Want to upgrade from Xerox Versant 180, recommendations please

E

Eclipse

Member
Hi, we currently have a Xerox Versant 180, which we’ve had for 8 years and are looking to upgrade. We’ve had the usual 2nd BTR issues throughout its life, faulty drums are also an issue and getting parts is a joke. We have a service contract but they have gone from good to bad recently (our engineer who was brilliant, unfortunately left). We are getting quotes for Xerox 280, Xerox Proficio, Fuiji (not sure which one yet) and Canon V900 series. I think the Proficio will be overkill and way too expensive for our needs, the salesman told us it’s the next one up from the 180, but I thought that was the 280?? The Canon was strongly recommended by another salesman, when I asked about the Konica Minolta he said the Canon would be better and basically dismissed the KM. I quite liked the look of the KM C4070.

We are a small printing company, based in West Sussex, UK, our monthly click for colour varies from 8k to 15k and similar for mono. We have been stung before with salesman saying anything to get you to sign on the dotted line, it has made us ultra wary of who and what to believe. I would really appreciate any advice, recommendations etc. I thought asking here would get us some genuine feedback and experiences, avoiding the tiresome “sales” talk.

Thanks so much for reading,
Emma
 
The 280 is a "generational replacement" to the 180, not a step up. Step up at the time of the 180 and 280 would have been a Versant (like the 3100 or 4100). Now its a Proficio, but based on those numbers, it would be overkill for your needs unless you need the 5th and 6th(?) color stations.

Personally, as a long term Xerox user, I want to lean toward the Fuji offerings for toner based prints. Since they are essentially the same machines. We too have seen some downward turn on the support and service, but have since learned that it was because Fuji was actively recruiting Versant certified techs for the North American market.

Xerox and Fuji aside, I don't think you could go wrong with a Canon or KM product. I always take any sales person's (current or former) opinions with a large grain of salt, due to obvious bias toward or away from products. Now, taking opinions from operators I find to be a lot more useful. We have had KM machines before (low end production through Ikon business solutions) and my previous employer had a mid-level production Canon (1st Gen VP7000)... Now, honestly my experiences with either of those machines to this day affect my opinions about them negatively. Those negative experiences have always brought back to Xerox.
 
Hi EdwardB

Thanks for your reply. Regarding the Proficio, we don’t need the 5th and 6th colour stations, so it really does feel like it wouldn’t be a good fit for us, glad you agree. Does the uncertainty of Xerox put you off in anyway? I was concerned that if they went into liquidation how that would affect everyone with one of their machines.

Love your “certified CANVA hater since 2020” 😂
 
The Proficio PX300 would be the replacement for the Versant 280, the Proficio PX500 would be the next level up and you would be correct, it would be overkill for your volume. From a design perspective, it looks as though the PX500 may solve the 2nd BTR problem since it’s now a belt instead of rollers.

The Versant 280 wouldn’t be considered new; it’s a bit over 5 years old as far as technology goes. I wouldn’t consider the 280 unless Xerox is giving you a deal no one would refuse. The Proficio is a new design that now uses LED technology for imaging and should give you even better front to back registration than the 280 could.

Unfortunately, I have no idea if the Proficio PX300 will have the same issues with the 2nd BTR as the Versant line has, but my guess would be yes. The good part is you already know what the weaknesses are of the Versant. I can’t recommend other presses because I’ve been with Xerox for a long time with the exception of a very bad experience with Canon, but that doesn't mean you’ll have the same experience.

If Xerox folds, Fuji will take over everything.
 
If I was you I would stay away from the Versant 280, still got 2nd BTR issue, colour variation and registration are just a few of the things.
 
Eclipse said:
Hi TJ Printer

Thanks for your reply. So the PX300 still has a BTR but the PX500 doesn’t?

Thanks
E
Click to expand...
Yes, the PX300 still has the BTR.

I don't have issues with color variations or registration on my 280 like others have had though.
 
Eclipse said:
Hi, we currently have a Xerox Versant 180, which we’ve had for 8 years and are looking to upgrade. We’ve had the usual 2nd BTR issues throughout its life, faulty drums are also an issue and getting parts is a joke. We have a service contract but they have gone from good to bad recently (our engineer who was brilliant, unfortunately left). We are getting quotes for Xerox 280, Xerox Proficio, Fuiji (not sure which one yet) and Canon V900 series. I think the Proficio will be overkill and way too expensive for our needs, the salesman told us it’s the next one up from the 180, but I thought that was the 280?? The Canon was strongly recommended by another salesman, when I asked about the Konica Minolta he said the Canon would be better and basically dismissed the KM. I quite liked the look of the KM C4070.

We are a small printing company, based in West Sussex, UK, our monthly click for colour varies from 8k to 15k and similar for mono. We have been stung before with salesman saying anything to get you to sign on the dotted line, it has made us ultra wary of who and what to believe. I would really appreciate any advice, recommendations etc. I thought asking here would get us some genuine feedback and experiences, avoiding the tiresome “sales” talk.

Thanks so much for reading,
Emma
Click to expand...
We changed from Xerox to Canon V1000 2 years ago. The Canon is an excellent machine, much more reliable than the Xerox ever was, much less down time, just a really good machine. We also have a KM2070, which we are about to replace with KM4070. The KM will have slightly better quality and is a little more glossy, but the KM will have little static, the Canon has no static. We use the Canon as our workhorse and the KM for full coverage high quality jobs.
 
Canon seem like solid presses, what I don't like about Canon and Konica is that fact that you can't replace a colour drum yourself. We have a few Konica presses and for our large 12000 it is at least half a day for a tech to do a colour drum. Very complicated and for our volume being done at least once a month.

I have a Versant 2100 way back and that was a work horse for me, ran everything really well with little fighting with it. Now when we have looked at all the presses they all basically boast the same things, they all have their built in software for maintaining colour and registration and everything else. And they all appear to do a good job with that. The biggest thing I have seen that actually brings something new to digital printing is the addition of the 5th colour station using Pink in Xerox presses. I have a booklet Xerox gave out at a print show that shows the Pantones and what they look like with normal CMYK printing and then printing CMYK + Pink and the vibrancy is huge. I think in many cases it could replace a 2 colour press that runs Pantones. The yellows, orange, reds and blues it can hit simply by adding pink is amazing. Of course that comes at a cost and is not included in your click charge so it adds an extra level of confusion for quoting.
 
obp said:
We changed from Xerox to Canon V1000 2 years ago. The Canon is an excellent machine, much more reliable than the Xerox ever was, much less down time, just a really good machine. We also have a KM2070, which we are about to replace with KM4070. The KM will have slightly better quality and is a little more glossy, but the KM will have little static, the Canon has no static. We use the Canon as our workhorse and the KM for full coverage high quality jobs.
Click to expand...
@obp What model Xerox(es)? I'm very curious because we run Versant 4100s and I very rarely have a machine "down". Admittedly I am trained in all of the CRUs (everything except Dev units and Developer), so I'm an in house maintenance tech on them, only actual machine "breakage" or beyond a CRU does it require a technician.
 
I found out today that the Fuji I will be getting a quote for is the ApeosPro C series. Any thoughts on this model?

Also, I have had a salesman trying to convince me to have their showroom machine which is a canon imagepress c270, which he says is a light production press? It looks more like a top end photocopier to me? I wouldn’t buy a pair of shoes off this guy but interested to hear your opinions.
 
Had a virtual demo of the new Profisio, or whatever the name is now. Pretty much all standard stuff I expected, what I was surprised about was their offer to train our operators to do as much maintenance as possible. This is a huge in my opinion, the more we can do ourselves the more uptime we have. Konica was not willing to do that so we rely heavily on techs which leads to a fair bit of down time. Canon offers this in the US I believe and think this would be a wise move for any of the big players, train the operators who generally get to know the press as good or sometimes better then the techs themselves.
 
Looks like the ApeosPro C is just the Xerox Primelink C9200. I don't know much about it, but I do know that Canon machine is hot garbage. It's basically an office printer, and I'd never try to use it to sell work from.
 
I have had a lot of experience with Konica machines, Xerox Machines, and Ricoh machines.

I would also rate my preference for those vendors in that order. The quality out of the Konica and its reliability were amazing.
The quality out of the Xerox was usually good, but there were issues with supplies and techs that got annoying...mostly Xerox corporate shooting themselves in the foot.
My Ricoh machines that I currently have make me want to punch the CEO. The interfaces are terrible and the Fiery integration is garbage. I hate these machines lol.
 
Eclipse said:
I found out today that the Fuji I will be getting a quote for is the ApeosPro C series. Any thoughts on this model?

Also, I have had a salesman trying to convince me to have their showroom machine which is a canon imagepress c270, which he says is a light production press? It looks more like a top end photocopier to me? I wouldn’t buy a pair of shoes off this guy but interested to hear your opinions.
Click to expand...
Take a look at the speeds for coated and heavy stock on the ApeosPro, it's significantly slower than what you have now with the Versant.
 
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