A Lesson in Transparency, What We Use in Our Office, and Why

Lexmark X658de Series

Here we are, a printer company that has the choice and knowledge between 9 different printer manufacturers for our printing needs (AMT, HP, Lexmark, Ricoh, Xerox, Okidata, Printronix, Tally, and Kyocera)…  Needless to say, we have many options.  So, when we were choosing what we were going to use internally, what did we choose, and why?  You will see we are not “married” to any particular manufacturer.  Like you, we have daily business needs and the label on the outside of the box does not matter as much as the function of the box.  So, here is a quick overview of what we use and why.

Color Printing:

In our office, you will find 2 color printers that get used.  The Xerox Phaser 7760 gets used primarily because we get a good deal on a demo unit and can sell the device after 6 months for $1,500 off the list price and essentially not pay for toner.  It does an awesome job on color, so we like it…  plus it is fast.  Most customers do not enjoy the same benefit, so I would not personally recommend emulation of us unless you need really high quality color prints and color matching is crucial to you.

For the heavy fill flyers, we use the Xerox Phaser 8860. This printer is far cheaper than any other printer in the color laser class.  Granted, it is not technically a laser printer (it is solid ink), but it’s quality is equal to or superior to a laser printer and you could use the same device and pay $.03 per color page or if you have heavy coverage, you can pay $.06 or so and have unlimited ink on a page…  We do too many of these to use a HP or other Xerox product.  We’d spend $500 to $1,000 per month more if we used anything else and get lesser quality.

Black and White Copier:

We use the Lexmark X658dfe multifunction device.  Why? At $4,000 it prints, copies, scans, faxes, collates, staples and is by far the easiest multi-function device on the market to use.  We did not want to spend an hour training 15 different users.  We plugged in the device and people started using it.  Plus, it is a blazing fast 55 pages per minute.  It does not do tabloid, which we are OK with.  Different people will differ on this point, but we don’t need tabloid (11 X 17) capability.  We are OK with Letter and Legal sizes.

Are there other great options?  Of Course there are.  The tricky part is each business has to evaluate their own needs and assess the costs and benefits of different manufacturers for their office.  Or, better yet, if you are in the Denver, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins area and have a copier or color printer need, I’d be happy to schedule an on-site visit so we can go over all of the options and make sure you are running as efficiently as possible.