Before you buy a Xerox ColorQube…read this!
June 30, 2010I recently received a document from Konica Minolta that reviewed the Xerox ColorQube and I was alarmed by some of what I read. Now I am sure that you would not expect KM to say nice things about the Xerox ColorQube (or is it ColorCube)? But what impressed me is they simply quoted two independent reports. These 2 separate reports were compiled, the one by BLI and the other by SpencerLab. It was reported that Xerox actually paid for the report by SpencerLab.
You should consider the following shortcomings (listed in these two reports) before you sign the Delivery & Acceptance:
The amount of stair stepping in diagonal lines was greater than competitive models in copy mode.
Black Text in Standard Mode was rated at a lower quality and density when compared to like models.
Black Lines were fuzzy and broken in Standard mode and Fast color mode, these lines appeared broken resulting in a loss of detail.
Solid black tints in standard and fast color mode exhibited streaking.
Images printed in standard or fast color mode exhibited graininess.
(the above statements add up to poor image quality for your companies documents)
The Xerox ColorQube slows down considerably when it detects an image quality problem.
Users have to empty the ink that is collected in the Waste tray
This report even said that the Xerox ColorQube 9203 fails to offer PC Faxing (can this be right????).
The good news is Xerox offers 3 different warm up modes…
…the bad news is they are slow, slower, and slowest.
- Sleep Mode = 3 minutes & 30 Seconds
- Standby Mode = 4 minutes & 5 Seconds
- Power Off Mode = 18 Minutes & 16 Seconds (in most offices this would cause an armed revolt)
So it is unlikely your office will be powering this down, so much for the companies green initiatives.
Additional Short comings that the report revealed about the Xerox Color Qube that may drive your end users or your IT staff crazy:
Users are not able to send to multiple types of destinations when they scan a document (This is a major step backwards, to not be able to in one scan send the document to an email, fax, and shared network folder).
Only One LDAP Server can be set up to access destinations.
End users can not save an LDAP search to the address book. Which wouldn’t be so bad if they could easily add an address, but according to this report an Admin has to create a .csv file and import that file into the ColorQube to update the address book (say it ain’t so).
The print driver does not offer an easy way of selecting a paper draw. (seriously?)
The Color Qube 9203 can only achieve its fastest speed in Fast Color Mode (which has poor quality) and only with the Postscript driver, which according to this report outputs an error when it is used for Booklet mode (sounds like it is not ready for prime time).
On top of all of this the report said that the Xerox ColorQube is priced higher than the average models that are comparably equipped!!! Wow…what’s not to love ;-\
Seriously folks this solid Ink technology which Xerox is presenting as advanced, was first introduced in 1986 by Tektronix which Xerox acquired when they bought Tektronix. Don’t be blinded by all the Xerox Hype, ask for an in house demo (They will NOT want to give you one), test it with your own company documents, and in your own environment.
Look closely at the quality of your companies documents (text, images and line art).
Feel the documents (waxy), try to write on them with a ball point pen, fold them, leave them in a pile on your cars dashboard on a hot summer day and see if they stick together. Feed them back through your MFDs document feeder and see how they fair on the 2nd, 3rd, or 10th time. Will they hold up over time?
Then ask your end users for their honest feed back after they have copied, printed, and scanned, & faxed and see what they say before you spend more to get less.
That’s my $0.02
Vince McHugh
vince.mchugh@necs.biz
WWW.NECS.BIZ
Hi there… for once I agree with most of what you say. Xerox pushes this as “green”, because there are no toner bottles… but between the waste and the fact that it uses so much electricity to heat the wax, it’s not very green at all.
One thing regarding the waste tray. The waste hardens in the tray, like melted wax hardens… so there is no real worry from pillage on the rug.
That said… it is still waste and still essentially toner/ink that you pay for but can’t use; and there is a lot of it.
Jim,
Thanks for the clarification on the waste tray!
I just wanted to way in on the Qube or Cube or whatever…
If you find someone trying to sell this into any type of graphic arts application you should slaughter them – and right fully so.
Regarding the rest of the info I won’t detail out what is correct or incorrect I’ll just caution you that the machine is dead reliable and rock solid – Xerox will drop this of for trial in a heartbeat.
In the appropriate situation it’s hard to beat a machine with no fuser, drums, toner cartridges, or disposable waist containers.
Call that my $0.01
I commented on the original post trying to find ‘the catch’ on cost savings etc… surrounding the ColorQube.
I agree with you Joel – we have sold numerous units now and in the year that has passed have had one service call placed for one device and that’s all – they are a solid reliable box when sold into the correct environment.
As for the shortcomings mentioned – i would advise anyone to investigate further for themselves to find out the facts. A machine with no consumables that diagnoses & fixes print quality issues on it’s own – I am yet to find any frustrated IT guys and would dearly like to know why you would want to add a searched address to a local address book on the machine, when the whole point of LDAP lookups is to dynamicaly search a client network for a user without the need to manually add any addresses to the device?
Fax to PC is available as standard. (Post launch)
Scan to multiple destinations is also standard and I would far rather empty a waste wax tray (its cold and solid) than a waste toner bottle.
Oh and the technology behind the front is a far cry from the original Tektronix Phasers of 80′s – thats the same as stating that a brand new Canon box that has a laser in it is the same as the original digital devices – ooh Canon GP55 – I remember them well… or even better the NP4835..
Sorry I’m getting too techy now – I’ll go…
Guys,
Thanks for the feedback, especially setting the record straight on Fax to PC is available as standard. (Post launch). I could not believe that Xerox would not have this feature.
As for the rest of the statements they didn’t come from me, they were from two independent sources (BLI & SpencerLabs, one of which Xerox paid for).
We have the 9203 in house which has had a few ups and downs but overall it seems to be very soild. We do use it for alot of graphical marketing material. I agree that you can get a better image form some other units but the cost savings for this unit is in the variable billing based on color usage. None of the other copiers can compete. This unit saved us $35,000 in outsourced printing materails which we use to have done at the printers or through a 3rd party. I have had alot of issues with our unit which is not very common based on what I hear from other owners. It could be the fact we are not a standard location. We are out in Rural enviroment at a crush plant where there is freaquent power issues and dust. Its more the power issues that are out problems with the lengthly downtimes/startups. As to the paper sticking after being in the sun it does not. there are some false statements made above which may have been based on the first firmware releases.
I have a xerox colorqube. With its intelligent ready mode, I never wait for a print, but it goes into low power mode over night. Toner based copies waste their toner too… Ever heard of a “waste toner bottle”. They all have them. I write on our printed pages all the time, with a ball point pen. Its never been an issue. When solid ink came out in 1986 there were problems with the heat factors, the folding, the melting, and the writing. However this new ink doesn’t have any of those same problems. I can say that from experience. Further, if you were to print any dry-toner page on “draft” the quality would be greatly reduced. In “fast color” the xerox produces the same expected result. If you want wickedly awesome looking pages, then use the a better setting. If you’re printing for in-office memos and don’t care about the resolution, fast color is e way to go. We have our PS print drivers defau
Ted to fast color and they look just fine.
Sadly my experience has told me that the people who complain like the above article does, usually do so out of sheer ignorance. You may want to actually try the device before you buy. We had an in house test of three weeks. We experienced no downtime and have 15 staff that are exceptionally happy.
We have the Xerox color qube and we have had nothing but problems. We have the booklet finisher and its been down for over 2 months.