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Can anyone help with the strengths of the Ricoh over the Mita, and any weaknesses of the Mita that will help us in a situation comparing the Ricoh 2035 and Mita 4035? The client is making a decision later today or tomorrow. And I don't run up against Mita that often, so I'm not familiar with the specifics of what to discuss with the client. They have seen our system, and not seen the Mita, yet. Why aren't they showing the Mita?
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Greg:

Combine the name recognition with the fact that the customer is buying a reliable, high quality MFP from one of the top 2 digital copier companies in the world.

The Kyo's are good and inexpensive, the quality and reliability will be ok in the beggining. Then expect both the qulaity and reliabililty to fall off after the first major PM!
posted January 30, 2004 12:43 PM

I'm not working on this machine, I've got my own problems elsewhere.....but,
Setting up a new 4035 and customer wants to run ONLY letter size paper in cassettes. But, they want to run both letter and legal originals with the intent that feeder will scan and reduce the legal to letter size but keep the letter originals at letter size. From what the guys have tried they can't get past having all originals either minimized or 100%.
Foos
Posts: 130 | From: Dead end at the Tracks | Registered: January 13, 2003



copylady

Member
posted January 30, 2004 04:29 PM
That machine can't do what you want you have to go up to the 45 or 55 for that function.
Tim:

A friend of mine on the West Coast sells Ricoh and Kyocera, the Kyocera 4030 is an older model, the current model is the 4035. The 4030 was introduced in October M2 PRESSWIRE-25 October 2002-Kyocera Mita: Kyocera Mita launches class-leading KM-4030 multifunctional digital copier; Document imaging specialist expands successful mfp range with network fax-capable 40ppm machine. This system was discontinued in lieu of the 4035 in September of 2003! Usually the time frame for introducing a new unit is 18 months! The 4030 is already 14 months old technology wise before it comes out of the box!!!

Fairfield, New Jersey, September 16, 2003 - Kyocera Mita, one of the world's leading document imaging companies, has launched three new high performance, multifunctional digital products, the KM-3035 / KM-4035 / KM-5035. These devices are a new generation of MFP that combine network printing and scanning, copying and faxing with exceptional reliability, superior image quality and an affordable price.

I hate going 5 years, Why not go 39 months? 2 Payments Down with lease, the monthly cost is $241.39 per month plus tax. This includes the 2035, the hole puncher, auto document feeder, the finisher stapler! 48 months with 2 payments down is $215.34.

I hate going 5 years, but I am I fully covered repair and supplies-wise for those five years?With the National CPC plan, everything is covered for the term of the lease! Your only cost is for paper.

Looks very comparable in terms of productivity, is it? YES! Our system matches very closely, differences, our Ricoh 2035 duplexes (copies two sides faster), has twice the memory (244 pages or 64MB compared to 32MB for the Kyocera), the memory is crucial when electronic sorting is needed or large documents must be feed into memory. The speed of the 4030 is 40 cpm, our 2035 is 35 cpm. However, you only get 40 cpm when you copy one document 40 times. Same is true of ours. I would say that the Ricoh 2035 would finish a print job 10% slower than the Kyocera. Paper Trays are similar, paper sizes, our system leaves more room to grow. Meaning, you may need Scan2Email, Scan2Folder, Paperless Faxing in the future, these features can not be added to the Kyocera 4030. Both have cover pages, both have hole punchers, our Ricoh 2035 has a 100 sheet stapler compared to the Kyocera that only has a 50 sheet stapler. The 4030 is already 14 months old technology wise before it comes out of the box!!!

Both systems are very close. Our system was launched in June 2003, not even a year!

Sorry for the winded email, just want to make sure you know as much as possible!!!



Art Post
Art,
Thank you so much for your help here! You have gone above and beyond!

Ted, Mike & Merlin, Thank You as well!

Here is what I have come up with.

Kyocera Mita shortcomings: newer, with less overall experience with our rat race. I certainly recognize their connected experience, while on the other hand, why PS emulation and not the real deal?
As it relates to the 4035 specifically:
>Less efficient duplexing (thanks Merlin)
>No 100 DPI scan
>Only Tiff and PDF scan, NO M-TIFF, JPEG
>Warm Up is twice as long on KM 4035
>No User Stamp, Preset Stamp and Date Numbering
>No Bluetooth capability
>Control Panel doesn't seem as user friendly (need help on this one, but when I was reading through the user guide, it looked less intuitive than the Ricoh)
>No page insertion/chapterization via multiple paper sources
Job Build seems to address this (sort of?), but how complicated was that over a half dozen pages in the user guide.
>If it can copy mixed size originals, it is limited to 30 sheets
>AND THE BIG ONE!!! only duplexes up to 21 lb. stock

I must say, they have done a rather nice job overall, but I guess there are a couple of points with teeth above, if one probes for applications. Any Mita people out there, please grade my findings, and feel free to add any that I have missed!

