Where KM office grade machine stand in print quality?

[nitro912gr]

Hello, I have a c258 and while it have nice quality I'm not satisfied myself, especially since I know there is better quality out there on the production level, but I don't have the volume for production level KM machines.
Sure my retail client's will never notice those small lines that is just how the machine print, but I do.

I was wondering if there is anything at the office level that print better quality than KM office machines. I have heard Canon deliver better image quality for example. But this says nothing as they may mean more vibrant colors for example.

Do anyone here have experience with KM and other machines that could provide some info on how the competition prints?

Thank you!

[techsxge]

c258 is certainly not a bad machine. You could go with a i series machine, but for normal office purposes a c258 is realy good enough already.
You could also get a c458 or c558.
While the print quality will increase, i dont believe that you will realy be able to notice it and if your customers dont notice it today you have to ask yourself if that money would be well spend.

If you print only photos and such most of the time, you might want to look into buying a ink printer anyways. The Density an Depth of Color is higher there.

[nitro912gr]

c258 is certainly not a bad machine. You could go with a i series machine, but for normal office purposes a c258 is realy good enough already.
You could also get a c458 or c558.
While the print quality will increase, i dont believe that you will realy be able to notice it and if your customers dont notice it today you have to ask yourself if that money would be well spend.

If you print only photos and such most of the time, you might want to look into buying a ink printer anyways. The Density an Depth of Color is higher there.

actually the only time I see the quality issue is when I have a big area with the same color, if for example I print 5X5cm circle stickers with orange, then I can notice some small lines that you have to go looking for them to notice.

After some investigation with my tech guy, this is just how the machine prints and is expected behavior for this level of machine.

On photos I rarely have this color continuation so it not a problem at all.

[techsxge]

actually the only time I see the quality issue is when I have a big area with the same color, if for example I print 5X5cm circle stickers with orange, then I can notice some small lines that you have to go looking for them to notice.

After some investigation with my tech guy, this is just how the machine prints and is expected behavior for this level of machine.

On photos I rarely have this color continuation so it not a problem at all.

would it be possible to provide a example? I just did a test printout in our workshop and cant seem to find any lines on the printouts.

[tsbservice]

So basically you want to pay for Dacia and pretend it should perform like Mecedes S-class... ain't gonna happen dude

[mojorolla]

If you are printing stickers and labels, be sure to set the paper type to the proper setting at the machine and in the print drivers.
If you are printing all your jobs as paper type plain, this could be causing CQ issues.

Lines are not normal and if they cannot address those issues, you are paying for lip service, not service.
If your techs go to response is "it is what it is", probably need a new tech.

[pdy-pt]

Hello, I have a c258 and while it have nice quality I'm not satisfied myself, especially since I know there is better quality out there on the production level, but I don't have the volume for production level KM machines.
Sure my retail client's will never notice those small lines that is just how the machine print, but I do.

I was wondering if there is anything at the office level that print better quality than KM office machines. I have heard Canon deliver better image quality for example. But this says nothing as they may mean more vibrant colors for example.

Do anyone here have experience with KM and other machines that could provide some info on how the competition prints?

Thank you!

I think I know what you mean by "lines". These lines, or I would rather call it "emphasis", occur on one side of the printed shapes in the case of halftones. Unfortunately, it's actually like your service technician says - it's just how the machine prints. You can weaken this effect somewhat by switching off "Contour accentuation" in the printer driver. But unfortunately it won't disappear completely. Unfortunately, many office machines have this. This is particularly the case with Kyocera and Canon up to the C52xx series. Canon has managed the problem very well since the C55xx series. Canon's color quality has also been good since this series. Unfortunately, the consumables are somewhat overpriced. Unfortunately, Konica Minolta's image quality and color accuracy have deteriorated considerably. Although the machines are robustly built, the competition has quickly caught up or has already overtaken them. The menu navigation on the machines is also complex and no longer up to date.
The office machines from Xerox are a good compromise. With their LED print head, they have a very high resolution and print razor-sharp images. However, due to the termination of the joint venture between Fuji and Xerox, it remains to be seen whether they will be able to keep up.
Sharp has very high color accuracy (Pantone certified), but also has the problem that halftones appear slightly blurred at the corners.
Toshiba's colors are also very good (somewhat more intense/overemphasized), but the durability of the consumables is below average.


Conclusion: The statement that an office machine is equivalent to a Dacia and that it cannot perform like a Mercedes (production machine) is basically correct. However, there are also nuances here. For your purpose, I would probably go for Canon at the moment (!!) - assuming you can get the consumables at a reasonably low price.

[nitro912gr]

thank you for the replies. I will provide an image when I replace the color drums because now the image quality is bad and I want to only show you the specific quality I'm talking about. I have them ordered and probably have them by next week.

What I'm talking about is something that I have noticed when I bought the machine and replicated in 3 competitors with the same machine. If I wasn't working previously on a bizhub C5500 I may have never seen this quality difference. If I print one page completely covered in orange for example, in the C5500 I will have the same consistency across the page, with the c258 I will not. There are very light density differences, although if I give it to my mother she may never she them.

@tsbservice well I believe the analogy is more like having a golf GTi and looking at a Nissan GT-R, because you can't get that Ferrari I just don't know if that GT-R before the Ferrari exists.

[Synthohol]

office grade machines are supposed to run with limited coverage reliably.
once you start running full bleeds it cannot replenish the toner fast enough to keep up and the output changes during the run.
this is normal and expected to happen on a office class machine.
i honestly dont think the DV units on an office machine are able to properly add and mix the toner with the developer thoroughly like the production machines can before applying to the page which will make the output vary from page to page.
i have no documentation to support my theory, just decades of experience started with the cf-911 in 1998 through the current i series.

the best KM color ive seen only comes with Fiery use. standard emperon color is OK but can be improved with Fiery processing and daily calibration of both copier engine then the Fiery calibration.
just my .02c since this thread is opinion based