© 2016 by Nick B. Nicholaou, all rights reserved President, Ministry Business Services, Inc. Reprinted from MinistryTech Magazine
As a team of consultants who work on church and ministry networks nationwide, we have worked with a lot of printers. For personal and workgroup printers, HP is always the easiest to work with and the most dependable for ongoing quality. We put a couple of new HP printers to the test, and here’s what we found!
Introducing the PageWide Printer!
For a long time there has been a battle between InkJet and LaserJet computers. There’s no doubt that LaserJet printers print better quality, but many who want personal printers find it easiest to simply buy an InkJet printer from a local store. IT people dislike InkJet printers because their supplies are expensive, and because having many in a large office can be a challenge to maintain (print cartridges and drivers, especially).
HP recently introduced a new InkJet technology that may change all that! They call it PageWide because the inkjets no longer move across the page, and the result is a good quality printed page with lower maintenance costs.
We tested an HP PageWide Pro MFP 577dw, which is a workgroup quality printer. The speed was fast (70 pages per minute), the quality very good (best with paper that has the ColoLok seal on its package), and the features pleasing (print, copy, scan, fax; 6 seconds for the first page out; 1,000-6,000 page monthly duty cycle; mobile printing capable; 2-sided duplex printing; and networkable).
For the budget conscious, this is a workgroup printer worth considering! At a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of only $900 (we found them advertised by resellers for about $625), they are a good deal.
Hello Mr. LaserJet!
When printing presentation-quality pages, the LaserJet still rules. The problem perceived by many, however, is the cost of buying an enterprise-quality LaserJet printer. We tested an HP Color LaserJet Enterprise M553, whose suggested retail price is only $1200 (we found them advertised by resellers for about $925).
We found the printer fast (40 pages per minute, with a first page out speed of 6 seconds); print quality very high; 2,000-6,000 page monthly duty cycle; mobile printing capable; 2-sided duplex printing; and networkable.
What is Mobile Printing Capable?
Both of these printers have the ability to receive page prints from mobile devices. They use a few specs to accomplish it so they can work well with nearly all mobile devices: HP ePrint, Apple AirPrint, NFC Touch-to Print, and Wireless Direct Printing. We found the setup to print from our smartphones easy, and the convenience terrific! How nice to be able to print from a mobile device and get pages with the same quality as if printed from a computer!
What about Larger Copiers, Printers, & Duplicators?
In recent years many of our clients have added larger machines from Sharp, Konica Minolta, and others to drive down printing cost. There are many aspects of that kind of purchase or lease that make recommending a solution challenging, at best. There is a related recommendation I can make, however, that can significantly lower the cost of ownership for those larger solutions.
I wrote an article a few years ago about an attorney who specializes in negotiating copier lease negotiations. His name is Wade Cascini with Xippa (www.xippa.net), and he has saved a number of churches and ministries a lot of money in large equipment lease negotiations. I recently learned of a megachurch that had saved a copy of my 2011 article and just recently connected with Xippa for help. Xippa saved them 21% from the best proposal prior to their involvement! I recommend contacting them when you are negotiating a larger device than a workgroup printer.