konica 6500 -xerox 5000

[dencen]

We are a digital print shop doing about 120k color clicks a month.currently we are running 2 docucolor 5000s and a 5252.because of competition we are finding these machines costly to run.we are investigating the konica 6500 which seems to have a significantly lower cost.
Any input on the pros and cons would be appreciated.
Most of our runs are 50-500 clicks,except for journals and booklets which can run as high as 15000 clicks per job.
most commonly run stocks are 10pt,12pt coated 2/s and 80#coated text.
xerox costs about $.17 per click konica is figuring at about $.09


Thanks

 

[ian]

Re: konica 6500 -xerox 5000

You need to get hold of your sales rep or his boss to bring down your click charges on the Xerox. Currently they are charging between 7-11 cents per click on the 5000. Tell them that you know a lot of clients that are only paying in that range and you want to re-nogiate a deal and see how it goes. In my experience they have always brought the price down to be competitive.

The 5000 is by far one of the best low cost production machine built. You will not like the minolta once you have a xerox, your clients will complain and go elsewhere.

amin

 

[barjosh]

Re: konica 6500 -xerox 5000

Amin is right, just mentioning Konica will make prices fall. There's no doubt that Konica is cheaper to operate because of the consumable pricing. However, it will not handle the same workload as the 5000. The Konica is a quality machine for smaller print runs but it is not a production machine. Think of the Konica as a robust office color copier not as a digital production machine.

 

[Paul Franks]

Re: konica 6500 -xerox 5000

I disagree with the other comments about bizhub PRO C6500, while what they said may apply to the older C500/8050, it is not true of the C6500. Do yourself a favor and LOOK at C6500 in person. It's a "big iron' box.

 

[daisy]

Re: konica 6500 -xerox 5000

We thought we were buying the right machine with the c6500, but lots of streaking problems. Service can't seem to get rid of them!

 

[ian]

Re: konica 6500 -xerox 5000

We have 3 clients who bought the Konica 6500, the machine is always down, they send us work atleast once a week because of it.
The other issue with the Konica is registration, the sheet bounces on heavy stock, the Xerox 5000 has a registration board.

 

[rcreveli]

Re: konica 6500 -xerox 5000

I'm new to this board but saw this thread and thought I would resurect it. I have been running the 6500 for about 15 months. Before that I ran a doc 12. At my previous job I ran the 2045, the CLC 1000 and CLC 5000. So ihave some experience with Canon, Xerox and now Konica-Minolta. Our current volume is about 35K Color and about 6K Grayscale. We print Primarly on 100# Coated Cover, 100#Coated Text and 70# Uncoated. We also do a fair bit of C1S. We have the 2 large Paper drawers , and EFI Rip and a standard Finisher. The saddle finisher was overkill for our type of work and we have a large contingent of offline finishing to meet our needs

The Good
The 6500 is the best machine I've run. Even better than the 2045 and I loved that machine.
We can run up to 15Pt C1S but this taxes the machine.
Color Consistency throughout the run is excellent, I confimed this today on a 5000 Click job today (10K 1 original 2 up)
Solids are excellent
The Machine Rarely goes down
Low temp fusing makes bindery go better (Including Laminating)

The Bad
Fine Gradients are much improved over our Doc12 but are not offset quality
Dealer Service is Meh (Switching to KM Corporate)
Requires frequent Calibration. Minimum of 2 day.
Not real happy with the EFI Rip. It's buggy

Overall I think the 5000 is a better machine. KM May argue but I think it is . That being said when we did the numbers for lease and service the 5000 was 2.5X more expensive for the same volume. I don't believe it is 250% Better than the 6500.

When we decided to buy this machine both my boss and I came from Franchises where Xerox and Canon were the only games in town. KM was a huge risk for us. this was a bet your business decision and It is paying off.

 

[Endlessace]

Re: konica 6500 -xerox 5000

Well, we bought our C6500 directly from Konica and our service contract is also with Konica. I can say that I'm more than satisfy with their services.

But before we bought the Konica, I did take a look at the Xerox 5000, and I can't disagree that xerox has better quality, not much though, but still better. However, the cost is way beyond the benefit.

 

[Craig]

Re: konica 6500 -xerox 5000

When you are talking about the initial sticker price you are correct Xerox is more expensive than Konica or Canon. I could have bought 3 Konica 6500's for what I paid for my DC8000AP, but having gone from a Canon CLC4000 which had service on it at least 3 times a week I decided to stop pinching pennies on the equipment while I'm throwing dollars out the window when the machine is being serviced. I average 1 service call a month on the 8000AP and I have doubled my volume.

When you get the price from Xerox and you finally pick yourself up off the floor (I know it was a shock for me), really look at the big picture, start taking in consideration how much you are loosing to downtime. I ran that CLC4000 as hard as I could and would only average 46K a month, because of it being down for service. My 8000AP is averaging 89K a month and still sits idle 30% of the time. I was going from a PM every 3 weeks and I just had my first one at 320K.

I'm not saying Xerox is the only answer, but if you are expecting to get a production machine, you'll need to pay for it. Cheap is good, but Good isn't Cheap!

