Sunday, May 6, 2012

Xerox ColorQube "Rebuttal"

Can you believe the Xerox ColorQube has been around for almost three years!!!

About three years ago I posted four or five blog about the ColorQube.  For one of the blogs I downloaded the operators manual and with help and notes from other Print4Pay Hotel members I posted Xerox ColorQube "Reveal".   Just the other day I had a response from ANON, I'm not fun of ANONS since they tend to come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and in some cases I believe they were using mind altering drugs when they posted a reply. REALLY, if you're gonna post something log in and don't hide behind ANON! 

Below I posted the comments that ANON left and then I submitted my rebuttal, ENJOY!

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post Xerox ColorQube "Reveal"":

ANON: Fuzzy photos, and difficulty with fine lines and small text – Test your own company samples at your local Xerox demo facility to validate. Our install base since May of 2009 has the Colour Qube in many engineering firms that demand excellence in image quality. Most of their colour drawings have many fine lines and small text and they trust the Color Qube engine for them. If any image quality issues come up you can always place a service call.

Me: This true for any multifunctional system that if you’re having problems with reproducing images to call service. The issues seems to be with very small fonts, check that the holes in the e & a are not filled in or have blasting around them.

ANON: Does NOT support coated stocks of any kind (issue with wax adhering to surface) – The Color Qube can support stocks up to 220 gsm or 80lb cover, which is a media thickness most laser machines are rated up to. Coated stocks are usually only used in print shops for business cards or specialty jobs. Typically customers with laser machines will buy heavy coated stocks to create better colour quality documents. The Color Qube delivers the same high quality image quality on any thickness of stock so using coated stocks to achieve colour quality becomes irrelevant.

Me: It seems you may not know what coated stock is! 80lb cover is NOT coated stock! Coated stocks are used in many corporations, associations and organizations that have graphic arts department not necessarily for business cards. I agree that customers will buy heavy coated stocks for better color quality, the point of the matter is you are stating thickness of stock and have never addressed that the ColorQube will print on coated stock. Address the issue man, don’t dance around the edges!

ANON: Sometimes banding appears in prints, meaning lines of light color or no color, and end user may choose the “Full Banding Fix” on the control panel, which will take 8 minutes to kick out test pages, and waste wax until complete – All machines including laser and solid ink may eventually have some sort of colour issue and instead of placing a service call right away whenever there is a problem and waiting two hours to be fixed, the Color Qube gives users the power to get up and running in 8 minutes – “Full Banding Fix”, 6 minutes – “Ink Smears” or 90 seconds “Light Lines”. No worry of wasting wax because you have an unlimited supply of it included in your service contract. Your trainer will show you these common quick fixes for most issues that come up. You always can just place a service call if any image quality issue comes up.


Me: If your system did not have banding, smearing or light line issues then why do you have a feature for “Full Banding Fix”, “ink Smears”, and “Light Lines”?, it’s a problem and instead of correcting the issue with the engine, all you did was out a temporary software fix that the customer has to enable to make the problem go away. You don’t see this on the laser color devices!

ANON: - End users are advised not to turn unit off if possible, due to waste of wax, and long warm up times – You don’t turn off your laser machines after work every day. The Color Qube has built in software called “Intelligent Ready” to help save in energy consumption and speed up ready times. The software predicts machine usage after two weeks of running so that it will automatically go from sleep mode to ready on whenever you regularly start using the machine in the morning. For instance if printing starts at 9am typically the machine will know that and be on and ready to go.
Me: Actually here in the states, we do turn off the MFP’s or we have the auto off feature to turn the system off if there is inactivity. Get to the issue and just state that turning the unit off and on cause the print heads to do a flush of the molten wax! BTW all of the Color MFP’s in the states also have a programmable off/on because we can do a full shut down without wasting consumables.

ANON- End users are advised that if they need to move the unit, they should turn off and wait 30 minutes, so wax cools and hardens and does not splash when unit is moved. – users rarely need to move the unit once it is in its spot. Our technicians and trainers will advise you of this when it is being set up.

Me: Rarely move the system? Have you ever even sold a mfp system in your life? Customers move quite often from one location to another and even more they will move the system when remodeling an office or moving to a different work area. If you move the ColorQube unit and do not wait, there will be issues!

ANON: - End users are warned that when replacing the “Cleaning Unit”, it is possible to spill the silicon oil inside, which is used to keep the drum clean – the cleaning unit lasts for 350,000 impressions so you replace it maybe twice a machine lifetime. We always pull it in and out in demos to show ease of use and never see issues resulting from it. You can change it yourself in 2 minutes to get up and running or you can always place a service call and have a technician change it for you.

Me: If the warning is there, it’s there for a reason, because it can spill. I’m sure if you’ve been around the system long enough and handled the “cleaning unit” enough times it’s easier, but how about the novice user or the new user who is not mechanically inclined.

ANON- End users are instructed to remove and replace the waste ink tray, as unit will not operate if it’s full – same principal as having to change the waste toner cartridge on a laser machine when it’s full, except you don’t have to place a service call and wait 2 hours just to get the machine up and running. We give you the ability to empty the non-toxic wax waste in the garbage right away and get back up and running in 2 minutes.

Me: Most Laser MFP’s have user replaceable waste toner containers and for the ones that don’t they are recycling the waste. Your system produces rock hard waste that will probably last until the next ice age, yet it won’t harm the environment or any animals……right! BTW most color laser manufacturers now have recycling programs where you send back everything, and nothing has to go in the local landfill!

ANON: Turning "Off" the unit will eat more consumables – you have a service contract with unlimited consumables included.
Me: You’ve got to be kidding me, since I have a maintenance agreement I should not care about wasting consumables?  At least here in the states we make sure we’re not wasting energy and setting our systems to auto turn off or turn them off before we leave the office.

So you have it, my rebuttal to the answers from ANON, keep in mind that most of these statement are directly from the ColorQube owner’s manual. Looking to buy or lease a machine, why not download the owner’s manual and get the real scoop of poop. Most items listed in the owner’s manual are not even spoken about during the time of the sale.

It’s oblivious to me that this ANON is from across one of the ponds and probably works for Xerox.

-=Good Selling=-

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