RE: Printer brand recommendations
Same here, we used to be exclusively HP on printers, we have moved to Dell and have been very happy. Toner is available online, ships next day or you can goto Staples and pick most any of them up. Warning. On some of Dell's lower end lasers they have a mgmt tool to install, you can access a web page but you need a password to change it and its not documented anywhere I could find. Tech support wants you to install it via the software which works well, but I prefer doing it my own way. You can almost always get 3 yr NBD for practically nothing at end of quarter and end of year. -Original Message- From: Sam Cayze [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 12:25 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Printer brand recommendations Just speaking on price, Dell is running end of the year promos on printers. They are discounted heavily. I think they are doing 2 fer 1s. Add a support contract, you are golden. Been using them for 4+ years. Never had a software issue. A dell tech has had to come once to fix the 11 we have - but it had about 300K pages already printed to it. -Original Message- From: Ben Scott [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 10:26 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Printer brand recommendations Howdy list, So, after some truly abysmal tech support experiences with HP this month, I've decided it's time to look at other printer brands. I've been buying HP's almost exclusively for over a decade, so I'm starting from scratch. There are so many brands that even a product field survey is non-trivial: Dell, Samsung, Canon, Epson, IBM/Lexmark, Xerox, Ricoh, Sharp, Toshiba, Panasonic, just to name a few. Recommendations? Opinions? Horror stories? Relatively small company, roughly 75 workstations. Mostly monochrome laser printers serving workgroups of 5-10 people. Typical volume might be 1K-3K pages/month. A couple color laser printers serving supersets of same. A few bigwigs have color inkjets in their office, because of course they're too important to have to walk out to the printer in the hall, but they also don't want to clutter up their fancy mahogany office furniture with a larger laser printer that might actually work. For example, the Director of HR. Since she works with personal/private stuff, she wanted one of those print/scan/copy/fax jobs (reasonable, I guess). The supposedly high-end HP inkjet we bought has been a disaster, which is why I'm here. Almost every printer we have is network-attached (easier to manage, they roam with the user profile if hardware is changed, enables the frequent requests to share printers). As I recall from some experience a few years ago, that seems to be a common failing with many brands. Even if they have a network jack, functionality/features are severely reduced over the network. One thing I really dislike is printers which require special software installation to the tune of hundreds of megabytes, a few startup programs, a dozen desktop icons, and their own support, update, and maintenance hassles. Windows has APIs for printing and scanning; if we stick to those, support and training are so much easier. Thoughts? -- Ben ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
RE: Printer brand recommendations
I used Brother faxes at my last company for standalone machines. The cheap ones and they stood up to a lot of punishment. They were also cheap enough to toss when they broke. Another note on Ink Jets is cost. The ink is so expensive that in the long run, a laser usually ends up being cheaper to run. From: Andrew Laya [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 9:15 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Printer brand recommendations I couldn't agree more, but... I had someone ask me about a number of all in ones they saw in the local BestBuy flyer and I noticed that Brother has a couple of all in one lasers. Maybe something like this would be better suited for the HR manager? Andrew. On Jan 30, 2008 12:10 AM, Martin Blackstone [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I still like HP cause it's easy to find local service and you can get parts and toner pretty much anywhere. As for AIO and Ink Jets, I think they are all crap in the workplace. People overuse them way too much. I would get a small personal laser jet and a cheap fax. Then when they break, you toss them and buy new ones. From: Don Ely [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 8:52 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Printer brand recommendations Honestly, from what I have seen and I am no printer expert; there are no good printers anymore... On Jan 29, 2008 8:25 PM, Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Howdy list, So, after some truly abysmal tech support experiences with HP this month, I've decided it's time to look at other printer brands. I've been buying HP's almost exclusively for over a decade, so I'm starting from scratch. There are so many brands that even a product field survey is non-trivial: Dell, Samsung, Canon, Epson, IBM/Lexmark, Xerox, Ricoh, Sharp, Toshiba, Panasonic, just to name a few. Recommendations? Opinions? Horror stories? Relatively small company, roughly 75 workstations. Mostly monochrome laser printers serving workgroups of 5-10 people. Typical volume might be 1K-3K pages/month. A couple color laser printers serving supersets of same. A few bigwigs have color inkjets in their office, because of course they're too important to have to walk out to the printer in the hall, but they also don't want to clutter up their fancy mahogany office furniture with a larger laser printer that might actually work. For example, the Director of HR. Since she works with personal/private stuff, she wanted one of those print/scan/copy/fax jobs (reasonable, I guess). The supposedly high-end HP inkjet we bought has been a disaster, which is why I'm here. Almost every printer we have is network-attached (easier to manage, they roam with the user profile if hardware is changed, enables the frequent requests to share printers). As I recall from some experience a few years ago, that seems to be a common failing with many brands. Even if they have a network jack, functionality/features are severely reduced over the network. One thing I really dislike is printers which require special software installation to the tune of hundreds of megabytes, a few startup programs, a dozen desktop icons, and their own support, update, and maintenance hassles. Windows has APIs for printing and scanning; if we stick to those, support and training are so much easier. Thoughts? -- Ben ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
RE: Printer brand recommendations
On 30 Jan 2008 at 7:32, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Same here, we used to be exclusively HP on printers, we have moved to Dell and have been very happy. Toner is available online, ships next day or you can goto Staples and pick most any of them up. Warning. On some of Dell's lower end lasers they have a mgmt tool to install, you can access a web page but you need a password to change it and its not documented anywhere I could find. Tech support wants you to install it via the software which works well, but I prefer doing it my own way. You can almost always get 3 yr NBD for practically nothing at end of quarter and end of year. I take it you get this on the phone when purchasing through a Dell rep rather than on the web? -- Angus Scott-Fleming GeoApps, Tucson, Arizona 1-520-290-5038 +---+ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
RE: Printer brand recommendations
I have my own dedicated reps, and I am a channel partner so I usually get all of that for my clients when I can and pass it on to them. HW is really just a passthrough for us and our clients since they pay for our time to do the work and bring the equipment in. Email me offline and I can get you in touch with my rep who will give you the best prices she can do. This week is deal week at Dell since it is their end of year. I took a 4200 server and got it for 3000.00 dollars, web price was almost 4800.00, apparently they are focusing on marketshare and not margin right now. Printers are screaming deals right now, some 2 for 1, 3 yr warranty, the new Tablets, wow, all I can say is wow and they are pushing the price down on them in the channel. -Original Message- From: Angus Scott-Fleming [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 8:54 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Printer brand recommendations On 30 Jan 2008 at 7:32, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Same here, we used to be exclusively HP on printers, we have moved to Dell and have been very happy. Toner is available online, ships next day or you can goto Staples and pick most any of them up. Warning. On some of Dell's lower end lasers they have a mgmt tool to install, you can access a web page but you need a password to change it and its not documented anywhere I could find. Tech support wants you to install it via the software which works well, but I prefer doing it my own way. You can almost always get 3 yr NBD for practically nothing at end of quarter and end of year. I take it you get this on the phone when purchasing through a Dell rep rather than on the web? -- Angus Scott-Fleming GeoApps, Tucson, Arizona 1-520-290-5038 +---+ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
Re: Printer brand recommendations
Aggregate reply to multiple people. On Jan 30, 2008 12:10 AM, Martin Blackstone [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I still like HP cause it's easy to find local service and you can get parts and toner pretty much anywhere. HP's hardware quality is still good. Local repair isn't the issue. It's that technical support has been absolutely horrible. And I mean *horrible*. By far the worst in recent memory. And I spend a lot of time on tech calls. They can't communicate in English, they don't listen to what I say, they tell me brand new products are out-of-warranty, they put me on hold for an hour plus, they read scripted answers that don't apply, they tell me the product can't do what the manual says it can do, they need me to look up information on their own web site for them, they send me copies of MSKB articles I originally referred them to, I could go on and on. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. On Jan 30, 2008 12:10 AM, Martin Blackstone [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As for AIO and Ink Jets, I think they are all crap in the workplace. People overuse them way too much. I largely agree, but at the same time, there's a demand from the bigwigs for such. And ignoring the ego issues, it's not even all that unreasonable. So they want their own device. It's going to be very light use -- not an overuse situation. Their priority is small size. They don't care about price so much, they just don't want a giant Konica copy machine in their office. Or three different machines that each get used twice a month. On Jan 30, 2008 12:25 AM, Sam Cayze [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Been using them [Dell printers] for 4+ years. Never had a software issue. I actually have evaluated a Dell 1720dn about six months ago. We had an issue where printing preference defaults would not propagate properly from the server to the clients. This was an issue since the whole reason we bought that model was for multiple trays for different media. Dell tech support said the only fix was to manually tweak the settings for every user on every workstation using the printer. No fix available or planned. (Service tag BKDSTB1; tech support case 167931218.) So we returned that model to Dell and bought an HP P2015x. Still, at this point, I might be willing to give Dell another shot. On Jan 30, 2008 10:07 AM, Za Vue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dell printers may be cheaper but they will get you on toner prices and I do not know who will service them where we are. For the Dell 1720dn vs the HP P2015x, the cost-per-page was actually cheaper for Dell vs the HP (assuming the yield specs are honest). -- Ben ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
RE: Printer brand recommendations
I have never call HP for any support on printers. There is no more than 7-8 major components with most LJ printers. I always thought they would tell me to take back to where I purchased it. Here is one site I rely on for a lot of issues I have encountered with printers in my work place or at home. www.fixyourownprinter.com -Z.V. -Original Message- From: Ben Scott [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 12:47 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Printer brand recommendations Aggregate reply to multiple people. On Jan 30, 2008 12:10 AM, Martin Blackstone [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I still like HP cause it's easy to find local service and you can get parts and toner pretty much anywhere. HP's hardware quality is still good. Local repair isn't the issue. It's that technical support has been absolutely horrible. And I mean *horrible*. By far the worst in recent memory. And I spend a lot of time on tech calls. They can't communicate in English, they don't listen to what I say, they tell me brand new products are out-of-warranty, they put me on hold for an hour plus, they read scripted answers that don't apply, they tell me the product can't do what the manual says it can do, they need me to look up information on their own web site for them, they send me copies of MSKB articles I originally referred them to, I could go on and on. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
Re: Printer brand recommendations
On Jan 30, 2008 12:55 PM, Za Vue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have never call HP for any support on printers. There is no more than 7-8 major components with most LJ printers. If it's a mechanical breakdown, sure. Not all problems are like that. This month it's been: 1. Ghosting on a color laser printer. It turned out to be a bad toner cartridge, but HP was no help in figuring that out, and neither was the local service shop. (They recommended replacing the fuser, for $250.) And then HP wouldn't honor the supposed warranty on their Genuine HP better-because-they-say-so printer cartridge. Why am I buying Genuine HP if HP won't stand behind it any more than they stand by somebody's knock-off? 2. Truncated pages. Turned out to be Microsoft Word was not honoring the printable area metric from the driver for page borders. It only showed up on this one new printer model, so I thought it was the printer at first. So it ended up being more of an MS Word problem then an HP problem, but I had to figure that out on my own. The HP support was just an exercise in frustration. (This was the case where they sent me a link to the same MSKB article I had already referred them to, among other stupidities.) 3. On that AIO I mentioned, the scanner software keeps insisting the scanner cannot be found. Ticket is still open from yesterday. The battery in the phone I was using went dead after 30 minutes on hold waiting for a rep who knew what a network was. It's just chance that I had three issues like this in one month, but each support case has been absolutely horrible. -- Ben ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
RE: Printer brand recommendations
