We've been working behind the scenes to improve the usefulness of Solutions Center based on your feedback, and one of the first of many planned improvements is now live: An enhanced side-by-side comparison tool. With the handy "Compare" tab, we've always given you the ability to compare product specifications and features in a tabular format and export that list of features to Excel. Now you can compare the test report ratings and the strengths/weaknesses of a set of products, too! This new functionality surfaces some of the most important data from our in-depth test reports so you—or your customers—can see how products compare at a glance. Read more about it here and let us know what you think!
Insights from the Lab: User Interventions
When deciding on what device to purchase, users must consider multiple aspects of performance: reliability, productivity, image quality, ease of use, toner yields and cost of ownership, to name just a few. When considering ease of use, ease of programming print and copy jobs is just one factor of many. Another factor to consider is how much time users will have to spend interacting with the device for procedures such as changing supplies. One might think that something as mundane as changing toner or ink couldn’t possibly vary that much from one device to another. But in the research conducted for our extensive White Paper on the HP Officejet Pro X576dw versus laser products, BLI found the results to be quite surprising: For printing 60,000 impressions, the range from the fewest to the most interventions for small workgroup laser models varied by more than 50 interventions! While you’ll have to read our White Paper to get the full results, we can share some key highlights here.
Why User Interventions Matter
In our continual effort to offer greater insight to business users, BLI analysts have begun tracking how many user interventions would be required per year, at a typical real-world volume. In the near future, this information will be added to BLI’s lab test reports for printers and printer-based MFPs to allow users to better assess ease of use and maintenance.
For more information on BLI’s White Paper, which lets readers know how HP’s Officejet Pro X576dw compares in user interventions, as well as a wide range of other areas, click here.
Streamline Connectivity to SharePoint with Easy Xerox ConnectKey Solution
Thanks in large part to its extensibility and flexibility, Microsoft SharePoint has become the document storage platform of choice in business, with tens of millions of user licenses sold according to Microsoft, which at one point reported it was adding 20,000 SharePoint users per day. But for customers saddled with legacy and newly arrived paper documents, digital SharePoint libraries are of little value until knowledge workers capture, convert and import those files—often via multi-step manual processes. Xerox ConnectKey for SharePoint streamlines that workflow by allowing users to easily capture and name the documents at supported Xerox MFPs and route them directly to SharePoint libraries. Unlike some other MFP SharePoint connectors, this solution also delivers scan-to-folder capabilities along with OCR functionality for converting documents to searchable PDF and editable Word and Excel formats—the latter a feature usually reserved for more expensive “middleware” capture platforms. And unlike those traditional middleware capture platforms, ConnectKey for SharePoint can be installed and configured by a customer’s own IT personnel in a couple of hours. Ease of use is a strong suit for end users at the MFP, too, with straightforward menus and screens that walk the user through the handful of steps required to scan and route documents. Read BLI’s full Solutions Report to see which of your customers can benefit from this easy, affordable solution.
Reports on “Budget-Conscious” A3 MFPs Land on bliQ
BLI has recently tested four entry-level A3 models—the KYOCERA TASKalfa 2550ci, KYOCERA ECOSYS FS-6525MFP, Sharp MX-3115N and Toshiba e-STUDIO2550c. These “budget-conscious” engines are not intended to replace the more robust engines (a number of vendors are offering multiple engines at the same speed band, with one simply “leaner” on the features side), but rather complement them in multi-device environments, and possibly replace more single- and multifunction printers and all-in-ones.
These devices, which range in speed from 25 to 31 ppm, all shone in BLI’s value analysis and were found to be highly reliable. To find out if one or more of these models might be good options for your customers and see how they compare in terms of their performance, pricing and feature set, read the reports in full on bliQ.
Muratec MFX-3530 and MFX-3590: Flawless Reliability, Low CPP
BLI recently evaluated two 37-ppm MFPs from Muratec—the MFX-3530 and MFX-3590. Each model demonstrated flawless reliability throughout its 50,000-impression durability test and produced very good print quality overall. Each device also proved very productive in copy mode, with fast first-copy times, and produced high toner yields, which contributed to a significantly lower than average cost per page. And while both devices were simple to use, ease of use on the MFX-3590 was further enhanced by a larger control panel display and a preview for scan, copy and print jobs. For more on how these devices measure up to the competition—and each other—go to bliQ.