Evaluate your colour printing needs
| Getting the right colour solution that fits in with your budget, your IT network and your business can positively impact your bottomline. Before you begin the process of selecting a new colour printer, it is important to consider the capabilities and functionality of a printer to ensure they match your business needs. To help you make an informed printer purchasing decision, we have identified some key areas for consideration: |
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Ease-of-use translates to faster user/printer interactions and greater productivity. User-friendly features and smart design can help users perform basic troubleshooting so that there is less demand on IT support. Simply put, thoughtful and innovative design translates to ease-of-use.
Useful tips:
- Simplified and intuitive control panel for easy management and self-help troubleshooting
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- No obstacles to access the paper path makes clearing paper jams a snap
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- Front-door design and all-in-one cartridges for easy cartridge replacement
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- Users and support staff only need to learn one design
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Printer speed
When evaluating speed, a printer’s listed page-per-minute speed doesn’t necessarily tell the whole performance story. Page-per-minute refers to how fast it works at maximum engine speed once it starts printing. But colour jobs are more complex and require longer processing time.
That’s why it’s important to take a closer look at processing performance when evaluating colour printers. Processing time starts from the time it takes your printer to warm up. And with some printers on the market, warm-up time can take longer than it takes to actually print.
Useful tips:
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- No warm-up time reduces waiting time and power consumption
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- Fast first-page-out shortens total print job time
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Print quality
Consider print quality enhancement technologies and supplies technology to get the best print results and value from your colour printer. These technologies are engineered to deliver better image and colour output.
Useful tips:
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- Image enhancement technologies and print innovations ensure consistently brilliant and sharp results
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- Enjoy reliable, professional-quality documents in-house with enhanced output quality
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TCO is more than just purchase price of the printer. Whether or not a colour printer is affordable goes far beyond its purchase price. As with any IT expenditure, it’s important to weigh all the factors and make sure you’re getting the highest possible return on your investment.
Colour cost management
While it’s true that colour printing is more affordable than ever, effectively managing the cost of colour is important to your bottomline. Colour access control features can help to monitor and track colour usage and cost, thus allowing more cost-effective use of colour.
Useful tips:
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- Bring the cost of colour printing down by managing colour usage in your office
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- Decide when and who should have access to colour ensures it is being used wisely
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Print management tools
Another factor to consider when selecting colour printers is how much time and resources will be spent managing them. Tools that help to easily set up, maintain, diagnose and troubleshoot printers within the network contribute to overall productivity. These tools can be used to ensure the printers work seamlessly within your network and help your IT staff manage efficiently.
Useful tips:
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- Print management tools are designed to effectively manage and solve problems before they impact user productivity
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- Productivity tools reduce help-desk calls and maintenance costs, bringing down the total cost of ownership
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Maintenance and replacement parts
Cost of replacement parts goes beyond toner cartridges — a factor that is often overlooked. Not only do these parts cost money, but they also contribute to printer downtime and impact IT resources when you have to wait for them to be replaced.
Useful tips:
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- Important printer aspects such as printing and supplies technologies, paper path design and duty-cycle should be assessed
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- Take into account the downtime to replace printing supplies or service the printer unit
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Reliability
It’s vital to consider printer reliability as printer downtime directly impacts productivity. An effective printing environment contributes to lower cost of ownership and gives your business the competitive edge.
Useful tips:
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- Printer reliability provides hassle-free operation and peace of mind
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- Proven track record in customer service and support ensures maximum printer uptime
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What constitutes total cost of ownership?
30% hardware. Costs for acquisition and hardware upgrades.
19% consumable. Costs for papers, toners, drum units and maintenance kits.
14% software. Costs for licenses, support licenses, upgrades and customisation of printing systems of print enabling software.
12% maintenance/support. Costs for maintenance contract, warranty/support and help desk.
9% end-user operation/lack of availability. Costs for training, maintenance, finishing, installation, configuration, downtime and other alternative solutions.
9% network management/Admin. Costs for network and asset management, administration, installation and configuration.
8% infrastructure. Costs for planning the deployment of hard-copy devices, physical space and upgrades.
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Printable version
