Factors to Consider When Buying an Office Multi-Function Printer
Before we get into the whys and wherefores of the Xerox AltaLink C8230, let’s take a quick review of what you should think about when you are considering buying a Multi-Function Printer. Do you think about the brand name, how fast it is, the DPI, purchase price? They are all good questions to consider, but the answers won’t help you purchase the right machine and secure the best printer deal for your business.
This article will answer those questions, it will also help you to understand the relevance of these questions and other factors that you may not have taken into account. There is a lot of technical and feature information available on printers and copiers, but it’s mostly manufacturers reeling off marketing patter.
Scriptum are changing that and providing buyers with the information they need to make decisions. We reveal the prices of machines, and we’ll tell you why things like print speed and DPI aren’t good indicators of machine performance. We tell you all the things you MUST consider when buying an A3 Multi-Function Printer for your Office. We give you the purchase and rental prices of Xerox Multi-Function Printers, but more importantly, we give you the Total Cost of Ownership – TCO. TCO is probably the single most important factor to consider when buying a printer.
Why is the total cost of ownership important when buying a printer? Surely if you negotiate a great deal on the price of the printer, that’s the big battle won, brownie points collected. Unfortunately, it is the trap that printer manufacturers and suppliers hope you will fall into.
Purchase Price of an Entry Level A3 Multi-Function Printer – versus the total cost of ownership – TCO
Let’s say you buy a base model of the Xerox VersaLink A3 MFP range, the C7120 A3. This is a great entry-level A3 Multi-Function printer online for a nice low price of £1,729.00 – that’s a great deal, right? You can buy a VersaLink C7120 from us HERE
Don’t get too excited, it might not be such a great deal when you factor in the toner and consumable cost for this VersaLink A3 Multi-Function Printer.
Now you’ve bought the printer you must feed it. They’re hungry things printers, they eat copious amounts of toner, they are quite partial to a drum every now and then. Fusers are an occasional treat and don’t forget you’ll need a toner collector for all that waste toner.
A full set of CMYK toner cartridges will typically last around 33,000 pages and cost around £800 online. Let’s say you print only 100,000 pages over the life of the machine, that’s going to cost you £2,400. Add the cost of drums and other items you’ll need to buy (circa £1,300) and the total rises to £3,700.00.
Service costs for an A3 Multi-Function Printer
What happens if you need an engineer to visit? It’s unlikely that your printer is going to print 100,000 pages without needing a service inspection. A typical Engineer call-out fee will start from £150. Then you have to factor in additional parts needed, and possibly a return visit.
TCO – total cost of ownership of an A3 Multi-Function Printer
So that “cheap” £1,500 printer is going to cost you a total of £5,429.00 over its lifespan, which equates to a total running cost per print of £0.05195 per print or 5.195p, without adding in the cost of any Service or repairs should it go wrong!
Full Service and Maintenance Agreement for an A3 Multi-Function Printer
Full Service and Maintenance Agreements are usually based on a cost per copy/print and referred to as CPC or CPP. There are meters on Multi-Function Printers, and the meter records how many colour/mono pages you print. You will pay a small amount for each colour and mono print, and the supplier will send you an invoice monthly or quarterly.
Customers often tell us that they are reluctant to enter into a cost per print maintenance agreement, usually for one or more of the following reasons;
1) They have had a bad experience with a previous supplier that ended up costing a fortune and was an embarrassing decision for the buyer and the business. They were unable to exit the agreement without paying a hefty penalty.
2) Customers tell us that they don’t like the idea of being in a contract.
3) Customers don’t want to pay a fee based on the meter reading of the machine; it seems as though it’s a lot of money for little in return.
4) Customers are unsure how much they will use the printer, so they just want to buy it outright and then buy consumables when they need them.
Scriptum Hybrid Plan
Speak with us, we offer a Hybrid plan that doesn’t require you to sign up for a maintenance contract but allows you to get free service and helpdesk support when you need it. Our Hybrid Plan also guarantees that you can always buy consumables cheaper than you can on a DIY basis. Our Hybrid Plan is the most cost-effective and relaxed way to run a Multi-Function Printer if points 1-4 above apply to you.
Basic specifications of the Xerox AltaLink C8230
Let’s get down to the nitty gritty of the specifications, features, and performance of the Xerox AltaLink C8230. Then you can consider if this is the right machine for your business.
To help you get a sense of print speed, volume, resolution, and cost for the AltaLink C8230, below are some general statistics and facts about it:
• Print Speed: Up to 30 pages per minute (ppm) in both colour and black-and-white
• Monthly Duty Cycle: Up to 110,000 pages per month (this is a pointless number provided by the manufacturer!!)
