Konica Minolta C6501 or Xerox 700 - Any advice?

[Matt23]

We are looking for a good second hand machine to print mainly greeting cards and small run flyers etc. We will be printing our greeting cards on 300gsm Silk and would be more photo-based work than vector graphic based work.

We have narrowed our search down to the following machines that fall within our budget.

Any advice on either machine would be welcomed, and is it fair to say we are comparing two similar machines.

Machine 1 – Konica 6501 – only printed 79,000 copies comes with CREO RIP, Saddle stitcher, large capacity paper cassette.

Machine 2 – Xerox 700 – Only printed around 100,000 copies comes with built in Fiery. Does not come with Saddle stitcher or large capacity paper cassette.

Any advice would be welcomed.

 

[Emtri]

I dont have any experience with the 700 but the External RIP will allow you to do alot more in terms of job control then the built in RIPS. The CREO will allow you to fine tune jobs (colour, imposition, workflow and so forth)
The 6501 is getting a bit older now and I think you may get some better colours on the 700 but the 6501 is alot more flexible in terms of what you can run through it, if you know the quirks of the machine and are able to work around them. It is generally a good workhorse machine.

If your running alot of the same paper, which it sounds like you are, the large capacity is nice.
Saddle stitcher is nice if its something your going to use, but otherwise its nothing special vs the comparable equipment on the 700

That being said, Take this with a grain of salt as I am an ex Konica tech and have little experience on the 700

 

[nemprint.dk]

I bought a 700 (with freeflow) a year ago. And was in the excact same situation as you with the models (just new)

I picked the 700 because the print quality was a little better, and it handeled our 300g paper better.
i was used to KM machines that go 100k-200k between when they need service.

Now I have the 700, that make great prints. And are VERY unreliable.
I think it runs 20.000 prints at the most between service.
examlpe of the last ones all within 100.000 prints. (i have printet 500k on it now)

1: Mirror for magenta laser dirty - bright stripe when printing light magenta.
2: Dirty prints 300g paper only.
3: Somthing that looks like fuser marks, but vere not.
4: Technician firmware upgraded the mascine and resat all paper catalouges (2 days work and nothing works because freeflow have que to the specefic paper type)
5: Random error message in display turn on / off
6: same print looks very different on side 1 and 2 with duplex.
7: Needed developer in a color.
8: the 2 jumbo casette vere 2 mm off in Y direction, and in the max position of user adjustment.
9: I replaced like 4 fusers and 3 drums.

My conclusion is:
If you can live with the quality of the KM, go for that one. If not - get a KM 6000 or the xerox 700

If you make more than 40.000 prints / month. You will have a problem with the xerox, unless you run 100g paper all the time.

Hope that helped a bit.

 

[Matt23]

Hi
Emtri & nemprint.dk many thanks for your advice and valuable input.