Fuji-Xerox WorkCentre PE220 -- Worth it?

[Phred]

G'day mates,

I'm looking for a reasonable laser copier/printer, with emphasis on
the copier side of things at the moment. In fact, I could be
persuaded to go for a simple stand-alone copier for the time being at
least. Be that as it may, and returning to the combo function...

The Fuji-Xerox PE220 looks like it might be the bee's knees from the
price here in Oz at the moment and the specs (such as I've been able
to find details on them, which isn't comprehensive).

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a reliable review of the
beast. Most of the "reviews" turned up by Google are nothing more
than a regurgitation of FX's PR blurb on the machine. The only
independent comment I found was from a Mac user who was peeved that
the thing didn't really live up to its promise to work with Macs.
(IIRC is was the scanner side of the unit that caused him angst.)
But problems from the POV of Mac owners are not relevant to me as I'm
a happy PC owner.

So, question is, would anyone out there with practical experience
using the PE220 be prepared to share their comments on its performance
with the rest of us, please? I'm especially interested in output
quality, reliability (i.e. paper jams and similar misfortunes) and
cost of operation. (My email addy works [given obvious editing]
should you prefer to reply personally rather than broadcast your views
to the world at large.)

Thanks for reading and TIA for any advice offered.

Cheers, Phred.

 

[sputnik]

Phred,

I have a PE220 and I use a Mac with OSX so your mileage may be
different.

I have had the unit for a bit over a week now.

Observations:

Print quality - exceptional. If you've been living with the mushy text
output of inkjets, this looks great. Colour photos are rendered in
grayscale with remarkable detail. I have been able, with some coaxing,
to run 220gm card through the manual tray.

Speed - a bit slow out of the gate on the first print but then they
come thick and fast. I don't mind this as I'd rather have a unit more
energy efficient than intermittently fast.

Scanning - good if you are planning to send the output to a device
with similar resolution. It''s obviously meant to be good enough for
its own output (600dpi) but I wouldn't use it for making high quality
scans.

Copying - See printing and scanning above.

Faxing - Good and easy to set up. I like the way it handles
distinctive ring tones and the phonebook is easy to get to.

Firmware - The internal menu functions are straight forward and its
easy to figure out how to drive it without the manual, which is good
as its only supplied on CD (Yay! no usless paper!)

Software - From the manual it looks as if the Windows software for
both scanning and printing has more features than the Mac (Unix)
software, but in reality the functionality has just been displaced
from the controlling application to the Windows print manager, in my
opinion the kind of typically Microsoft dopeyness that helps drive me
to use a Mac - I don't want imaging controls in my print drivers thank
you very much. If one does want that sort of thing there are often
third party driver additions that can add that sort of thing.

Hardware - The thing is remarkably easy to set up and the cartridge
design is great - hold it by the handle, slide it in until it seats,
close the door and go! If the door won't close, it's not in
correctly. If that doesn't clue you up the display will tell you as
well when you try to print. The thing has yet to mis-feed or paper jam
(unlike just about every inkjet I have ever owned) and I like that it
will grab a page from the manual feed tray if there's one there. It's
quiet and seems to use very little power when in Power Save Mode -
essential if you are leaving it on 24/7 to catch faxes.

Cost - I got the machine (in New Zealand) about half price as the
supplier was overstocked. I haven't had it long enough yet to know
how much it costs to run but I'm sure it will be cheaper than the
Brother inkjet multifunction POS I replaced. At least if you don't use
it much the laser printer doesn't waste ink cleaning itself all the
time like a cat with OCS. The replacement cartridge in New Zealand is
about $100 wholesale which is supposed to do 3000 pages at 5% making
it pretty competitive price per page.

All in all I'm happy with it so far. If it lasts longer than my
previous Brother inkjet trash (3 years and two print heads, I stopped
at the third one that they wanted me to pay for), which I suspect it
will, I'll be a happy camper.

Hope this is of some help as I am avoiding what I should be doing by
writing this!

Hyram

 

[Phred]

G'day mate,

Thank you *very* much for this review. What you say pretty much fits
with my expectation from the advertising blurb, and with my experience
with the more up-market business models from F-X; so it's good to have
that confirmed from a user! The price here in Oz at the moment seems
to be around AUD400 (after cashing in the $100 cash-back offer). I'm
close to deciding to buy one next week when down in the nearest big
smoke. At the very worst, it's *got* to be way in front of my defunct
6L Pro which set me back around AUD600 a few years ago!

About the only downside from my POV is that it means also paying for a
fax capability that I don't need or want. But that seems to be par
for the course for all these MFCs as sold in Oz. I guess our market
is not big enough to support the addition of the plain vanilla models
available in the States. :-(

I'm glad to hear you're happy with it to use with a Mac. As I said
earlier, the only user review I'd seen before yours was from some poor
sod who couldn't get the scanner function to work with his Mac!

I have a PE220 and I use a Mac with OSX so your mileage may be
different.

I have had the unit for a bit over a week now. Observations:

Print quality - exceptional. If you've been living with the mushy text
output of inkjets, this looks great. Colour photos are rendered in
grayscale with remarkable detail. I have been able, with some coaxing,
to run 220gm card through the manual tray.

Speed - a bit slow out of the gate on the first print but then they
come thick and fast. I don't mind this as I'd rather have a unit more
energy efficient than intermittently fast.

Scanning - good if you are planning to send the output to a device
with similar resolution. It''s obviously meant to be good enough for
its own output (600dpi) but I wouldn't use it for making high quality
scans.

Copying - See printing and scanning above.

Faxing - Good and easy to set up. I like the way it handles
distinctive ring tones and the phonebook is easy to get to.

Firmware - The internal menu functions are straight forward and its
easy to figure out how to drive it without the manual, which is good
as its only supplied on CD (Yay! no usless paper!)

Software - From the manual it looks as if the Windows software for
both scanning and printing has more features than the Mac (Unix)
software, but in reality the functionality has just been displaced
from the controlling application to the Windows print manager, in my
opinion the kind of typically Microsoft dopeyness that helps drive me
to use a Mac - I don't want imaging controls in my print drivers thank
you very much. If one does want that sort of thing there are often
third party driver additions that can add that sort of thing.

Hardware - The thing is remarkably easy to set up and the cartridge
design is great - hold it by the handle, slide it in until it seats,
close the door and go! If the door won't close, it's not in
correctly. If that doesn't clue you up the display will tell you as
well when you try to print. The thing has yet to mis-feed or paper jam
(unlike just about every inkjet I have ever owned) and I like that it
will grab a page from the manual feed tray if there's one there. It's
quiet and seems to use very little power when in Power Save Mode -
essential if you are leaving it on 24/7 to catch faxes.

Cost - I got the machine (in New Zealand) about half price as the
supplier was overstocked. I haven't had it long enough yet to know
how much it costs to run but I'm sure it will be cheaper than the
Brother inkjet multifunction POS I replaced. At least if you don't use
it much the laser printer doesn't waste ink cleaning itself all the
time like a cat with OCS. The replacement cartridge in New Zealand is
about $100 wholesale which is supposed to do 3000 pages at 5% making
it pretty competitive price per page.

All in all I'm happy with it so far. If it lasts longer than my
previous Brother inkjet trash (3 years and two print heads, I stopped
at the third one that they wanted me to pay for), which I suspect it
will, I'll be a happy camper.

Hope this is of some help as I am avoiding what I should be doing by
writing this!

Hope you managed to get done what you had to do!

Cheers, Phred.