Just got back from the RFG Monster Garage 2006. Saw the current Xerox, Bizhub and Canon machines...
Long story short... the competition is a little antiquated. Canon is the closest, then the Bizhub, then in a far last is Xerox. All the competition uses belt fed ARDF's. I don't think we've done that in 5 years.
Scan speed is slower. User friendliness is not as good, the Xerox 2821 or 2128 takes 20 steps to do a 2 up combine copy for insurance cards, etc...20 steps! I think the RFG's are 4 with the shortcut keys.
Konica Minolta boasts a 140lb index out of the drawer capability vs. our 120. But, that's only available out of the 250 sheet drawer, which when loaded with paper of this weight is a whopping maximum capacity of about 30 pages.
Although with the exception of the Xerox most of the competition offers some sort of Doc. Server capabilities it's very limited in its search ability and in the preview features.
Very big was the fact that most of the competition (witht the exception I believe of Canon) could not booklet finish legal. Doesn't sound like much, but the comparison between letter and legal sized booklets showed how the RFG product was a much better choice for churches, schools and real estate offices by offering in my opinion about a 25% larger more readable image.
The competition toutes 8bit technology vs. 4 bit, but the pit crew showed how image quality is more than bits, it's a combination of the RIP process, the processor, and a few other things I can't remember off of the top of my head (sorry).
There were some other highlights like scan to URL and probably some I'm missing. But, all in all it was a good show.
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