Dell printers are rebadged Lexmark's - I think it's been mentioned before, but thought I would mention it again. Dunno if the Dell's have all of what I am going to talk about below - might be a disadvantage of getting them from Dell since Dell does ship different drivers. Lexmark is very strong on security - all firmware updates are signed, they can utilize smart cards for authentication (i.e. have printer hold job until user authenticates to printer with smartcard or PIN and then print while user is standing there for sensitive documents), if a printer has a hard drive for caching of jobs it's encrypted, etc. Lexmark has been, so far, the only vendor to also provide me a whitepaper explaining why having one of their multifunction machines with a fax modem on my network is not a risk. It's quite detailed and specific. I had been trying for years to get such a whitepaper from HP, Canon and other vendors and had come up with nothing. One mention to our Lexmark rep and I had a whitepaper within 24 hours. As an aside, if your vender supports PS Fax, I wouldn't have the printer plugged into my network and the phone at the same time... Heck, it's a 260K PDF - if anyone is interested in it send me an email off list and I'll forward you a copy. The only issues we have had with some Lexmark printers is they have been fussy on paper, and most of that has been from users not paying attention to the printers specs and requirements. A few we have had to have replaced, but they have been pretty responsive in working with us. In my immediate office we ordered a scanner/printer combo and replaced our photocopier. I hesitate to call it an all-in one since the scanner is separate from the printer, although it comes with a stand that integrates the two. The entire cost of the scanner/printer setup was less then maintenance for one year on the photocopier - and it even staples! Bigger printers also collate and bind, just like larger photocopiers. The scanner supports emailing a PDF - I use that feature all the time to capture documents electronically and when duplex scanning, it scans both sides of the paper at the same time. Also, every one of their scanners is color - even though I ordered it as a kit with a BW printer. If I need a color copier, all I have to do is order a Lexmark color printer and now I have a color copier and BW copier from the same scanner (pretty slick!). the scanner has a touchscreen interface - there is a complete SDK available, so if I was so inclined (and actually had a developer) I could integrate the scanner directly into a workflow with our Lotus Note or Sharepoint servers. I'm pretty happy with our Lexmarks. Oh, they have a true universal driver and it doesn't litter your system tray and hard drive with gobs of utilities either. Much friendlier in a networked printing environment... Eric Eskam =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it. - P. B. Medawar ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
Re: Printer brand recommendations
On Jan 30, 2008 3:20 PM, Eric E Eskam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dell printers are rebadged Lexmark's ... At least some of them are, for sure. I suspect some of them might be other OEMs, though. For example, the Dell 1110 we got sent as a freebie is a dead ringer for the Samsung ML-2510 I saw in Staples the other day. Same overall layout, lights, buttons, toner cartridge design, port locations. The only thing different is the labeling and the color of the trim. I'm pretty happy with our Lexmarks. Thanks for the detailed report -- very useful. That does sound pretty good. I will have to check them out, independently of Dell as you say. -- Ben ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
Re: Printer brand recommendations
Apropos to this thread, I can *so* sympathize with this solider: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dodPR7h_ytI :- -- Ben ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
Re: Printer brand recommendations
I'll concur with what Don Ely said, but that being the case, you have to mitigate the downside. High end inkjets are oxymoronic. From what you describe, in my opinion, you haven't sized your printers appropriately to the job they are to perform. Get the bigwigs a personal laser printer, they'll be happier with improved availability, you'll have less support headaches. I only ever install the driver for a printer, despite what comes with it. Depending on the end user, I'll leave it to them to install the rest of the crap that comes with the printer. IIRC Dell started making their cartridges proprietary and unavailable anywhere but from Dell. Is this still the case? -Jonathan On Jan 29, 2008 11:25 PM, Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Howdy list, So, after some truly abysmal tech support experiences with HP this month, I've decided it's time to look at other printer brands. I've been buying HP's almost exclusively for over a decade, so I'm starting from scratch. There are so many brands that even a product field survey is non-trivial: Dell, Samsung, Canon, Epson, IBM/Lexmark, Xerox, Ricoh, Sharp, Toshiba, Panasonic, just to name a few. Recommendations? Opinions? Horror stories? Relatively small company, roughly 75 workstations. Mostly monochrome laser printers serving workgroups of 5-10 people. Typical volume might be 1K-3K pages/month. A couple color laser printers serving supersets of same. A few bigwigs have color inkjets in their office, because of course they're too important to have to walk out to the printer in the hall, but they also don't want to clutter up their fancy mahogany office furniture with a larger laser printer that might actually work. For example, the Director of HR. Since she works with personal/private stuff, she wanted one of those print/scan/copy/fax jobs (reasonable, I guess). The supposedly high-end HP inkjet we bought has been a disaster, which is why I'm here. Almost every printer we have is network-attached (easier to manage, they roam with the user profile if hardware is changed, enables the frequent requests to share printers). As I recall from some experience a few years ago, that seems to be a common failing with many brands. Even if they have a network jack, functionality/features are severely reduced over the network. One thing I really dislike is printers which require special software installation to the tune of hundreds of megabytes, a few startup programs, a dozen desktop icons, and their own support, update, and maintenance hassles. Windows has APIs for printing and scanning; if we stick to those, support and training are so much easier. Thoughts? -- Ben ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
RE: Printer brand recommendations
No you are able to get most cartridges now through Staples. From: Jonathan Link [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 10:24 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Printer brand recommendations I'll concur with what Don Ely said, but that being the case, you have to mitigate the downside. High end inkjets are oxymoronic. From what you describe, in my opinion, you haven't sized your printers appropriately to the job they are to perform. Get the bigwigs a personal laser printer, they'll be happier with improved availability, you'll have less support headaches. I only ever install the driver for a printer, despite what comes with it. Depending on the end user, I'll leave it to them to install the rest of the crap that comes with the printer. IIRC Dell started making their cartridges proprietary and unavailable anywhere but from Dell. Is this still the case? -Jonathan On Jan 29, 2008 11:25 PM, Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Howdy list, So, after some truly abysmal tech support experiences with HP this month, I've decided it's time to look at other printer brands. I've been buying HP's almost exclusively for over a decade, so I'm starting from scratch. There are so many brands that even a product field survey is non-trivial: Dell, Samsung, Canon, Epson, IBM/Lexmark, Xerox, Ricoh, Sharp, Toshiba, Panasonic, just to name a few. Recommendations? Opinions? Horror stories? Relatively small company, roughly 75 workstations. Mostly monochrome laser printers serving workgroups of 5-10 people. Typical volume might be 1K-3K pages/month. A couple color laser printers serving supersets of same. A few bigwigs have color inkjets in their office, because of course they're too important to have to walk out to the printer in the hall, but they also don't want to clutter up their fancy mahogany office furniture with a larger laser printer that might actually work. For example, the Director of HR. Since she works with personal/private stuff, she wanted one of those print/scan/copy/fax jobs (reasonable, I guess). The supposedly high-end HP inkjet we bought has been a disaster, which is why I'm here. Almost every printer we have is network-attached (easier to manage, they roam with the user profile if hardware is changed, enables the frequent requests to share printers). As I recall from some experience a few years ago, that seems to be a common failing with many brands. Even if they have a network jack, functionality/features are severely reduced over the network. One thing I really dislike is printers which require special software installation to the tune of hundreds of megabytes, a few startup programs, a dozen desktop icons, and their own support, update, and maintenance hassles. Windows has APIs for printing and scanning; if we stick to those, support and training are so much easier. Thoughts? -- Ben ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
RE: Printer brand recommendations
Yeah, anywhere. FYI Dell has a laser for round $130 right now. Our Dell Printing costs are less than 1cent a page FYI. Not sure if that is really good or not, I think it is. From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 9:26 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Printer brand recommendations No you are able to get most cartridges now through Staples. From: Jonathan Link [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 10:24 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Printer brand recommendations I'll concur with what Don Ely said, but that being the case, you have to mitigate the downside. High end inkjets are oxymoronic. From what you describe, in my opinion, you haven't sized your printers appropriately to the job they are to perform. Get the bigwigs a personal laser printer, they'll be happier with improved availability, you'll have less support headaches. I only ever install the driver for a printer, despite what comes with it. Depending on the end user, I'll leave it to them to install the rest of the crap that comes with the printer. IIRC Dell started making their cartridges proprietary and unavailable anywhere but from Dell. Is this still the case? -Jonathan On Jan 29, 2008 11:25 PM, Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Howdy list, So, after some truly abysmal tech support experiences with HP this month, I've decided it's time to look at other printer brands. I've