Need Help picking between Ricoh, Keyocera Copystar, and Konica Minolta

[mizzou]

We are looking at the following three copiers. The maintenance contract on all of them will be the same, so operating cost is not an issue to me. They are also all about the same price. We want to know which is the best copier as far as quality, usability , reliability, lifetime, and any other comment you may have.

Konica Minolta - NEC 45C6
Kyocera Copystar CS-4550ci
Ricoh Alicio MP C4501

Thank you very much!

[RRodgers]

What are you making copies of and what kinda paper are you going to use?

[mizzou]

We are an engineering firm, so most of what we do isn't highly graphic in nature. The prints that we do with the most graphics are mapping projects and archetectual renderings. We occationaly print photos, but that isn't very common nor is it a priority to have a photo copier.

We print on a 20 lb paper most of the time, but a 60lb paper when we are printing reports. Those are both bright white papers. We do some occational card stock printing.

Thank you very much for your help!

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

Hi. This is my opinion and I have to disclose I deal in NEC (Kyocera and Konica Minolta rebrand).

Honestly, if you're leasing and the dealer or leasing company is taking the machine after the maint. period; you'll be on pretty equal footing with either of the three machines.

If you're looking for resale value; I believe the Konica Minoltas get better prices and sell easier but the copystar and Kyocera hold value as well. Not to say you won't get a good value from the Ricoh but they have three brands of the same machine and oversaturate I think.

If you want better color quality go with the NEC/Konica Minolta. B/w should be pretty equal but Kyocera/Copystar have very nice b/w machines. Ricoh is supposed to have decent solid black printing from what I hear.

This may have little to no bearing on your dealer especially if they're independent of the manufacturer but I think Ricoh is a crappy company and some of the people I've dealt with have attitudes. NEC and Konica Minolta have some nice people but I think those companies suffer from the "too big" problem. Kyocera Mita when they were just Mita had some really personable people and after they merged some of the people were really cold and off putting.