office multi-function printer recommendations

[Benjamin Scott]

[aggregate reply to multiple people, multiple posts]

On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 1:55 PM, Greg Rundlett (freephile)
<greg at freephile.com> wrote:
> I'm searching for a color printer/scanner/copier/fax that works well across
> Mac, Windows and Linux, with document feeder and optional tray to accomodate
> more than 250 sheets.

  I'm searching for a perpetual motion machine.

On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 2:45 PM, Benjamin Scott <dragonhawk at gmail.com> wrote:
>  They all suck.

  To expand somewhat upon the above:

  Anything inkjet printer or MFD made within the past 8 years or so is
cheap crap that will last maybe a year or so, under light usage, if
you're lucky.  Often they're fundamentally deficient out-of-the-box.
For heavy usage, or if you have high standards, forget it.

  All the color laser MFDs I've looked at are physically huge (and
expensive) and/or suck.  Often both.

  I have been forced to come to the conclusion that you're either
buying a giant printer (or copy machine; same thing) that is way
overkill (and thus wasting money), or you're buying crap (and thus
wasting money and driving the users to distraction).

  There is apparently no market for good printers anymore.  Almost
everyone appears to shop exclusively based on initial purchase price,
and thus you can only buy cheap crap that won't last and has fiercely
expensive ink.

On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 1:55 PM, Greg Rundlett (freephile)
<greg at freephile.com> wrote:
> Duplex printing would be good.  Duty cycle doesn't
> appear to be an issue b/c our volume is only a couple thousand/month.  It
> __must__ do user accounting, and hopefully through an LDAP directory.  I've
> been using a Xerox WorkCentre 7428 which is probably overkill, and fails in
> regard to Mac 10.6 and linux compatibility.

  See my review of the Xerox Phaser 6280 DN, posted in a separate message.

> It looks like Samsung makes a decent line e.g.

  In my research, I found a lot of online complaints about robustness
for the Samsung stuff.  Looking at their in-store displays, I can see
that being plausible.  They are very compact, meaning higher
complexity and thinner pars.  But no hands-on experience, so take this
with a large grain of salt.

On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 3:32 PM, Tom Buskey <tom at buskey.name> wrote:
> It's hard to get a networked printer to deny connections:
>    cat file.ps | nc -v printer 9100
> goes around the print server to the jetdirect port for example.

  Most printers I've seen these days, including the Xerox mentioned
above and many of the HP gizmos, offer access control based on IP
address.  (Note: I haven't tested this on any of them.)  So route all
your printing through a print server, and set the printer to reject
anything not from the server IP address.

On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 4:15 PM, Tom Buskey <tom at buskey.name> wrote:
> Back in '92 with our new Internet connection, we added a print queue to the
> NH systems that would print to a system in the UK.

  Now your WAN problems are also printer problems!  ;-)  (I kid, I kid.)

On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 4:12 PM, Greg Rundlett (freephile)
<greg at freephile.com> wrote:
>> If you are buying an MFD from an Office equipment dealer, make sure that
>> they have a history of working with CUPS, Linux, Unix, Mac. Then you can
>> make it their responsibility to get you set up.
>
> That's what I thought too, except in practice I got the opposite of what I
> expected and even asked for.  Now that the lease is signed, I can't do much
> except bring new business elsewhere.

  Did you get your desired functionality specified as a term of the
lease *in writing*?  If so, then you have grounds to terminate.  If
not, that's what you needed to do.

  "A verbal agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on."

  "How can you tell if a salesman is lying?  His lips move."

  I can't emphasize enough the need to carefully review the terms of
sale, and get everything in writing.  Simply ignore anything not in
writing.

  Also: Many office machine vendors offer the option to rent machines.
 That can be a great way to try out a machine without committing to a
lease or sale.  Rent one for a month or two to see how it flies under
*your* usage.

-- Ben