• Recommended Monthly Print Volume: Up to 12,000 pages (this is the number you need to focus on)
• Print Resolution: 1200 x 2400 dpi (dots per inch). Purely looking at DPI doesn’t determine that one machine is better than another with a lower DPI – there’s a whole lot more science to it.
• Copy Resolution: 600 x 600 dpi
• First-Print-Out-Time: 5.70 seconds/color and 4.20 seconds black-and-white (this number is as important, if not more important than the print speed)
• First-Copy-Out-Time: 6.10 seconds/color and 4.50 seconds black-and-white
• Base Model Dimensions: W:620MM D:725MM H:1,130MM
• Base Model Weight: 143.1KG
• Cost: The AltaLink C8230 price is around £3,500
Key Features and Functions of the Xerox AltaLink C8230
Let’s examine some of the main capabilities offered by the AltaLink C8230 multifunction (MFP) printer now:
Touchscreen User Experience and App Store – You will execute printing chores quickly and easily with the help of the 10.1-inch colour touchscreen that resembles a tablet on the Xerox AltaLink C8230.
Have you ever been frustrated when using a Multi-Function Printer at how slow the screen is to respond to your input? Fear not, the AltaLink C8230 has an AMD® GX-424CC processor, it’s 2.4 GHz, Quad-Core, 2M cache. That’s a lot of jargon, but what it means is the AltaLink C8230 operates at lightning speed.
Print from any device
How frustrating is it when someone brings in their own device (BYOD), mobile phone, Chromebook book etc., and you can’t print from it. Xerox has got you covered. Even without connecting to the machine, you can still print, just email your document to Print@printbyxerox.com – open the @Printbyxerox app on the device and print your document. It’s free, it’s safe, it’s secure, it’s fast. Documents are held in Xerox’s secure, encrypted cloud storage and deleted after being printed.
Security for printers
A high security strategy is built into the AltaLink C8230 to assist in preventing, detecting, and defending against cyberattacks at all points of vulnerability.
These are outlined by Xerox as follows:
• Data transmission and network infiltration
• Safeguarding against unauthorised access
• Secure overwriting and strict data encryption.
A thorough Firmware Verification test is one of the security measures, and Xerox has partnered with McAfee and Cisco to improve security further. These agreements include McAfee’s Whitelisting technology and Cisco’s Identity Services Engine (ISE).
Before making a purchasing decision, it’s vital to educate yourself about the security measures that businesses are taking in today’s technologically advanced world, where cybercrime is now a multi-billion-dollar business, and often performed on an industrial scale by rogue nations. Read our blog post about Xerox’s approach to cybersecurity and why it matters to discover more about the company’s security procedures.
A smart proximity sensor and multi-destination scanning are two other distinctive features of AltaLink devices that are absent from Xerox’s other equipment. To find out more, read our blog post on the Xerox AltaLink family.
Xerox AltaLink C8230 Upgrades and Accessories
To upgrade and modify your machine to best suit your business needs, let’s look at some of the standard accessories and various configuration and finishing options available:
Xerox AltaLink Multi-Function Printer Accessories;
Unlike many brands, the Xerox AltaLink C8230 comes pre-equipped with a wide range of features and hardware that other manufacturers charge extra for.
• Automatic Single-Pass Duplex Document Feeder (SPDF aka DADF)
• Four Adjustable paper Trays that hold 520 sheets each
• Bypass Tray (Holds up to 100 sheets)
• PostScript – Genuine Adobe PostScript as standard
Xerox AltaLink accessories
Let’s examine some of the extra accessories you might ask to be added to your machine when you buy it:
The most requested upgrade we get asked for on a Xerox AltaLink is Wireless Printing. There is now a new kit for the AltaLink C8200 series that offers Wi-Fi 802.11ac with 2.4 GHz and 5 GHZ support, plus Wi-Fi Direct.
The kit also includes Bluetooth® for iBeacon and AirPrint Discovery for IOS. You can buy an AltaLink C82XX Series WiFi kit from Scriptum HERE.
• Envelope Kit (Replaces the first tray and provides feeding of up to 60 envelopes)
• High-Capacity Feeder (Holds 3,000 sheets of letter/A4 paper, increasing maximum paper capacity to 6,140 sheets)
• Long Sheet Feed Kit (Can print banners up to 320 x 1,320 mm)
AltaLink options for stapling and booklet making
• Office Finisher
• Business Ready Finisher
• C-Fold/Z-Fold Unit
• BR Booklet Maker Finisher (creates 64-page saddle-stitched booklets—2-to 16 sheets)
• Integrated Office Finisher (Provides 500-sheet stacking and 50-sheet, 2-position stapling.
• Convenience Stapler (Staples up to 50 sheets of 20 lb. / 75 GSM)
Check out the image below, provided by Xerox, to see how the AltaLink C8230 might look when configured with a range of upgrades: This one has the BR Booklet Maker with CZ Folder, Higher Capacity Paper Trays holding 3,140 Sheets, 3,000 Sheet High Capacity Side Feeder, Convenience Stapler.
The Xerox AltaLink C8230 is an ideal A3 multi-function printer and offers many benefits, so let’s examine two of the AltaLink C8230’s primary advantages:
1. It’s a One-Stop digital on ramp from your analogue world
The AltaLink C8230 is a superb A3 printer, but not only that, it’s a multifunction device, so you get a machine that acts as a scanner, fax (optional), copier, and most importantly, is your digital “on-ramp” to convert your paper documents into your digital office environment.
2. Solution for mid-volume users
The AltaLink C8230 is designed to function as the central printing solution for your office and is ideal for teams and work groups of up to around 25 users. The monthly volume of 12,000 pages is the maximum amount we recommend that you print on a consistent basis.
If you keep within the suggested monthly print volume, you can anticipate the printer will last for a considerable amount of time, making the most of your investment. The Recommended Monthly Print Volume is very important since continuously operating the machine over the amount that is advised can lead to additional maintenance concerns and a shorter lifespan.
Important things to consider why the Xerox AltaLink C8230 may not be a good fit for you.
1. The size of the AltaLink C8230
The AltaLink C8230’s size and requirement for a location large enough to handle it are possibly its main drawbacks. The AltaLink C8230 measures 620MM Wide, 725MM Deep and 1,130MM High. It’s heavy too, at almost 150KG. It’s not the sort of printer that we recommend an end user should carry up a flight of stairs. That’s why you should choose our Advanced Installation Service.
2. Wireless or Wired?
The AltaLink C8230 does have a wireless option.
The distance of the wireless router from the printer in most offices is usually far greater than that in a home environment. If your wireless router is more than 10 feet away from your Multi-Function printer, your chances of a successful implementation are severely impacted.
Additional factors to take into consideration in an office environment: there will usually be multiple users, they will have a much higher volume of printing, the file size and complexity of their documents are likely to be greater, and there will be times when users are simultaneously printing and scanning.
We recommend that you have your Multi-Function Printer hard-wired to your router or network using an Ethernet cable.
Cost of Xerox AltaLink C8230
The base price of the AltaLink C8230 is currently around £3,500. This excludes any optional upgrades, warranties, or maintenance programmes that you might want to add when you buy your equipment.
Instead of buying your printer outright, you have the choice to lease one. The overall cost of the printer is divided into more manageable monthly payments when leased, and you can expect to pay around £81.00 per month for an AltaLink C8230
Who Would Benefit from the Xerox AltaLink C8230?
• You require a machine that is durable, long-lasting, and reliable.
• Medium- to large-sized companies that require a complete, high-volume (up to 12,000 pages per month), multi-function colour copying, colour scanning, and colour printing solution.
• Those searching for a printer with cutting-edge technological capabilities that can integrate with their sector-specific software. We can build a workflow app for most requirements, such as Manufacturing, Finance, Law, Architecture, and Design.
If you have a sector-specific requirement, speak with one of our friendly advisors today.
To see how the AltaLink C8230 stacks up against a multifunction printer from a different manufacturer, read our blog comparison between the C8230 and the Canon DX C5840i.
What Other Models are in the Xerox AltaLink C8200 range?
There are five printers in the AltaLink C8200 Series, including the C8230 model. The other four printers are the C8235, C8245, C8255, and C8270 models.
They all have the same fundamental technological components, they all perform functions in the same way, but the main differences are the print speeds. The Xerox AltaLink C8230 prints at 30 Pages per minute, whereas the Xerox AltaLink C8270 prints twice as fast at 70 pages per minute. The faster print speed also means that the machine can handle a greater print volume and support a larger number of users.
The models in the AltaLink C82XX series are;
AltaLink C8230 – 30 ppm (pages per minute)
AltaLink C8235 – 35 ppm
AltaLink C8245 – 45 ppm
AltaLink C8255 – 55 ppm
AltaLink C8270 – 70 ppm
The average monthly print volume also increases in steps according to the machine speed.
Are you considering buying or renting the Xerox AltaLink C8230?
For medium- to large-sized workgroups looking for an all-in-one device with colour printing capabilities and cutting-edge technological features, the AltaLink C8230 is a top multifunction printer solution.
Scriptum is a long-standing UK-based Multi-Function Printer supplier and Managed Services Provider. We have a solid understanding of the A3 Multi-Function Printer market and are able to provide you with an in-depth assessment of models available and recommend the right machine for your business.
We can provide machines with or without service, and we even offer a unique no minimum commitment Hybrid Plan.
We offer outright purchase, rental, deferred payment plans, along with standard credit facilities for Limited Companies.
Call us today on; 0800 011 2858 or email interface@scriptumds.co.uk
