The Emergence of Utility Printers?

The though of utility printers has been on my mind for quite some time, especially with the recent release of the Memjet C6010 color printer that will print full color at 60 pages per minute with a retail price of about $1,200 or so.

Now, I'm not sure what the wholesale cost of that printer is, however I'm thinking $700-$800 or somewhere around there.  

With the cost being so low isn't now possible to give the printer away, especially since the ink/supplies is controlled by the dealer? You could build in the cost of the printer into the ink cost.  Better yet, if there was a way to have software that would enable a tiered billing system, the system could be placed out there with a cost per page billing.  

Of course the software for tiered billing is not available for this unit, but we're a creative bunch and I'm sure we could figure something out.  Years ago in NJ there was a Canon dealer that sold some of the early analog copier devices, they sold the end user a three pack of toner (toner kit) it also included maintenance, parts and on site service for as long as the toner kit lasted.  A very novel approach and one that was easy for the customer to understand and an absolute win win for the dealer!  As I think more about this toner kit it may have been the beginning of the cost per page agreement.  Of course their were many customers that tried to scam the process and bought toner from another dealer, but the concept was awesome and it worked well for many years.

Lately I heard of a few dealers that will be going to

Ricoh A3 Color Envelope Printer by...

There's been a lot of threads on the Print4Pay Hotel forums about the Xante Impressia which is powered by the Ricoh SP831DN print engine. I posted a few blogs in reference to the Ricoh SP831DN printer and my first blog about a "Print Shop in a Box" in 2007 . Which can be found here and here.

I learned many years ago that you don't have to buy the expensive offerings from companies like Xante, in fact you can build your own envelope press by purchasing an envelope feeder and an output conveyor.  In one of my accounts we installed an Ricoh Color  printer A4 version and added four paper trays and for under $4,500 we had an impressive A4 color envelope printer.

I ran across this video the other day in reference to the Impressia and thought our readers could take a look at the latest and greatest in color technology.  If you're interested in the Ricoh version then send me an email to art@p4photel.com

-=Good Selling=-

Ricoh Color SPC831DN "Top Ten Features"

In last weeks blog on the Ricoh SP831DN we focused on hardware specs, this week we'll tell you more about some of the awesome print features that come with the Ricoh SP831DN Color Printer.

Printer driver features is not something you can learn from reading the brochure, nor when you are looking the printer up on line to review pricing. Most end users and sales people ignore the awesome printer driver features and options that are included with laser printers. Thus a customer could purchase a laser printer and never be aware of the advanced printer driver features/functionality that are available, and some of these features are capable of improving business process and cutting costs.

Top Ricoh SP831DN Printer Driver Features:

1. Black Over Print: Black over print is available to enhance the quality of  text and black images  printed on colored backgrounds. Think of it this way, the color image is printed first and then the black text and graphics is printed last, thus this will prevent blurred text or haloing with the final rendering.
2. CMYK Simulation Profile: When using the Ricoh Postscript 3 driver, you can turn on US Offset Print CMYK Simulation Profile which enables a color profile that closely reproduces colors that are used with ink based commercial offset printing in the US. Even though this feature will simulate SWOP (Simulated Web Offset Printing) it is genuine SWOP an is not supported.  When I've used this feature with other print devices I've found that it gives you an additional way to reproduce or come close to the colors of your choice.

Ricoh SPC831DN Print Shop in a Box "The Reveal"

A few years ago when Ricoh introduced the Ricoh SPC811DN, I dubbed that printer as a "print shop in a box".

Funny that Xante is now using the same line with the their new color laser envelope press named IMPRESSA which happens to be OEM'd by Ricoh.  I'm guessing Xante may be ending the relationship with Okidata?  If that's the case I can see why, I've seen two placements of Xante's Illumina (Okidata engine) and both print shops abandoned the systems because they couldn't find a reliable service organization to service the product properly. Enough on Xante.

I fell in love with the first generation model which was the Ricoh C811DN and then the second gen which was the Ricoh C821DN and I'm thinking the Ricoh C831DN will be the color laser printer of choice where users need excellent quality, variety of media than can be used, reliability and backed by a powerful dealer service network.

Actually there are two models to choose from, the SPC830DN (45 page per minute print speed) and the SPC831DM (55 page per minute print speed).  To keep this simple we're going to concentrate on the specs for the Ricoh SPC831DN.

The Specs at a Glance: