Lowest Cost, Highest Quality, Lowest Maint., Highest Speed/Volume Machine (cut sheet)

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

I've seen some partial discussion in other posts but nothing that asked this question directly. Which make and model machine would you say has the overall best quality, lowest cost per copy, lowest maintenance cost, and highest speed and volume? Feel free to list for b/w and full color.

Assume:
the highest possible volumes for cut sheet production printing/copying
the fastest speed machines
b/w cpc of .005 or less
full color cpc of .06 or less
can be current or models of yesteryear.

If you feel the price of machine is relevant include it.

Thanks.

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

I'll go first

I'll go first.

For b/w, I can get the IR 600 at .002 for a cpc as well as a lexmark e330 (not high volume at all) when doing drum rebuilds and toner refills. I know there's cheaper out there, but with a machine cost for the IR 600 at about $500 or less there's very little initial investment. Even the IR 105 and IR 110 have a higher initial investment for the machine.

I have known commercial printers to say that Xerox will offer them deals at .004 or .002 (first 200k/month) and this is for 11x17 so .001 per letter image. I can't compete with that with my NEC/Konica Minolta/Kyocera offerings.

For full color believe it or not I have these ancient HP Color Laserjet 4500/4550 machines that are old enough where a full color print is about .002 again low volume though. I can get some Konica Minoltas down to .04 full color.