Call us at (303) 586-7704

Archive for February, 2009

« Older Entries

Lexmark Introduces Quarterly Discounts on Selected Models

February 26th, 2009
Lexmark X652de
Lexmark X652de

Are you looking for a low cost and highly efficient copier for your office?  Here is one to take a look at!  The Lexmark X652de is very quick at 45 pages per minute and comes standard with printing, faxing, scanning, and copying capabilities!

The best news is that instead of paying $1,799…  you can get this machine right around $1,500 if you order it from DenverCopier.com
We are dealing with many companies in Denver who want a high speed low cost copier and the Lexmark X652de just might fit the bill.
   

No comments »

Posted in Lexmark Copier Reviews

Tags:

Why Can’t I Find a Good Desktop Color Copier (MFP)???

February 24th, 2009
Xerox 6180MFP

Xerox 6180MFP

I have been getting asked more and more to help customers find a high quality color MFP for about $1,000 and I hate to say it, but I don’t really think such a device exists.  Some are “less bad” than others, and we have had some pretty good luck with the Xerox 6180MFP, but the cost per print is pretty high on these devices.  So, if you need a color MFP in the desktop variety, I would say to go ahead and get the Phaser 6180MFP because it is the best one I can see right now…  However, there are some things you need to know about the desktop color copier market, especially the laser variety.

Single Pass vs. Multi-pass

Single pass is preferred.  Means the paper only has to go through the imaging units once.  The multi-pass have to go through once for each color.  This is why you will see multi-pass units run about 1/4 the speed in color as they do in black and white.  31/8 or 20/5 or 16/4 are all common BW/Color speeds for multi pass.  21/20 would be more of a single pass speed rating.

ADF — If you have 3 page jobs, make sure you get the ADF…  otherwise you will have to put one sheet on the glass and then the next one, etc…

Fax included? — Most people assume the fax is included on all MFP’s…  they’re not.  When you see a “Starting at” price…  that is usually the print/Copy/Scan version, not the fax version.

Cost per print — This gets more crucial as your volume of prints go up.  The MFP’s in this class can range from about $.15 to $.40 per print…  if you are doing 100 prints per month…  that can get substantial.

No comments »

Posted in Copier Buying Tips, General Copier Info

Tags:

Toner Pirates — How to Avoid and How They Trick You…

February 21st, 2009

There are a group of people out there called “toner pirates” who can be expensive and seem to waste so much time that it can drive a customer nuts.  Who are these people?  Generally speaking, the idea is someone out of state will call your company and have a “great deal” on toner.  They get your copier model and try to get someone who talks on the phone to say it is OK to send toner over which they bill at astronomical rates.  Here’s how it normally works…

ABC Company:  Thanks for calling ABC Company, how can I help you?

Toner Pirate: Hello, I was speaking with your IT Manager and I was supposed to send over toner for your copier, I just needed to confirm which kind of copier you had so I can get it out the door.

ABC: You mean the Toshiba?

Pirate: Yeah, that was an EStudio, right?  Do you have the model #?

ABC: Let me see, it’s the 500.

Pirate:  OK, great. I will get that case of toner out to you for the EStudio 500, what’s your name so I can put it in my notes how helpful you  were?

ABC: Cassie.

Pirate: Well, thanks Cassie.  Let your people know the toner for the copier will be there in 2 days and thanks again…

END

OK, now in a few days, you will receive one of the following… 

Low Yield toner instead of the normal high yield.

A “Case” of toner, a case in these circustances generally = 1, but the cost is slightly lower than the normal 6 pack pricing.

What can you do about toner pirates here in Denver?

  • Make sure people know not to authorize toner shipments without the approval of an appropriate decision maker.
  • Do not open the box if you do get duped.
  • Send a letter to the company who sent them advising them of your intention to return the toner and if it is not picked up within 14 days, you will be disposing of it.
  • Contact your bank to see about stopping payment
  • Contact the Better Business Bureau.
  • Educate the offender

What scams do the toner pirates like to run?

  • Case = quantity 1… price more consistent with normal case pricing.
  • Low yield toner instead of high yirld
  • “Last chance”/fire sales…  you have to purchase right now to get this deal…
  • Can’t mail info, can only UPS info to you
  • Generally will be out of state instead of your local provider
  • Item pricing seems too good to be true

What can you do?

  • Purchase supplies from local vendor or nationally known company
  • Make sure your toner isn’t included in the copier contract before you buy anything!
  • Work with established, well run local companies.
  • Have 1 person assigned to supplies who know how to contact your legitimate suppliers.

No comments »

Posted in Copier Buying Tips

Tags:

Going Green and Copiers — Important Steps

February 19th, 2009

With the economy news, a lot of people have seemed to have lost their zeal for eco-friendly products in classes such as computers and copiers.  We wanted to remind people we all have a social and ethical responsibility to take part in not destroying our planet (or I guess I should say our ability to live on the planet and the Earth will still be around regardless of how poorly we manage our consumerism…)

Here are some things to think about if you want to “Go Green” with your next copier purchase.

1) Try a smaller copier…  why?  Smaller copiers use less plastics, less packaging and less power.  Consider a Lexmark X654de or a Xerox Phaser 3635 or a Xerox WorkCentre 4150 or WorkCentre 4260.  These devices are all far smaller than the typical “big copier” people purchase, are extremely reliable and have low costs associated with printing.

2) Use copiers with tecnology such as Ozone free copying.  This is a good thing as Ozone is not good to be breathing and is not good for the environment (at our altitude) because of its capacity to cause sickness and organically mix with other toxins and produce bad compounds for the environment.

3) Make sure to use a legit green recycler.  We peronally recommend GRX here in the Denver area for electonics recycling.  The are reasonably priced and do an awesome job getting all componets back in the manufacturing stream rather than shipping electroncs to Africa or China.

4) Make sure your copier has duplex printing and scanning.  Save some trees.

5) Recycle your old toner cartridges. I know, a “no-brainer” …  but it still must be said.

Let us know if you need a new copier or are looking for ways to Go Green with your electronics.  We have many solutions to help you in this pursuit!

No comments »

Posted in Copier Buying Tips

Tags:

Current Used Copier Deals — Make sure to View Our Tips and Secrets Section Before Buying!

February 18th, 2009

OK, so every now and again we have some used copiers or demo copiers we are looking to sell and I thought I would place them on the site. As you already know, if you follow this blog, a copier purchase should be made with some thought and planning… yet, it is good to know what deals are out there in case there happens to be a good fit of something you need and something we have and are looking to move here in the Denver area.

Some of the Used Copier / Demo Copier inventory we have include the following…

For $999 we have a Demo Lexmark X642e. This device was used in our office for about 9 months and we are looking to turn this at a substantial savings to you. Print, Scan, Copy, Fax at up to 45 pages per minute. 1 drawer, no finishing capabilities. A simple copier for a small workgroup. Has 12,000 pages on it.

Next we have a Xerox 4150XF copier. Fax, Scan, Print, Copy at 45 pages per minute. 4 drawers and a staple finisher. Sells normally for $4,999. Ours is $3,199 for the DEMO unit we have. Has 20,000 pages on it.

Finally, we have a used Kyocera 5035. This is a workhorse copier (good for 20,000+ copies per month) This one is selling for $3,500. Has about 200,000 pages on it.

No comments »

Posted in General Copier Info

Tags:

How to Avoid Getting “Nickel and Dimed” by Your Copier Company

February 15th, 2009

One complaint that I hear when talking to potential customers is they thought they were signing up for one thing, and ultimately it changed with their current vendor.   This has led them to feel used and they are motivated to make a switch because it made their former copier company seem dishonest.  Here are a few of the ways this can happen, and how you can make sure it doesn’t happen to you on your next copying machine purchase here in the Denver area.

Contract rates are raised throughout the contract.  It is fair to expect that the rates would stay consistent with inflation, however I have seem many people have a 12% per year increase because that number was written into the contract.  If we look at a practical example, say when you sign up you are paying $100 for 10,000 prints (very good price…) that would be $157 for the same 10,000 prints in year five.  $.0157 is not a good price for 10,000 prints on the market…  The extra $57 a month in year 5 works out to about $700.00! What can you do?  1) Try and get the “this contract can be raised by x % per year completely or 2) negotiate a lower and more fair rate.  Most companies will say “It only says that we “can,” not that we “will”…” In all my dealings, any company that “can” raise rates “will” raise rates.  It could be $57 times 100 copiers in the fleet from that year times 12 months or $70,000 of additional profit for that company.  In this economy, people are not going to be nice and let it slide.

A second way to get nickel and dimed is that the providers of service will often charge “consumable instll fees” … The best way to avoid these sorts of fees is to learn how to install the consumables into your machine.  For most customer this simple 5 minute learning exercises could save them $300 to $500 per year.

Another way to get “quartered and dollared” (much more expensive than nickel and dimed) would be signing up for 5 year leases and flipping the equipment out anywhere sooner than 3 months left on the contract.  Often the rep will say that the swap out is free, what they mean is that it is “included.”  By included, that means it was included in your price. 

Getting caught up on the cost per click OR the equipment cost rather than the TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP is also a mistake that can cost thousands.  People will either get so enamored with a $.008 per print that they’ll pay $7,000 more for the equipment or so enamored with a $5,000 equipment cost that they’ll spend $.02 per click.  The key is to add up both given your expected volume and your needs.

If you are looking for help to ealuate a proposal you have gotten and would like a competitive quote, please give us a call for a free lease evaluation.

No comments »

Posted in Copier Buying Tips

Tags:

Copying Machine Talk

February 13th, 2009
Xerox WorkCentre 7328

Xerox WorkCentre 7328

Have you been looking to get a Copying Machine and are finding there is a weird copier language…  I am going to give you a “cheat sheet” of what some of the copying machine lingo means in actual English…

TCO — Total Cost of Ownership.  How much does the machine cost to own, some use the term as a supplies term, some as supplies and maintenance and others (like ourselves), use the term to mean the total cost of the equipment + Supplies + Maintenance.

MTBF — Mean Time Between Failure — How long in between breaking on average?

CPP  or CPI — Cost per Print or Cost per Impression.  This number should answer the question of how much does a copy cost you as a user.

FMV or $1 Buyout — Both are Lease terms.  One says you have to give the machine back at the end of the term (FMV) or pay its Fair Market Value.  The other says you can keep the device for a buck at the end of the term.

RADF — Reversing Auto Document Feeder — The Doc Feeder is the thing on top you put paper in when making copies…  the reversing means it’ll run through that twice to get both sides.  A DADF is better by far.

DADF — Duplexing Auto Document Feeder — Scans both sides of the page at once

Duplex – Both Sides (scanning or printing both use the term)

Tabloid – 11 X 17 paper (as opposed to legal or letter sized).

Duty Cycle — An inflated numbers used by manufacturers which tell you how many pages something would print if you were only wanting it to go for 1 month (The maximum work it could handle in a month.) On average divide this number by 10 for the regular maximum usage.

FTO — First Time Out — How long does the First page take to get out when making a copy.

Hopefully this will help you make sense of some of the acronyms you will be seeing in your copier purchase!

No comments »

Posted in Copier Buying Tips

Tags:

How to Fix Some Common Copier Problems (Without a Tech…)

February 13th, 2009

We get a lot of calls which we dispatch a technician for and the customer could have handled themselves…  I thought it would be good to come up with a list of “common calls not needed” on copiers…

The “Black Stripe” call — The basic thing that happens here is a customer will have copies coming out with a “Black Stripe.” Since it looks bad, we get a call.  Here is a quick few steps to do BEFORE calling your service provider.  1) Run the document through the document processor.  Does it have a black stripe?  2) Now run it off the glass, does it still have the stripe?  If it is in a different position or the stripe goes away, grab some of the old school Windex and clean all the glass really well.  It often means there is a hair or something you wouldn’t normally notice on the glass.  If it is still there after these steps, now it’s time to make that service call.

“Prints too Light” — This can normally be addressed using the devices embedded web page.  The embedded what?  An embedded web page is a page you can access for any of your printing devices that are connected to the network simply by putting in the device’s IP address into your internet browser’s address line.  An example might look like 192.168.2.35 — you’d just type those numbers where you normally put in the normalwebaddress, the www. line.

“My copier doesn’t print” –  First, has it before?  Are you using the right print driver?  Is the network cable plugged into the machine?  If all the answers are yes, try this…  find the IP address on the machine (see above).  Now, make sure it’s the same as the one in your system.  How?  Hit Start — Printers and Faxes — Right Click on the Copier — Properties — Ports — Expand the column with the IP (you’ll get a double arrow when you can expand which looks like this <-I->  )  Make sure the numbers match.  If not, call your IT guy, not the copier repair guy.

“It won’t fax” — Is the fax line plugged in?  Is the place where you are sending the fax having problems with their fax lines?  After these are addressed, then you can call the provider.

“The Finisher isn’t working” — This one is important to make sure that the output destination is the finisher.  Does it make copies at all?  It could be a problem with the machine or with the finisher.  If it’s making copies but not outputting to the finisher…  Check to make sure the finisher is attached.  It should lock into place.  Check and see if it has staples in the cartridge.  Check and make sure it has power (some are powed through the copiers, others have independent sources.)

If you take some of these steps you can keep your copier running with less down time and also help your service provider not have a reason to try and raise your maintenance costs.

No comments »

Posted in General Copier Info

Tags:

Lexmark Legal Partner – A Copier for Law Firms

February 11th, 2009

You are working at a busy law firm and you have a lot of special needs that the average office does not seem to have.  You have massive amounts of paper going in and out, you have to scan to courtrooms, you need to share files with other partners, and you may want to bill for the pages you print and copy to a specific client.  This becomes cumbersome if you are left to do all of these things on your own.  You may find it interesting to know that Lexmark has created a multi-function device specifically for the Legal Field called the Legal Partner.

One of the coolest features about this device is that it allow for Copitrak integration. What this does for you, is that all of the prints and copies can now be billable rather than an overhead.  With 10’s of thousands of pages printed per month, this can add up quite quickly!

If you want to see how a specific firm used Lexmark to improve their overall productivity, you should look at the Holland & Knight success story.  This goes over how this technology can specifically help a firm go from paying all the bills to actually increasing billable hours.

One last thing that must be said about these devices are they are extraordinarily simple to set up and to use.  If you are looking for a simple copier, one that does not take months of training, then this is definately a really good fit for your firm.  These copiers come in configurations where you can have a color device or a monochrome device.  Basically, if you are a law firm, these are essential gear if productivity and efficiency matter to you.

No comments »

Posted in Legal

Tags:

Why Customers Often Feel Copier Reps and Used Car Sales are on a Level Playing Field

February 11th, 2009

Yes, I do sell copiers and let’s get it right out in the open that I know many people in my field can be scheisters.  I know this too well because I see some of the contracts you as the customer are asked to sign.  I have seen some pretty terrible examples of copier companies creating difficult work circumstances through ignorance, negligence, or malice.  The key common thread is that they were trying to make a quick buck more than they were motivated to help their customer get what was right for them.

This is a main reason why I started this blog, I was hoping if I put out 50 or 100 articles to help educate a copier buyer of some of the typical “dirty tricks” then you would have the chance to move away from those reps as quickly as possible.

Some basics to help you if you are a “typical” buyer…

1) Generally avoid 5 year leases OR make sure you DO NOT go with the reps upgrade a 4 years and 3 months.  Someone is going to pay for the extra 9 months and you can be certain who that will be.  No one will let you trade in for “free.” It may be included, but it is never “free.”

2) Make sure you are not paying for extra accessories you don’t use.  Most notoriously is the finishing unit.  If you  don’t care if it staples, why would you spend $1,500 so it will?

3) Make sure the company who sells the copier can also fix the copier.

4) Be cautious as your rep moves you to color.  There is a REASON they are doing this.  Color is more expensive.  If you need color, of course you should get it… but if you don’t, don’t take it.

5) Ask questions and make sure you understand where all of your costs are coming from.

If you need some help analyzing a copier contract, we’d be happy to help you.  Why?  Because we want new business.

Hope this helps and I wish you the best of fortune in this acquisition process!

No comments »

Posted in Copier Buying Tips

Tags: