( 3 reviews )
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Posted: Jun 1 2009
When I was looking at printers, I was astounded at the cost-per-page in color this printer gives you- it's better than the best laser printer period (even huge color laser machines, like at kinkos), and MILES better than anything else in the price range. I had several concerns though, because the printer itself was expensive for me, and so I did a lot of research, and braced myself for the possible negatives, and got it. Here are the concerns I had before buying the printer, and how it panned out: "You can't use a heat laminator" this is correct. you will probably not ruin your laminator (the one used on my stuff wasn't), but the picture (while still vaguely recognizable) looks like a child did it with watercolors. other heat doesn't affect it, i have stuff sitting out in my car in Texas summer heat, completely unaffected. I've heard that SOME cd labels will start to smear if you BURN a cd with the printed label already on. but yeah, takes a lot more than normal use to do anything to it. You can still cold laminate with no issues. (mini-review, related to my research... cold laminant is just a few cents more expensive per sheet than heat, but isn't as stiff generally, which is unfortunate... but also has some other options that a heat laminator doesn't, like 1 sided lamination or applying a sticky back to something) "It has to always be on" Yes, the printer is always somewhat on. If you power it off completely (or it loses power) it will do a cleaning cycle run on startup that costs you somewhere in the range of $2 to $4, depending on who you ask. However it does have a sleep mode, where it only uses a little energy, and contrary to one review I read, the "intelligent on" feature does not cause your printer to be awake all the time after a week of use. It takes 1 to 2 minutes for your printer to "wake up" fully. once it is awake, pages take no time at all to print, it will print a full-color, double-sided photo or whatever in about 5 seconds, and single-sided stuff in about 2 seconds per sheet. I do recommend getting a good battery-backup (UPS) for it (you really should have one for your computer already anyway) so that if you have a power flicker in a storm, it doesn't cost you a couple bucks. they also warn you against moving the printer from one place to another unless it's fully powered off (because it keeps a small melted reservoir of ink when it's on). "It smells" no... it doesn't. this was a big worry of mine, that i was sticking this industrial printer in my house and it was going to stink up the room. if you hover about a foot over the printer and smell, it smells like a photocopy machine (like a mild burnt electrical smell?). this smell is noticeable only directly above the machine (you can smell it from the sides if you put your nose an inch from the printer, literally), and only when the printer is awake. It's sitting 3 feet from me now. I never ever smell it. I wouldn't have even mentioned it (and by that, i mean would never have noticed it) as a "problem" if I hadn't seen several reviews talking about it. "The ink cracks if you fold the paper" This is the EXACT same as a laser printed page... it kind of looks white along the crease. There is no extraneous cracking, and you can roll pages up, rub them with your fingers and do whatever else, it takes very specifically FOLDING it to cause it to do that- and like i said, laser printed pages (and some inkjet, depending on the type of paper) do the same thing. Again, wouldn't have even called this a flaw if people didn't mention it in other reviews. Seriously, go to Kinko's, have them print you out something on one of their color laser printers, and then crease it sharply. same effect. Similarly, if you take a piece of metal and scrape at a laser page or a solid-ink page, you may take of bits of the coloring. There's no practical reason to do that, just thought I'd throw it out there. Other quick notes: -printer is 14.5 by 16 by 21 inches, 60 pounds -I've used it to print photos, it met my expectations. -comes with starter blocks already inside it, plus 1 full block of each color in the box. -the ink blocks are like... very hard crayons, about half the size of your fist. you won't get inky handling them at all, it doesn't rub off onto your skin. i read that somewhere they did a demo and one of the designers ate a chunk of some red. -handles cardstock with no issues. -comes with install cd, no issues setting it up at all, it walks you through the process. -if you somehow break a block, don't put small chunks in the chute. i dropped one, and a sliver came off (and stupid me, i put it in the chute), and it just got in the way of the block sliding down, and i had to fish it out. -you can't put the wrong color in the wrong chute, the blocks entrances are specifically shaped to match the color blocks (each color is shaped differently). you can't mess it up. -the best info i've found about cost-per-page was on xerox's website. it gives you a superb comparison chart, and seems to synch up with other sites. even if you double the costs for all the 8860 stuff on the charts... it's still cheaper. -the most anti-xerox review i found (i was specifically looking for negative reviews) was, unsurprisingly, an HP one that definitely exaggerated a little and used the worst figures out of a large scale of possible ones. it claims a 17 minute power on cycle, which has NEVER been true... i've had maybe 10 minutes? after a long power outage due to a storm in the middle of a print job, when it had to go through a cleaning cycle on startup. it's also the source for the "$4 per cleaning cycle", so i tend to believe the not-xerox-generated lower figure of a couple of bucks. -it takes 1 to 2 minutes to wake up, it takes about 5 minutes to be ready from being completely off, inclusive of cleaning cycle. -i am happy with my purchase. hopefully i won't have whatever the unsupported error the other reviewer mentioned was.
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Posted: Mar 18 2009
The printer worked fine until one day (about 14 months old) an error message appeared and the printer stopped printing. After repeated calling and talking to XEROX technical support and after having a technician from the XEROX certified service center come out - several times - the printer is now non-functional. XEROX doesn't take responsibility - even though they could not tell me what the error code means. While I agree that the print quality is fine, the support XEROX offered is substandard. Based on the service experience - and the still unresolved error message - I cannot recommend this XEROX product.
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Posted: Sep 11 2008
High Quality Print, Good Speed when Warm, but slow to warm up. Best Printer I've used
