( 14 reviews )
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Posted: Jul 29 2009
I purchased this printer on January 21, 2009. I've currently had it just over six-months. I wanted to give it a little time before adding my review. First, I work from home. I'm a travel agent, and I print quite a bit. I've printed 17327 pages in six-months, so not far from 3000 pages per month. Though quality is important, I'm not a graphic artist so I really don't have a lot of information to give on color etc. All I can tell you is that I think the print quality is GREAT! I'll go into that a little more later. My Phaser 8560 is the DX model, so it duplexes, which was one of the great deciding factors for me. I purchased the 8560 as a replacement for a Samsung color laser printer. I could write a LONG list of the things that I really didn't like about the Samsung. The main reason for purchasing the Samsung printer to begin with was the (inexpensive) cost. But in the long run, you really get what you pay for. After a year of use, belts and the image drum needed to be replaced, and it was going to cost me much more than I paid for the printer to begin with, so I started looking for a new printer. DON'T LET THE COST FRIGHTEN YOU! If you are like me, this is a "step-up" in a printer. But . . . so far. . it has been WELL worth it! This printer prints jobs that I had to take to Kinko's in the past, because I didn't want to "wear-out" my old printer. As for ink, I use what I would call "generic brand" ink, and I've yet to have a problem with it. The "generic brand" is a fraction of the cost of the Xerox brand. With my old Samsung printer (and other laser printers I've used in offices in the past) there would often come a time when the printer would tell you the cartridge was empty, when it was still ??-full. You'd then have to see if you could find a way to "trick" the printer to continue to print. . . or simply replace it with another expensive cartridge. Not so with the 8560. The small sticks/bricks of wax ink are easy to store . . . affordable. . . no mess. . . and they are used-up. There's no plastic cartridge to go into landfill and that sort of thing. FYI, I know that there is a "waste tray" and I know that at some point the printer is going to tell me that I have to empty it. . . but after six-months, I've yet to have to do that. With my old Samsung, I would have to empty the "waste toner bin" at least monthly, which is $$ down-the-drain. Maintenance Kit: This item looks like a padded roller in a plastic tray. I have had to replace it, because the one that came in the printer I think was the 10,000 item, and I have already gone past that. I must admit that I tried using a "refurbished" or "generic" one that I purchased, and it didn't work. The pages started coming-out smeared. I replaced it with an "official" Xerox one, and everything is fine. Noise: I do not feel that this printer makes any more noise than my Samsung. The 8560 sits next to my desk, and it's true that I would not want to have a large print job printing while on the phone, but I do not feel that it's any more loud that other printers. It also will "wake-up" every now and then and you know that it's just "moving around" but again, I don't find it to be a problem. There are four print qualities which make it very nice on this printer. I often print items in "standard" quality, which is fine for my needs. There's also "enhanced" and "photo" for the best quality, and "fast color" if you're just printing something that you're probably not going to be sending to a customer or client. You can also print in b/w which saves on the colored ink. I find the print quality to be really good. FYI, the "factory default" is "enhanced" print mode. I changed that to "standard" and I think I save a lot of ink that way. A couple of times I've had little "white lines" down the page, but you can run the printer through a quick "cleaning" and it usually takes care of that. It will also print-out a page with numbered squares after it has finished the cleaning. If any of the squares are not completely solid, then you enter the number and it cleans that particular "jet" and all is well. I think this might have happened twice in the six months that I've had it, and it was quick to take care of. Speed: I've been very happy with the speed. I have it connected to my computer via Ethernet. I've not tried it via USB, but in the paperwork that came with the printer it said that it would be faster with Ethernet and also gives a couple of other benefits, so that's the way that I connected it, and I've been very satisfied. I'm also quite happy that you can place an entire ream of paper in the tray, which I was unable to do in the past. In the end, for a "work-at-home" guy like me, I have been very happy with this printer. Though it's a "chunk-of-change" to put-out in the beginning, I feel that I've saved money on the ink, also not having to take larger jobs to Kinko's, etc. I'm just very. . .. very happy with my purchase.
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Posted: Apr 15 2009
People on here shouldn't write a review until they use it for a longer period of time. At my office, in one year (making 14,000 the past year) I've used $1,600.00 worth of ink. I had to replace the Maintenance Kit and also the LCD panel broke. NOT COST EFFICIENT AT ALL! We have about 6 or 7 in our building and are lookign to get rid of all of them, it was a poor, poor choice.
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Posted: Mar 9 2009
Xerox Phaser 8560/DN Color Printer I have owned more printers and more types of printers than the average person. My first inkjet printer was in 1986, it was a HP DeskJet. Great printer for that time. I have owned ribbon printers, thermo printers, daisy printers, line printers, ink jet printers and laser printers. From the very cheap to the very expensive. From draft quality to photo quality. I have been a computer geek my whole life. I built my first S100 bus computer back in 1969. I was an electrical engineer servicing main frames and their peripheral equipment back in 1970. In 1972 I got involved in Main Frame Operations. In 1979 I started application programming then went on to system programming. Anyway the bottom line is that I have owned and I have seen many printers in my life time and this Xerox Phaser is one of the best that I have ever used. It is fast, quite, clean and producing some of the finest prints in amazing color. Don't listen to these people who claim it's noisy, not true. Either these people have never owned a professional high speed printer in this caliber before or they have a problem with their printer. This printer is more quite then my HP 2600N Color Laser, or my Epson Artisan 800 and just as quite as most laser printers. These are in fact mechanical devices with moving parts so you are going to hear some noise. Ink Hog? Please have you ever used an ink jet photo printer, every other day you are going to the store to purchase some more ink tanks. Was this printer expensive, yes but worth every penny. You can go cheap and spend all you money on toners or ink tanks or pay up front. This printer by far beats any printer that I have ever used. PERIOD. And from a technical standpoint it is well designed have come with very impressive built in system control software. Very impressive! To save on ink Xerox advises that you keep the printer always on in power saver mode. This is not a problem as I do not turn my printers or computers off anyway, does anyone turn off their devise anymore? Someone said thay you cannot write on the prints, I have no problems what so ever with ball point pens. I write all over my schedules and presentations with any problems. The only regret that I have is that I waited so long to purchase one of these wonderful solid ink printers. I was worried about the technogy. I will never look towards regular lasers again to print anything not as long as I have my Xerox Phaser Solid Ink Printer!