 

[BertThePrinter]

Re: konica 6500 -xerox 5000

I have been in the color copy business since the days of the original canon CLC 1. We have a KM C500, and it is a piece of junk. We looked at the KM 6500 and the Xerox 5000. The Xerox is about twice the price of the KM 6500. When we looked at the quality differences, and the service behind the machine, we went with the Xerox 5000. The best machine we have ever had. It can run anything! Fantastic quality, great reliability, and service within 4 hours. Our full FSMA service contract is only .049 per copy. You need to get a better price on the service and go with the 5000. Konica will only bring you heartache. At 50,000 plus copies a month, even with the higher lease payments on the Xerox, you will only be paying about a penny a copy more for the much better Xerox. That is sure good insurance in my book. Also, keep in mind, that with Xerox doing the lease, it is much easier to upgrade to a new machine when the volume justifies a faster machine.

 

[Craig]

Re: konica 6500 -xerox 5000

Amen Bert!

 

[MacDaddy]

Re: konica 6500 -xerox 5000

I've found that if you have the paper setting right very good registration.

 

[GraphicGuru]

Re: konica 6500 -xerox 5000

I am a big fan of offset printing due to this kind of speratic problematic issues with the digital print engines - ALL Xerox, Konica Minolta, or Cannon.

Indeed they are just copiers on steroids with a glorified copmputer attached... I suppose that if you have to go with one of them Xerox even though it has been years for me working with one. Regardless of price the comment about customers running away is true. If the color does not match the previous run and even when doing a comprehensive color management plan using calibrations, icc profiles etc. these types of printers will never get the exact same quality each and every time a job gets printed - i.e. a photographer trying to save money by not having the photos developed properly and trying to save money by printing on any of the machines listed above will never be happy - why is it so much darker this time? Or why is is so much lighter this time. Believe me we do take great care in making sure the devices are calibrated and in good working order all day long.

I guess it would totally depend on the type of printing you are doing on this device. is there a ton of photos, or 90% text with little graphics? if it is the later with mostly text then go with the least expensive one. We have and 99% of our customers say wow that's great color!

The Konica Minolta has the ability to recognize black and only charge for a black click using a Creo rip... I work with the KM650 and KM500 The 650 has a stacker that can hold 5000 sheets and two capacity trays that each hold 2500 sheets up to 13x19. The 500 has the folder sticher for small booklet runs. So they both are nice for the short runs. I also do have to say that for service we have been very lucky - the guys that work on them are here within a few hours and most of the time get the machine fixed within 1/2 to 1hour. never more than half a day. and not always breaking - we do have PM scheduled for each on a monthly basis - during that time they are down for a half day... ouch.

Do the leaseing option also as they are going to want to make sure the device is in good working order for when the lease is up. If you do not lease it and end up owning one - more than likely the item will turn into a boat anchor, as the technology for these types of devices changes yearly...

Hope I am not too late in telling you what I think about this type of copier/printer stuff. David, I am curious what you ended up with if you did get one?

 

[minch]

Re: konica 6500 -xerox 5000

Hello List,
I do general IT work for a number of printers some of whom have digital copiers and they all have the same problem: when they get a client that is regularly using 2k impressions per month or more the clients end up buying their own copiers. Obviously the printer then loses that client for all time. In one case it was the copier vendor who had supplied the printer who has then approached the printer's client, but in other cases it was the clients who went looking for copier vendors themselves. Price competition is at cut throat levels here in the UK and just wondered how things are elsewhere. Regards minch.

 

[Mark]

Re: konica 6500 -xerox 5000

I just saw a demo of the KM 6500 and was impressed with the quality for the cost. The demo was at a customer site, not a demo center, and he was very happy with his machine.
A couple of local places with iGens went under due to the overhead of such an expensive machine. The KM 6500 looks like it could be a good way to enter into digital.

 

[Wooden Mickle]

Re: konica 6500 -xerox 5000

We are currently discussing swaping our C6500 lease out for a XEROX DocuColor 260. Streaking, down-time, and poor color-matching were the issues that we can no longer afford with the C6500.

From the sounds of this thread, I am paying the higher end of the price scale. Help me negotiate, please.

We have been offered the 260 at .12 per click, and the 5000 at .19 per click. What is reasonable?

Furthermore, should I even be entertaining the idea of the Xerox 260?

We do 30k clicks per month full coverage color.

Thank You!

 

[BertThePrinter]

Re: konica 6500 -xerox 5000

If you are running 30,000 copies a month, I would highly recommend the Xerox5000. The numbers you are being quoted seem very high. For 30,000 copies you should be paying a service base price of $1990.00 which is .066/copy and the overage should be at .049/copy. I assume the pricing on the 260 would be similar. Take your most difficult, close registration, 2 sided file and go see a 5000. You will love it! Nothing in the price range can compare. You will soon be doing 60,000 copies a month! Get over the initial sticker price of $100,000. Over the life of the machine, it will probably add about 1.5 cents to each copy. That is money well spent. If you add in all the extra work you will be getting with this great machine, you will wind up making more money. More money and a lot less headaches, that is what this business is about!

 

[doubting_thomas]

Re: konica 6500 -xerox 5000

I would second the opinion of the 5000 presented by Bert.
It's a very nice machine to use, and we pay about the click
charges that he does. The prices quoted per click are
really high. You might have trouble at that rate, depending
what type of margin you're aiming for. Does your quoted
click charge include 24 hour service, or something extra?

Edited by: doubting_thomas on Jun 11, 2008 8:22 AM

 

[Wooden Mickle]

Re: konica 6500 -xerox 5000

Thank you both, Bert and Thomas. This is great info for me. We dearly want a 5000, and at this point I am aware that I am being overcharged on any machine I have used with the current company.

Mickle

 

[Craig]

Re: konica 6500 -xerox 5000

Dito Bert and Thomas here too.