Phaser 850 by Tektronix

Re: Phaser 850

Hi Gregory

We just put in a Phaser 850 on our network, primarily to handle our inhouse color printing at (hopefully) a savings on consumables. Xerox gives you the printer(free shipping, duplexing tray and network card) if you buy your supplies from them. Currently, the ink sticks are about $35 each (free black ink) and you have to buy a maintenance kit every 10000 prints ($81). Your company or organization must agree to print a minimum of 2000 pages per month and you have to submit a monthly usage report. If you are interested in receiving information from Xerox, send me your email address (to cgeorge@wresa.org) and I will forward it to them. (We get a $50 gift certificate if you decide to participate in the program).

Now, as to the printer: it uses a solid ink system. The ink sticks (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) are sort of like big crayon blocks. The printer melts the sticks and sprays the ink onto the medium. It is absolutely the fastest color printer I have seen. We have two HP Color Laserjet 5Ms and numerous Epson 600s in our building. By printing most of our transparencies, brochures, presentations, etc. on the Phaser we anticipate cutting our ink costs in half.

Quality is better that the printers we use now, but no where near the quality of the Epson 1270 that I use at home for photos. But beware…THESE ARE NOT DURABLE PRINTS. The image is created by depositing wax on top of the paper surface. It can be scratched with a fingernail.

For office use I think the printer is great. The documents we produce are VERY vibrant, color is great, speed is fantastic and longevity is fine for our purposes.

Gregory T. wrote:

Does anyone have experience with the Phaser 850? Does it produce sharp, accurate photos?

I am in the market for a better/faster printer than my current line of Epson’s that is not inkjet. My current choices are the Phaser 850, Kodak 86×0, Fuji Pictography 3000/3500 and the Sony printers. I am not as familiar with the Sony line, but have seen and heard that it is a good printer.

The Phaser would suit my budget better with its cost and consumables (free black). While the Fuji prints look excellent, its price is high, plus I have seen posts that it may fade (never checked back to the posts to see why). All help is appreciated. If you know of other printers that might work, please feel free to inform me.

TIA,

Greg

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