Which one!!!!!!!

[Keith]

Hi everyone. I know this topic has been covered endlessly, but after a year and a half of research, I am pulling the trigger by the end of this month. I average a low 7000 per month but I am growing fast. Currently, I turn down a lot of work because my current machines are unreliable and expensive to run. I print a lot of post cards and coated stock. My search has narrowed down to either Xerox DC252 with bustled Fiery and high cap feeder OR a Konica Minolta C652 with an embedded Fiery and high cap feeder. The Xerox is only $30 more a month but at an extra 24 months of payments (36 months on the Konica). The Xerox is 2 cents less per click. The machines are nearly identical in total cost of ownership up until the three year mark. But the Konica is more "per month" when I factor in tax (Xerox financing calculates that into the lease payment already).

The past week has been mind-boggling with all the little details and price wars (good for me once the head ache clears). I need to make a decision. That's why I'm posting this. Perhaps I'm missing something. I guess I'm leaning toward the Xerox but I really like the Konica dealer. And of course, my Wife likes the overall Konica price.

Keith

 

[Craig]

Go with Xerox Keith, you will have more flexibility with xerox in the future when your volume continues to grow.

 

[UberTech]

Im gonna go with Craig on this one. The C652 is NOT designed for pay for print market. If you need this machine for your bread and butter then the minimum KM unit for you would be a c5500/c5501

 

[Keith]

Thanks Craig and Ubertech. Xerox seems like a no-brainer. I thought this was going to be easy. The Konica was $200 less a month and I knew Xerox wasn't in the business of negotiating so when I told Xerox, "No, I simply cannot afford over $700 a month", i thought that would be the end. No, they came back and almost matched the price- comparably equipped, the Xerox is only $25 more a month.

At 7000 clicks a month, I feel that's not enough for the Xerox. But with my 2 biggest accounts being an offset printer and a sign shop, I think "light production" is the way to go. They are also good friends of mine. I know they will send me more work if I got the right machine.

Currently, I run an ir3220 and a Xante Ilumina so I think the Konica is light years ahead of them. I feel it would be a good stepping stone to a bigger machine with only a 3 year lease to contend with.

Sigh

Here is some of my issues that are causing the indecision:

1. Konica can duplex 80lb cover, the Xerox 65lb cover. Not really an issue for me since I'm accustomed to manually duplexing. I know, it's an issue with VDP.

2. 13x19!!!! (Xerox) Not that I ever printed a job on 13x19. I should call Xpedx and see how easy it is to get.

3. No property tax to worry about on the X and when the lease is over, it's over. It does not automatically renew for a year.

(I just called Xpedx, they only have Mohawk 50/10 100lb cover, which is what I use now.)

4. Hi cap feeder, don't really need it on the KM since it can handle 12x18 from the draws. The X only accepts up to 11x17. If I go with KM and skip the feeder, it saves me $50 a month. I'm used to sticking a 100 sheets into a bypass tray but I guess I need to think about the efficiencies of NOT have to stop and start so frequently.

5. Even though KM gave me a single click rate, I'm afraid they may get "concerned" when I run EVERYTHING 12x18.

6. I never leased a machine before, so I guess that's the real reason for the hesitation. Craig, I know you mentioned before that you took a "leap of faith" into that big honkin' 8000, and I guess that's what I need to do. I guess the assurance would be the fact I could do 1000 brochures in-house.

7. Ubertech, can you elaborate more on why the KM is not suitable for print-for-pay environments?

Again, thank you very much for the advice.

Keith

 

[R2D2]

(with apologies to George Lucas)

Craig Vader: Go with The Dark Side Keith, you will have more power with Xerox in the future as your strength continues to grow.

Keith Skywalker: Gee, I'm really not sure.

Craig Vader: There is no escape! Don't make me destroy you. Keith, you do not yet realize your importance. You've only begun to start paying your combined monthly click and rip service charge! Join me, and I will complete the training that was promised by your salesman! With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict, and bring order to the print shop.

Keith Skywalker: [angrily] I'll never join you!

Craig Vader: If only you knew the power of the Dark Side. Konica-Wan never told you what happened to your father.

Keith Skywalker: He told me enough! He told me you tried to kill off all competition so that you could suck the lifeblood from all printers in the galaxy.

Craig Vader: No. Xerox is yo daddy.

Keith Skywalker: [shocked] No. No! That's not true! That's impossible!

Craig Vader: Search your feelings, you know it to be true!

Keith Skywalker: [crying and yelling] No-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o! No-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!!

Craig Vader: Keith, you can bring competition to The Xerox. He has foreseen this. It is your destiny! Join me, and together, we can rule the galaxy as father and son! Come with me. It is the only way.

[Keith lets go of the EPSA and jumps out of the window]

 

[Steve_S]

WOW - pretty creative. We "cut our teeth" (and occasionally almost our wrists ) with a Xerox Doc12 years ago to get started. It helped us get into digital color. We now have multiple Océ color machines - CS650 and CS665 - The #1 reason we did not stick with X - They will suck you dry financially on service balloons, rolled over leases, talking you into new gear and rolling the remainder of the old into your "new" deal, and on and on... We finally said enough. That's my $0.02 The X-box homers on these forums will have every excuse to badger me on it, but I could show anyone who was serious about surviving how they almost broke us. I won't say their gear doesn't work, but they operate like the digital mob sometimes.

 

[Craig]

R2D2... That was very creative, maybe you need to start looking at drama lessons for a side gig!

If I had the facility my first choice would not have been a Xerox DC8000AP but a NexPress 2500. I am NOT an employee of Xerox as a matter of fact I PAY them almost $8,000.00 US per month.

That being said I would take a box of crayons over a Konica Minolta any day!

 

[GregNac19]

WOW - pretty creative. We "cut our teeth" (and occasionally almost our wrists ) with a Xerox Doc12 years ago to get started. It helped us get into digital color. We now have multiple Océ color machines - CS650 and CS665 - The #1 reason we did not stick with X - They will suck you dry financially on service balloons, rolled over leases, talking you into new gear and rolling the remainder of the old into your "new" deal, and on and on... We finally said enough. That's my $0.02 The X-box homers on these forums will have every excuse to badger me on it, but I could show anyone who was serious about surviving how they almost broke us. I won't say their gear doesn't work, but they operate like the digital mob sometimes.

All right, I am a Xerox homer and I want to picture this. You can fix a service rate with Xerox for the full term of the lease. Example; $0.535 per click. Without fixing the rate you will get $0.049. After about three years of service increases you will finally get to $0.0535 per impression. If you are trading units every 3 years or so you will never get to the fixed rate!
If you did this scenario and printed 200,000 for the first year you would save over $900 in year one alone. Only if you like to keep equipment for the entire lease, fixing can be a good choice.
No mob here!

 

[Steve_S]

All right, I am a Xerox homer and I want to picture this. You can fix a service rate with Xerox for the full term of the lease. Example; $0.535 per click. Without fixing the rate you will get $0.049. After about three years of service increases you will finally get to $0.0535 per impression. If you are trading units every 3 years or so you will never get to the fixed rate!
If you did this scenario and printed 200,000 for the first year you would save over $900 in year one alone. Only if you like to keep equipment for the entire lease, fixing can be a good choice.
No mob here!

Don't know what machine you're getting .0535 on but it probably is not one of their "production" boxes. We estimate we saved ~$11m in round numbers in our first 12 months production on the 650 compared to producing the same materials on our (former) 6060. That's hard numbers, not the fairy dust Xerox bends you over with.

And as for Craig, that is a heck of a lot of Crayola's - get the box with the sharpener my friend

 

[Keith]

LOL!!!!!!!! Holy crap was that funny, R2D2! But, what are you trying to say? (Sorry, I'm dense).

I appreciate the warning Snappysteve. That is my biggest fear with Xerox- ending up "working for them". But I have been over details on both machines with a fine toothed comb. I have learned so much the last two weeks.

And Craig, that new NexPress with the embossed toner would be SWEET!!!! Have you FELT it! It's basically a toner based machine with a 5th clear toner that adds the dimension like thermography.

I think I'm at about 75% in favor of Xerox right now.

Keith

P.S. LOL! A box of crayons!

 

[GregNac19]

Don't know what machine you're getting .0535 on but it probably is not one of their "production" boxes. We estimate we saved ~$11m in round numbers in our first 12 months production on the 650 compared to producing the same materials on our (former) 6060. That's hard numbers, not the fairy dust Xerox bends you over with.

And as for Craig, that is a heck of a lot of Crayola's - get the box with the sharpener my friend

$0.0535 is a DC242 fixed. Entry level production.
The 6060 and the 650 are way different products.
That would be like comparing 2002 Lincoln Navigator to a current Toyota Rav 4.

 

[Steve_S]

$0.0535 is a DC242 fixed. Entry level production.
The 6060 and the 650 are way different products.
That would be like comparing 2002 Lincoln Navigator to a current Toyota Rav 4.

Makes sense - they were trying to get us to replace the 6060 with a 7000 or a 5000AP, with best case scenario .079 and $$$$$ for monthly maintenance.

And I would not own a Konica Minolta either - their service is crap because they are office oriented. Océ may not be the manufacturer but their techs "get it" on print-for-pay: If you ain't printing, you ain't getting paid.

Was not trying to get any to buy it, Keith had just requested opinions.

And that R2D2 bit was off the hook - I stored that for future laughs

 

[UberTech]

Thanks Craig and Ubertech. Xerox seems like a no-brainer. I thought this was going to be easy. The Konica was $200 less a month and I knew Xerox wasn't in the business of negotiating so when I told Xerox, "No, I simply cannot afford over $700 a month", i thought that would be the end. No, they came back and almost matched the price- comparably equipped, the Xerox is only $25 more a month.

At 7000 clicks a month, I feel that's not enough for the Xerox. But with my 2 biggest accounts being an offset printer and a sign shop, I think "light production" is the way to go. They are also good friends of mine. I know they will send me more work if I got the right machine.

Currently, I run an ir3220 and a Xante Ilumina so I think the Konica is light years ahead of them. I feel it would be a good stepping stone to a bigger machine with only a 3 year lease to contend with.

Sigh

Here is some of my issues that are causing the indecision:

1. Konica can duplex 80lb cover, the Xerox 65lb cover. Not really an issue for me since I'm accustomed to manually duplexing. I know, it's an issue with VDP.

2. 13x19!!!! (Xerox) Not that I ever printed a job on 13x19. I should call Xpedx and see how easy it is to get.

3. No property tax to worry about on the X and when the lease is over, it's over. It does not automatically renew for a year.

(I just called Xpedx, they only have Mohawk 50/10 100lb cover, which is what I use now.)

4. Hi cap feeder, don't really need it on the KM since it can handle 12x18 from the draws. The X only accepts up to 11x17. If I go with KM and skip the feeder, it saves me $50 a month. I'm used to sticking a 100 sheets into a bypass tray but I guess I need to think about the efficiencies of NOT have to stop and start so frequently.

5. Even though KM gave me a single click rate, I'm afraid they may get "concerned" when I run EVERYTHING 12x18.

6. I never leased a machine before, so I guess that's the real reason for the hesitation. Craig, I know you mentioned before that you took a "leap of faith" into that big honkin' 8000, and I guess that's what I need to do. I guess the assurance would be the fact I could do 1000 brochures in-house.

7. Ubertech, can you elaborate more on why the KM is not suitable for print-for-pay environments?

Again, thank you very much for the advice.

Keith

I think you will find that this model will only feed 311 wide. Rule of thumb 'Pro' means production.

 

[Craig]

I think you will find that this model will only feed 311 wide. Rule of thumb 'Pro' means production.

Or PRObably going to have PROblems.

 

[UberTech]

Or you could go the AP route, Almost Production.

 

[Jtamoe46]

Go with the Xerox

Go with the Xerox

I am am a Xerox homer, because I am an agent for Xerox. Just make sure you read the CED and meet the tech who is going to fix your machine. If you can the service manager out there that would be great too.

 

[Craig]

Uber,
Don't be too upset that Konica is still just business color trying to market as production, maybe some day they will develop a real production box to compete with HP, Kodak, Ricoh, Xerox and Canon.

I know, it does say PRO so therefor it must be production.

 

[UberTech]

Uber,
Don't be too upset that Konica is still just business color trying to market as production, maybe some day they will develop a real production box to compete with HP, Kodak, Ricoh, Xerox and Canon.

I know, it does say PRO so therefor it must be production.

Uneducated ramblings go here http://printplanet.com/forums/digital-printing-discussion/17964-copier-sales-tech-throw-down I think.

 

[Craig]

Uneducated ramblings go here http://printplanet.com/forums/digital-printing-discussion/17964-copier-sales-tech-throw-down I think.

Not uneducated at all. I happen to print jobs for another shop who's KM6500 can't handle well enough for their customers. They were led to believe the "look's like offset" hype, which may be true on uncoated stock. This job happens to be on 100lb gloss text and their customer rejected it because it looked too flat, you could tell the difference between the non-image gloss of the sheet and the flat dull look of the image area.

I ran the job on my 8000AP and watta ya know, their customer said "it looks like offset". I have matched print runs from their Heidelberg's when they needed small re-prints.

 

[UberTech]

So you are saying uncoated is ok but coated is not? So the machine completely changes it's output on coated stock? You expect the same output regardless of stock. Like I say uneducated comments go in gregnacs thread.