Choosing the right digital printer for your needs
So, you’re either in the digital printing industry, or you’re looking to dip your toe in. Questions you may be asking yourself:
This blog has been inspired by an enquiry we received from an offline finishing company, already producing the final product for anything designed/printed/bound.
Given their customer base, they quite rightly felt there could be an opportunity for them to start printing off and producing short run digital work.
Given many of their customers are in fact digital printers producing work all day long, they initially enquired about our Xerox range, entry level reprographic printers, designed to do much of what any digital printer would demand, but not in the millions of pages every month.
The Xerox Colour 550 range
Now, despite being entry level, the Xerox range of Color 550 we supply with maintenance, is a very capable machine with multiple Fiery options; more than enough inline finishing options to cater for most people’s digital printing needs.
After running through the specs of the Xerox at reasonable length, the company was ready to progress to the next stage and place an order. Great!
Would the Xerox be a good fit for purpose?
It was only after further running their typical expected print runs we discovered they would be putting 240gsm media through the device, double sided. These were not business cards, which as you would expect, would be somewhat thicker than 240gsm, and anyhow, these would be printed manually on either side with accurate registration setup for perfect front to back printing.
So while digging a little, it had become apparent the Xerox, with all its bells and whistles, was not going to be fit for purpose.
Xerox Color 550 Range 
Olivetti Color MF304
The Olivetti MF304 as an option
So, a little dejected and few long faces, we had a quick look through one of the brochures for one of our non-reprographic office printers, the Olivetti MF304 with booklet finisher.
Pricing wise, the Olivetti MF 304 came in under the Xerox anyway, and with a lower toner melting point, the ‘newbies’ in the digital print industry have far less to worry about when matching different media types, with the correct temperature requirement to bond the toner to the media properly.
A versatile and effective choice
Side by side, there is little difference in the colour quality in terms of solids either produces when looked at side by side, and with SRA3 capability as standard, the mill ‘office printer’ proves it can, and will be a versatile and effective entry level Digital Printer!
Dear “said” customer, welcome on board!
From the team at CSR Digital.
#csrdigital
