Les said:
Thanks for the info Timothy.
I was looking at buying a Xerox 8400 but am concerned about having to
keep it switched on all the time as I have read that if you don't
print enough copies each day to ensure reasonable ink useage, the ink
changes colour slightly as it deteriorates because of the heat needed
to keep it liquid.
Presumably you have quite a high throughput so this is not a problem
in your case. What do you think of the quality of photographs printed
on it? Does the quality of paper used make much difference?
Your comments greatly appreciated.
Les
My usage tends to be about 2-3000 pages per month, so I can't really
comment about colour changes from low usage, but if you don't have the
usage to justify the price, might it be worth looking at a higher end
inkjet? If you contact a reseller you can get yourself a sample output.
The Xerox manages fairly glossy output even on cheap copier paper,
certainly the Minolta managed clear output but it didn't have the gloss
that the wax process provides. Looking at your email address you are
probably in the UK, so you could contact someone like printware
(
www.printware.co.uk) who supplied ours, or lnl (
www.lnl.co.uk) both of
whom I am sure could provide sample printouts.
Printware, unsurprisingly, tried to persuade me to pay extra for the
fancy version of the 8200 which has a max of 1200 dpi rather than 1000
dpi, and they printed out my sample document at both settings, but they
did have the grace to admit they couldn't really tell the difference.
One thing to notice with the waxy output from the Xerox is it doesn't
like being laminated (the heat melts the ink again), but I have just
about overcome that by inserting a second sheet in the laminating pouch,
surrounding the laminate in two sheets of paper inside a carrier and
then setting the laminator to its minimum hot laminating temperature.
Laminating output was my solution to getting glossy output from the
Minolta.
Obviously we print out rather a lot of photographs - not many with
people in mind you! Certainly they look fine to me. I would say printing
on Data Copy 90gm2 paper compares favourably with inkjet output on the
chemically treated papers that smell - the matte ones, if you know what
I mean.
There are glossy papers available for lasers, but with the conventional
ones, like the Minolta the toner is deposited on top of the paper so the
glossiness is lost where the actual image is, but with the wax process
that retains a sheen. Hence the laminating of the Minolta output.
I suppose you should look at the quantity of printing you are going to
be doing to decide what route is best for you. If you are concerned
about not using it enough I suspect it might be worth looking at some of
the Canon inkjets that lots of people round here seem to rave about.