been buying HP's almost exclusively for over a decade, so I'm starting from scratch. There are so many brands that even a product field survey is non-trivial: Dell, Samsung, Canon, Epson, IBM/Lexmark, Xerox, Ricoh, Sharp, Toshiba, Panasonic, just to name a few. Recommendations? Opinions? Horror stories? Relatively small company, roughly 75 workstations. Mostly monochrome laser printers serving workgroups of 5-10 people. Typical volume might be 1K-3K pages/month. A couple color laser printers serving supersets of same. A few bigwigs have color inkjets in their office, because of course they're too important to have to walk out to the printer in the hall, but they also don't want to clutter up their fancy mahogany office furniture with a larger laser printer that might actually work. For example, the Director of HR. Since she works with personal/private stuff, she wanted one of those print/scan/copy/fax jobs (reasonable, I guess). The supposedly high-end HP inkjet we bought has been a disaster, which is why I'm here. Almost every printer we have is network-attached (easier to manage, they roam with the user profile if hardware is changed, enables the frequent requests to share printers). As I recall from some experience a few years ago, that seems to be a common failing with many brands. Even if they have a network jack, functionality/features are severely reduced over the network. One thing I really dislike is printers which require special software installation to the tune of hundreds of megabytes, a few startup programs, a dozen desktop icons, and their own support, update, and maintenance hassles. Windows has APIs for printing and scanning; if we stick to those, support and training are so much easier. Thoughts? -- Ben ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
Re: Printer brand recommendations
On Jan 30, 2008 10:24 PM, Jonathan Link [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Get the bigwigs a personal laser printer, they'll be happier with improved availability, you'll have less support headaches. Color laser printers, especially the all-in-one units, are all decidedly bigger than the inkjet alternatives. Like I've said multiple times now, the bigwigs want something physically small, so it doesn't conflict with their feng shui or whatever. Maybe this is just a case of wanting something that doesn't exist, but you'd think there would be a market for products which don't suck. And lately they're wanting to print photos, too. Anyone seen a color laser printer with good photo printing performance? Most seem to be only 600 DPI. I only ever install the driver for a printer, despite what comes with it. That's what I want to do. The driver only kit for the HP PhotoSmart C7280 is over 300 megabytes, and doesn't work if I try to force it to install via the Add Hardware Wizard and INFs only. Apparently you *need* to run HP's elaborate install utility, and let it copy tons of crap to the system, for it to setup whatever magic HP wants. And then the scanner doesn't work anyway. Did I mention I don't like HP lately? -- Ben ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
Re: Printer brand recommendations
I'd price out the rental of a Savin or other networked color digital copier. If the muckety-mucks are worried about privacy/confidentiality, units like this offer management options like passcodes for print jobs (must put in a passcode at the printer to print the document if it's confidential, or put a passcode in when requesting the print job from the PC if it's color or it goes into th bitbucket, etc.) Might be able to make the economic case with something like that. Kurt On 1/29/08, Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Howdy list, So, after some truly abysmal tech support experiences with HP this month, I've decided it's time to look at other printer brands. I've been buying HP's almost exclusively for over a decade, so I'm starting from scratch. There are so many brands that even a product field survey is non-trivial: Dell, Samsung, Canon, Epson, IBM/Lexmark, Xerox, Ricoh, Sharp, Toshiba, Panasonic, just to name a few. Recommendations? Opinions? Horror stories? Relatively small company, roughly 75 workstations. Mostly monochrome laser printers serving workgroups of 5-10 people. Typical volume might be 1K-3K pages/month. A couple color laser printers serving supersets of same. A few bigwigs have color inkjets in their office, because of course they're too important to have to walk out to the printer in the hall, but they also don't want to clutter up their fancy mahogany office furniture with a larger laser printer that might actually work. For example, the Director of HR. Since she works with personal/private stuff, she wanted one of those print/scan/copy/fax jobs (reasonable, I guess). The supposedly high-end HP inkjet we bought has been a disaster, which is why I'm here. Almost every printer we have is network-attached (easier to manage, they roam with the user profile if hardware is changed, enables the frequent requests to share printers). As I recall from some experience a few years ago, that seems to be a common failing with many brands. Even if they have a network jack, functionality/features are severely reduced over the network. One thing I really dislike is printers which require special software installation to the tune of hundreds of megabytes, a few startup programs, a dozen desktop icons, and their own support, update, and maintenance hassles. Windows has APIs for printing and scanning; if we stick to those, support and training are so much easier. Thoughts? -- Ben ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
Re: Printer brand recommendations
Honestly, from what I have seen and I am no printer expert; there are no good printers anymore... On Jan 29, 2008 8:25 PM, Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Howdy list, So, after some truly abysmal tech support experiences with HP this month, I've decided it's time to look at other printer brands. I've been buying HP's almost exclusively for over a decade, so I'm starting from scratch. There are so many brands that even a product field survey is non-trivial: Dell, Samsung, Canon, Epson, IBM/Lexmark, Xerox, Ricoh, Sharp, Toshiba, Panasonic, just to name a few. Recommendations? Opinions? Horror stories? Relatively small company, roughly 75 workstations. Mostly monochrome laser printers serving workgroups of 5-10 people. Typical volume might be 1K-3K pages/month. A couple color laser printers serving supersets of same. A few bigwigs have color inkjets in their office, because of course they're too important to have to walk out to the printer in the hall, but they also don't want to clutter up their fancy mahogany office furniture with a larger laser printer that might actually work. For example, the Director of HR. Since she works with personal/private stuff, she wanted one of those print/scan/copy/fax jobs (reasonable, I guess). The supposedly high-end HP inkjet we bought has been a disaster, which is why I'm here. Almost every printer we have is network-attached (easier to manage, they roam with the user profile if hardware is changed, enables the frequent requests to share printers). As I recall from some experience a few years ago, that seems to be a common failing with many brands. Even if they have a network jack, functionality/features are severely reduced over the network. One thing I really dislike is printers which require special software installation to the tune of hundreds of megabytes, a few startup programs, a dozen desktop icons, and their own support, update, and maintenance hassles. Windows has APIs for printing and scanning; if we stick to those, support and training are so much easier. Thoughts? -- Ben ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
RE: Printer brand recommendations
I still like HP cause it's easy to find local service and you can get parts and toner pretty much anywhere. As for AIO and Ink Jets, I think they are all crap in the workplace. People overuse them way too much. I would get a small personal laser jet and a cheap fax. Then when they break, you toss them and buy new ones. From: Don Ely [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 8:52 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Printer brand recommendations Honestly, from what I have seen and I am no printer expert; there are no good printers anymore... On Jan 29, 2008 8:25 PM, Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Howdy list, So, after some truly abysmal tech support experiences with HP this month, I've decided it's time to look at other printer brands. I've been buying HP's almost exclusively for over a decade, so I'm starting from scratch. There are so many brands that even a product field survey is non-trivial: Dell, Samsung, Canon, Epson, IBM/Lexmark, Xerox, Ricoh, Sharp, Toshiba, Panasonic, just to name a few. Recommendations? Opinions? Horror stories? Relatively small company, roughly 75 workstations. Mostly monochrome laser printers serving workgroups of 5-10 people. Typical volume might be 1K-3K pages/month. A couple color laser printers serving supersets of same. A few bigwigs have color inkjets in their office, because of course they're too important to have to walk out to the printer in the hall, but they also don't want to clutter up their fancy mahogany office furniture with a larger laser printer that might actually work. For example, the Director of HR. Since she works with personal/private stuff, she wanted one of those print/scan/copy/fax jobs (reasonable, I guess). The supposedly high-end HP inkjet we bought has been a disaster, which is why I'm here. Almost every printer we have is network-attached (easier to manage, they roam with the user profile if hardware is changed, enables the frequent requests to share printers). As I recall from some experience a few years ago, that seems to be a common failing with many brands. Even if they have a network jack, functionality/features are severely reduced over the network. One thing I really dislike is printers which require special software installation to the tune of hundreds of megabytes, a few startup programs, a dozen desktop icons, and their own support, update, and maintenance hassles. Windows has APIs for printing and scanning; if we stick to those, support and training are so much easier. Thoughts? -- Ben ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
Re: Printer brand recommendations
I couldn't agree more, but... I had someone ask me about a number of all in ones they saw in the local BestBuy flyer and I noticed that Brother has a couple of all in one lasers. Maybe something like this would be better suited for the HR manager? Andrew. On Jan 30, 2008 12:10 AM, Martin Blackstone [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I still like HP cause it's easy to find local service and you can get parts and toner pretty much anywhere. As for AIO and Ink Jets, I think they are all crap in the workplace. People overuse them way too much. I would get a small personal laser jet and a cheap fax. Then when they break, you toss them and buy new ones. *From:* Don Ely [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] *Sent:* Tuesday, January 29, 2008 8:52 PM *To:* NT System Admin Issues *Subject:* Re: Printer brand recommendations Honestly, from what I have seen and I am no printer expert; there are no good printers anymore... On Jan 29, 2008 8:25 PM, Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Howdy list, So, after some truly abysmal tech support experiences with HP this month, I've decided it's time to look at other printer brands. I've been buying HP's almost exclusively for over a decade, so I'm starting from scratch. There are so many brands that even a product field survey is non-trivial: Dell, Samsung, Canon, Epson, IBM/Lexmark, Xerox, Ricoh, Sharp, Toshiba, Panasonic, just to name a few. Recommendations? Opinions? Horror stories? Relatively small company, roughly 75 workstations. Mostly monochrome laser printers serving workgroups of 5-10 people. Typical volume might be 1K-3K pages/month. A couple color laser printers serving supersets of same. A few bigwigs have color inkjets in their office, because of course they're too important to have to walk out to the printer in the hall, but they also don't want to clutter up their fancy mahogany office furniture with a larger laser printer that might actually work. For example, the Director of HR. Since she works with personal/private stuff, she wanted one of those print/scan/copy/fax jobs (reasonable, I guess). The supposedly high-end HP inkjet we bought has been a disaster, which is why I'm here. Almost every printer we have is network-attached (easier to manage, they roam with the user profile if hardware is changed, enables the frequent requests to share printers). As I recall from some experience a few years ago, that seems to be a common failing with many brands. Even if they have a network jack, functionality/features are severely reduced over the network. One thing I really dislike is printers which require special software installation to the tune of hundreds of megabytes, a few startup programs, a dozen desktop icons, and their own support, update, and maintenance hassles. Windows has APIs for printing and scanning; if we stick to those, support and training are so much easier. Thoughts? -- Ben ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
RE: Printer brand recommendations
Just speaking on price, Dell is running end of the year promos on printers. They are discounted heavily. I think they are doing 2 fer 1s. Add a support contract, you are golden. Been using them for 4+ years. Never had a software issue. A dell tech has had to come once to fix the 11 we have - but it had about 300K pages already printed to it. -Original Message- From: Ben Scott [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 10:26 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Printer brand recommendations Howdy list, So, after some truly abysmal tech support experiences with HP this month, I've decided it's time to look at other printer brands. I've been buying HP's almost exclusively for over a decade, so I'm starting from scratch. There are so many brands that even a product field survey is non-trivial: Dell, Samsung, Canon, Epson, IBM/Lexmark, Xerox, Ricoh, Sharp, Toshiba, Panasonic, just to name a few. Recommendations? Opinions? Horror stories? Relatively small company, roughly 75 workstations. Mostly monochrome laser printers serving workgroups of 5-10 people. Typical volume might be 1K-3K pages/month. A couple color laser printers serving supersets of same. A few bigwigs have color inkjets in their office, because of course they're too important to have to walk out to the printer in the hall, but they also don't want to clutter up their fancy mahogany office furniture with a larger laser printer that might actually work. For example, the Director of HR. Since she works with personal/private stuff, she wanted one of those print/scan/copy/fax jobs (reasonable, I guess). The supposedly high-end HP inkjet we bought has been a disaster, which is why I'm here. Almost every printer we have is network-attached (easier to manage, they roam with the user profile if hardware is changed, enables the frequent requests to share printers). As I recall from some experience a few years ago, that seems to be a common failing with many brands. Even if they have a network jack, functionality/features are severely reduced over the network. One thing I really dislike is printers which require special software installation to the tune of hundreds of megabytes, a few startup programs, a dozen desktop icons, and their own support, update, and maintenance hassles. Windows has APIs for printing and scanning; if we stick to those, support and training are so much easier. Thoughts? -- Ben ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
