Its OK but dont expect much (Xerox Docuprint C8)

Member Name: qasimite

Product:	Xerox Docuprint C8
Date:	30/12/02 (389 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, Separate ink cartridges, Compact

Disadvantages: Poor paper feed, No power switch, Not very high quality printing

I have been using HP printer at office for last about three years. Recently I required a printer at home too I made my choice in favour of Xerox DocuPrint C8 mainly for it being cheap and having separate ink tanks for different colours in its cartridge. Since then I have had a love-hate relationship with the device. My experience of last three months with Xerox DocuPrint C8 can be summarised in following paragraphs.

PRINTER AND CARTRIDGE
======================

* A light weight and compact printer. Has paper feeding tray on top. Printed papers will also be received at the top. A remove-able plastic sheet is used to separate the prints from blank papers. Top feed does not bother much but I always feel that paper sensor may go out of order prematurely for having the loads of paper on it all the time. Its just my feeling I suppose as I have not so far experienced any problems in this regard.

* Print cartridge uses separate 10 ml ink tanks for Black, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow (last three being basic colours used for colour printing). The advantages of these cartridges being separate will be explained later.

* There is only one button on top of printer with an LED that will be used for all purposes. This makes the things look very simple but actually tricky as flashing manner of LED will indicate different things and you will have to act accordingly by pressing button in different manners (like pressing once, pressing for a number of seconds or keep it pressed). For this purposes you have to refer again and again to printer manual during initial period at least.

* There is no power button. Therefore you will need to switch off power supply to the printer from main when you don’t need printer. This factor, I think should have not been ignored while designing.

* Printer manual is very well written and is user friendly. It has detailed instructions for installation, usage and trouble shooting.

* Insta
llation CD is included with the printer.


INSTALLATION AND FUNCTIONING
=============================

* Easy installation of software and cartridge if you follow the instructions of manual. After installation, it will automatically prime the cartridge and printer will be ready to use.

* Printing is very easy, just place papers in feed tray and give the printing command. But that’s good as far as the things remain normal. The moment LED on top starts flashing, you will need to consult manual. Different indications of problems like paper jam, out of paper or ink deficiency in cartridge will be indicated by different patterns of flash of LED. Accordingly you will have to use the top button in various manners (like keep pressed, press for less than a second or press for three seconds, etc) to get various jobs done. This wastes your time (consulting manual again and again) and makes it tricky. After all, what was the harm in having different LEDs there to indicate different functions or faults or having more buttons on top for various requirements? Things should be “made simple” than “look simple”.

* There is a serious problem with paper feed mechanism. Many a times it will load more than one page and its not just two or three pages. If you are using any kind of thin papers you may find 10 pages being loaded at the same time.

* Software does provide good help for trouble shooting by showing the status of printer and it also indicates the quantity of inks in the cartridge.

* Changing cartridges is simple too but you need it too often due to heavy consumption of ink by this printer.

* I have hardly experienced any communication problems between my computer and printer.

PRINTING QUALITY
================

* You can get your prints in three qualities draft, normal and best. Other printers too have similar options but here Xerox makes a difference. I h
ave not been finding the normal prints different from draft and best prints different from normal in case of HP printer. But here there is a visible difference in print quality for all three choices in Xerox’s case. Speed of printing also varies as per choice of quality.

* Ink dries late. This affects the quality of printing too. If you are printing some thing that has different colour areas adjacent to each other (without any gap between different colours), wet ink will mix up the colours where they join. So when you print with print settings at “Normal” you are likely to see mixed up shades. For all such prints use “Best” in print quality options. This will reduce the printing speed but will produce better prints.

* Printer is very heavy on consumption of ink especially for normal or best quality prints. Draft printing does save your ink considerably. As per my experience, there is no difference in ink usage for normal or best quality printing, though the print quality differs. Why so? Read next point for explanation.

* High or best quality printing is done very intelligently by Xerox. It prints on same line for many times every time using only a little amount of ink. This little ink will get dried before next run of cartridge over it and as a result you will get a better print. The printing speed will therefore be very slow. Almost same amount of ink will be used in “Normal” prints but printer head will run on same place for fewer times using comparatively more ink and printing will be faster but colours may spread on the sheet (depending on the absorption and quality of paper being used) or adjacent colours may seem to be mixed up, as explained above.

COST FACTOR
=============

* Its Cheap. I got the printer at a lesser price than the cartridge price of some other printers. It cost me approx 30 £ .

* Uses Separate Ink Tanks for Separate Colours. It uses three in
ks tanks separately for Cyan, Magenta and Yellow, the three basic colours used for printing. It’s a great feature because when you go out of a particular ink, you only need to replace that ink tank. For example if your prints are heavy on yellow ink (due to your company logo or similar reasons), you will have to purchase and replace the yellow again and will save money that otherwise would have been spent on replacement of complete colour cartridge (all three colours).

* Cartridge (complete) is also cheaper than other printers. You will get complete cartridge in around 15 to 20 £, that’s almost half of some other cartridges.

TROUBLE SHOOTING
==================

* This is the area where Xerox does not have many plus points. Printer manual is written very well but printer at times does not behave that nicely. I personally have experienced that at occasions when there was some paper jam, printer kept giving same warnings even after the paper was clear. I did every thing, removing power supply and even restarting computer, but it did not behave.

* Secondly, as it has only one button for all kinds of functions and requirements, it really becomes a head ace to get it to normal functioning if it did not did not behave at the first step.

* At one odd occasion, it almost refused to bring the printer head in the centre when I needed that for changing cartridge.

AS A WHOLE
===========

If I sum up, the good and bad points can be listed as under..

GOOD ABOUT IT
=============

* The printer is cheap and economical in usage (initial cost and separate ink tanks).

* Good installation and usage support.

* Printing quality is OK for domestic requirements.

* Light weight and compact, does not occupy much space.

BAD ABOUT IT
============

* Printing is not very high quality so may not suit for professional work.

* Trouble
shooting is not very easy.

* Multiple paper feeds.

* Very slow speed for better quality prints.

* Easy handling comes with time (single button for all functions).

* No power on/off button, so you need to control that from somewhere else.

MY VERDICT
===========
Go ahead buy it if you need it at home for routine requirements. Don’t buy it for your office work, your boss may not like the printing. Go and purchase some professional quality printer for office work, after all, your boss got to pay for it.

Summary: