which brand gets Rolls Royce status at the moment

[BLADE]

its interesting viewing the faults on the various brands on this sight, lots of errors and jams over at canon I see

[mrwho]

Re: which brand gets Rolls Royce status at the moment

I doubt there's a brand that fits the bill on every segment - I personally like Ricoh on some segments and Konica Minolta on others, but I don't know every brand out there.

[mo0651]

Re: which brand gets Rolls Royce status at the moment

I think everyone has a series that is a good solid workhorse! So give it a year and some engineer will screw it UP!

[BLADE]

Re: which brand gets Rolls Royce status at the moment

I thought it might be possible to measure the activity on the different brand forums, divide that by the market share and end up with a current RR factor, just in case a brand with a good rep was actually producing crap or a brand might have a bad rep and was now delivering the good stuff. nah bugger it, move on

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

Re: which brand gets Rolls Royce status at the moment

Well now, you pose an interesting question. Are we talking Rolls Royce as it is today or pre Volkswagon/BMW era? To an avid Rolls Royce/Bentley enthusiast this would be a critical question.

This can answered a couple of different ways depending on what Rolls Royce/Bentley meant to you or means to you now.

If RR/B means best car in the world as some would argue then in terms of copiers, the award would be tossed back and forth to different manufacturers at different time points and predictably will continue to do so.

If you look at the more modern RR/B and go with a delicately put "racial/racist view" then no one gets the status as I've never seen a pimped out copier yet.

Now if you take my view, which is gathered from hearing stories from my buddy who has a Bentley...and although he loves it...it is a money pit. Quite frankly RR/B aren't cheap, but they aren't reliable either, and they survive more on a psychological hysteria wherein people believe them to be this awesome thing that they are not. Simply put, Toyota, Honda, Lexus, Acura...are 1000 times better and more reliable than RR/B. Sure RR/B have more horsepower, more customization (which is really what they're known for) and supposedly offer a 100 years parts availability for their vehicles. I've heard some models cost about $25,000 US to change brakes and rotors. Ridiculious...

So using the third viewpoint, I don't think any copier brand really has the loyalty behind it and I think that sentiment too shifts over the years. As far as parts availability it seems 7-10 years is the norm so no award there. If I could handpick some segments (positive view) to get RR/B award, that would be docutech/docuprint, digimaster, varioprint, hercules series, and falcon series. All brands win the award for being too expensive at both the dealer cost and the consumer cost levels. All brands win the award for having machines that aren't reliable and cost too much to repair at one point or another in their copier making history.

So all brands and none get the award.

[mjarbar]

Re: which brand gets Rolls Royce status at the moment

Perhaps a better question to ask would be:

"If a bunch of copier engineers were to design and build the perfect copier, what parts of the different brands and platforms out there would we use?"

Start criteria would be:

1. Colour
2. 35-45 ppm
3. Scan/Print/Fax (what drivers/UI's do you think best)
4. Doc feed
5. Duplex

Once we have that sorted, the brand that comes up with the most 'items' on the machine could be regarded as the RR of the copier world.

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

Re: which brand gets Rolls Royce status at the moment

Well I think the best copier would be something along my theory of a brain modification. Why do we even copy or print anything? We do it to distribute data, either text or image, b/w or color, to other people and for archival and retrieval.

So here's the theory. Let's say at work I need to distribute a memo or message of some kind. Years ago it was all paper. The memo was typed, copied, and put in everybody's mailbox. This is still the case in many places. With the advancement of computers now we can just email the memo as an attachment or put the information directly in the email. Or, we could have a shared location on a server and everybody refers to the information there.

That's the past and present...

...Here's the future...

...Our brains are modified to be able to send and receive information and access an infinitely vast amount of data through a wireless or blue tooth like concept. Likewise, if I have a paper memo I can type it or scan it on my copier of the future and have it pass through space to someone's brain and they can "view" it in their mind and remember/store/purge it or move it to an "offsite" location.

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

Re: which brand gets Rolls Royce status at the moment

Ok, so back to earth and present day...

well anything that touches the paper, be it doc feeder or paper drawers should be air fed...that is clearly the most reliable high volume concept. many brands have or had air feed for paper drawers, xerox is the only one I know of that had air feed paper feeders.

A printing press manufacturer should be consulted since they're stuff lasts decades and does hundreds of millions albeit at a higher price.

Here's a big thing why a lot of stuff breaks...cheap parts. I'd do away with ALL plastic and go strong metal, probably steel. No more dry cracked gears. Metal pick fingers too.

Instead of rubber belts I'd go with metal chains.

How about a glass alternative that never stains, gets static, or breaks, and is coated with something like teflon for easy cleaning.

For any motor, I'd call Kitchen Aid and have them make them. Their motors run forever.

For coronas, use gold.

From what's available out there today:
IR doc feeder but add dual scan
canon or kyocera high yield drums
oce duplex concept
i've never seen a fantastic fuser personally
xerox concept of modules or cartridges on various parts (if a small component breaks let the manufacturer fix it not at the cost of the dealer)
xerox and maybe someothers concept of dual toners of same color and can change on the fly

The problem is the cost would go up on the volume machine you're talking about.

[igi]

Re: which brand gets Rolls Royce status at the moment

Well now, you pose an interesting question. Are we talking Rolls Royce as it is today or pre Volkswagon/BMW era? To an avid Rolls Royce/Bentley enthusiast this would be a critical question.

This can answered a couple of different ways depending on what Rolls Royce/Bentley meant to you or means to you now.

If RR/B means best car in the world as some would argue then in terms of copiers, the award would be tossed back and forth to different manufacturers at different time points and predictably will continue to do so.

If you look at the more modern RR/B and go with a delicately put "racial/racist view" then no one gets the status as I've never seen a pimped out copier yet.

Now if you take my view, which is gathered from hearing stories from my buddy who has a Bentley...and although he loves it...it is a money pit. Quite frankly RR/B aren't cheap, but they aren't reliable either, and they survive more on a psychological hysteria wherein people believe them to be this awesome thing that they are not. Simply put, Toyota, Honda, Lexus, Acura...are 1000 times better and more reliable than RR/B. Sure RR/B have more horsepower, more customization (which is really what they're known for) and supposedly offer a 100 years parts availability for their vehicles. I've heard some models cost about $25,000 US to change brakes and rotors. Ridiculious...

So using the third viewpoint, I don't think any copier brand really has the loyalty behind it and I think that sentiment too shifts over the years. As far as parts availability it seems 7-10 years is the norm so no award there. If I could handpick some segments (positive view) to get RR/B award, that would be docutech/docuprint, digimaster, varioprint, hercules series, and falcon series. All brands win the award for being too expensive at both the dealer cost and the consumer cost levels. All brands win the award for having machines that aren't reliable and cost too much to repair at one point or another in their copier making history.

So all brands and none get the award.

Hi
are u a politician

disguised as a copier tech?

well done

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

Re: which brand gets Rolls Royce status at the moment

Haha...no but I have been thinking about running for County Commissioner. There's a lot of corrupt ones in PA and I hear they make something like $80,000 a year here in central PA.