X476 printers and have been very impressed. They are inkjet not laser, are very fast and cheap to print

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Without seeing more requirements (duplexing, finishing, several paper trays for different sizes)....I'm a big fan of HP printers.
Their Color Laserjet "Pro" models...like the m451 (being disco'd soon...so you can get cheap)...or the new model replacing it, the m452.
http://store.hp.com/us/en/mdp/printers/laserjet-pro#features

 

[jzukerman]

I like the Brother laser printers. The drivers are fantastic. Easy to load onto a server and push out via Group Policy. Software is minimal if you need to do regular install. Wireless and wired networking support works good. Lots of configuration options. The consumables are a bit pricey however.

 

[Moltuae]

For reliability and serviceability I find OKI one of the best, especially the higher-end units. I think the only time I've ever replaced an OKI was because it became outdated, not because it had failed.

For cheap and cheerful, yet surprisingly reliable, I'll add to the Brother vote. They won't withstand prolonged heavy usage, but at the price-range, they're disposable and generally good value for money.

 

[TAPtech]

I'll throw in another vote for HP and Brother.

For the big machines, the Ricoh seem to be popular.

 

[TechLady]

I could use a recommendation for a very small office (2 people) that prints maybe 50-60 pages a day. They currently have an HP Officejet Pro X476dw. It's great when it's not malfunctioning. Unfortunately they could have bought two or three of them by now with the amount they have spent on techs wrestling with it. I think they are getting close to thinking about cutting their losses.

 

[glennd]

I could use a recommendation for a very small office (2 people) that prints maybe 50-60 pages a day. They currently have an HP Officejet Pro X476dw. It's great when it's not malfunctioning. Unfortunately they could have bought two or three of them by now with the amount they have spent on techs wrestling with it. I think they are getting close to thinking about cutting their losses.

Gee, it's not a cheap one either. Are the issues with the wifi?

 

[TechLady]

Everything. They don't have the world's most stable or fast network, and I don't think that's helping. They are getting results like this and I don't even know how to google this problem:

And that's just today. Every day it's something else.

 

[glennd]

I've got a tool to fix that...

 

[coffee]

Everything. They don't have the world's most stable or fast network, and I don't think that's helping. They are getting results like this and I don't even know how to google this problem:

And that's just today. Every day it's something else.

Ok, Thats either a scanhead/circuit issue or a mainboard issue. How I always troubleshoot these things is to run a print job to the printer and open it up during the printing process. What you want to do is take a look at the paper image before it exits the printer. This will tell you at what point the print job is failing. I know you said their network is not the best but you didnt give any details. Possibly check for a firmware upgrade and hook a laptop up to it via usb and see if you still get the same problem. This will help narrow down the failure.

I recommend Brother printers. I have always had great luck with them and I think the consumables are less expensive then HP. You mentioned they print about 50/60 pages a day. So, The usage of the printer is a 500 page pack of paper every 8/9 days. Thats roughly 1800 pages a month. Base your new printer purchase on that duty cycle.

Brother MFC-L8850CDW - About the same print speed, Duty cycle is 3000 pages per month (recommended).

http://www.amazon.com/Brother-Print...8&qid=1454417001&sr=1-2&keywords=MFC-L8600CDW

I have the MFC-9125CW in the shop and have sold a few similar models to clients and I am quite pleased with them.

coffee

 

[TechLady]

Thanks kindly for that recommendation. I have updated the firmware, and I believe the above was from a scan process. The machine is actually the second one--previous techs tore their hair out from it's predecessor as well, which is why it got replaced. I'm told they had non-stop issues with drivers although I heard that from the customers themselves and it may not be the whole story. In any case, I need to give them an answer soon as to whether they ought to just cut their losses with this thing, and I'm leaning towards yes...especially if you think there's something wrong with it on a hardware level.

 

[jzukerman]

HP printers are notorious for driver issues. Brother printers on the other hand have great drivers. Works on almost every OS. They've even updated drivers for older model printers to work with newer Windows OSes, very much appreciated.

I will say that Brother printers have a higher cost of ownership. They don't let you draw down the toner to the last bit of power. I feel like my clients are recycling toners that are physically half full but the printer says empty. There are hacks to get around that, but really Brother should let the printer keep going until the user notices toner issues. Their drums can be expensive to replace too, sometimes costing almost as much as a new printer.

 

[coffee]

HP printers are notorious for driver issues. Brother printers on the other hand have great drivers. Works on almost every OS. They've even updated drivers for older model printers to work with newer Windows OSes, very much appreciated.

I will say that Brother printers have a higher cost of ownership. They don't let you draw down the toner to the last bit of power. I feel like my clients are recycling toners that are physically half full but the printer says empty. There are hacks to get around that, but really Brother should let the printer keep going until the user notices toner issues. Their drums can be expensive to replace too, sometimes costing almost as much as a new printer.

All the manufactures base their toner usage on about a 8 % page coverage and the amount of pages printed since the toner was replaced. Its not all that accurate and thats why there is always more toner left over in the cartridges. On the brother printers there is an easy way to reset the toner usage. For my printer:

http://blog.tonerparts.com/how-to-reset-brother-mfc-9125cn-printer-toner-counter/

As for the cartridges, I buy refilled because of the price. I can get all the colors which include 2 black cartridges for around 68 bucks. I do not mind refills because I am not going to buy brand new and waste all that money. They work fine for me.

 

[cypress]

Had a field day with a HP printer yesterday, hate those suckers. I also recommend the Brother printers, never had an issue with them.

 

[DataMedics]

I actually really like my Xerox Phaser 8560 solid ink printer. It does occasionally break down, but it's usually an easy fix and you can just google the error code to see exactly what to check. Usually due to the ink system, which is a bit twitchy especially when you use non OEM ink like I do.

But when it works it just works, and I can run off 10,000 pages a day with no problems.

 

[Mick]

Take a look at the HP MFP M277. I haven't been a huge fan of HP in the past, preferring Brother for reliability/durability, but we got one of these about four months ago for our office and so far - I'm pretty impressed. Will do pretty much all your client will want, as far as I can tell from what you've said.