And, what's the deal with the long life drum? Is that a problem if it gets scratched early? Will the client have to share in the cost to replace if needs to be replaced early? What are some drawbacks to this, if any?
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Ok...

Here's my 2 cents worth. If this is a price buyer, you stand a big chance of losing the deal on price and cost of service and supplies. We are able to sell this system (the 4035) over $2k lower than the 2035 and with 5 more pages per minute. We can even be right there in price on the 5035 to be honest.

If the customer needs PostScript, you may be in a disadvantage as well, depending on the intelligence of your Kyocera dealer because the KM PostScript emulation is a standard driver with the standard Print/Scan system.

I still believe the Ricoh is a better machine, it is quieter, duplexes a little better and feels and sounds more solid, however, the Kyocera scan system setup is much easier than the Ricoh and uses LDAP to boot. There are many pros and cons of both but for a customer on a tight budget, or who is looking primarily for price, I have been leading with the Kyocera.

Thanks
Graham
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Greg...

Here are the Kyocera Salesman Comebacks for your list just so you know.... This is not a knock on anyone, just telling you what I would say if these questions were posed to me...

posted Thu February 12 2004 04:45 PM
Art,
Thank you so much for your help here! You have gone above and beyond!

Ted, Mike & Merlin, Thank You as well!

Here is what I have come up with.

Kyocera Mita shortcomings: newer, with less overall experience with our rat race. I certainly recognize their connected experience, while on the other hand, why PS emulation and not the real deal?
(PS Emulation has been proven to work well in most cases, HP has been using emulation for years in their printers)Ricoh wants a premium for the Adobe PostScript of close to or over $1000, Kyocera gives you the emulation for free

As it relates to the 4035 specifically:
>Less efficient duplexing (thanks Merlin)
The Kyocera actually has a shorter duplex path
>No 100 DPI scan
100 DPI Scan quality is poor at best on th Ricoh
>Only Tiff and PDF scan, NO M-TIFF, JPEG
Since B/W Scanning is mainly for documents, you are going to want to use PDF for the universal file format
>Warm Up is twice as long on KM 4035
it is still less than a minute which is much better than your current analog machine
>No User Stamp, Preset Stamp and Date Numbering
How often will you use this, if all the time then there is no solution if rarely, you can ask if it is worth the extra $$
>No Bluetooth capability
I still have not seen a bluetooth implementation to date, 802.11 and 10/100 is the standard
>Control Panel doesn't seem as user friendly (need help on this one, but when I was reading through the user guide, it looked less intuitive than the Ricoh)
Control panel is much easier to customize for the user than the Ricoh
>No page insertion/chapterization via multiple paper sources
Job Build, once you learn it is is very easy
Job Build seems to address this (sort of?), but how complicated was that over a half dozen pages in the user guide.
>If it can copy mixed size originals, it is limited to 30 sheets
Have not had to address this one
>AND THE BIG ONE!!! only duplexes up to 21 lb. stock
I have never run across the issue of paper weight in the duplexer other than card stock but...we have duplexed 110 lb card stock here in the showroom though it is out of spec


By the way, the 4035 has a 200 sheet bypass tray which...by the way you can DUPLEX from
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I like Graham went we first took on Kyocera 3 years ago felt Ricoh was a better product. Since that time, as install more and more KM's and talking with our service tech's. We have less service calls on the KM's doing the same volume then with Ricoh's. KM's service and sales support is allot better the Ricohs. Plus when I in a customer office I don't have to worry that Savin, Gestetner or Lanier is coming in and cutting my price.
Graham, I think I totally took what you did above, exactly the way you delivered it. This is AWESOME! We need to hear that, and that information can be extremely powerful.

I just got off the phone with the client and they are going to see the KM mid week, next week. He took a meeting with me (RELUCTANTLY) for Monday morning at 11am. He wanted me to fax my findings (NEGATIVE!). I am at least going to set the stage for an extremely difficult presentation for the competition. On top of the fact that the demo the client saw from us that we delivered to their office went extremely well.

I'll share the results as I have them.

P.S. Thank you again Graham! I really appreciate it.
Just wanted to let you know Merlin is not me, even though the moniker sounds like my real first name. I too am from Falconer NY, but my method of expression is different than Merlin.

I'm a techie, and from my viewpoint, I find some features of the Mita a little cumbersome. Reliability seems to be much better than the Ricoh, although 3 years isn't long enough to get an overall picture.

Ricoh machines used to have "strong" assemblies but the later models have been "flimsyized". Kyocera/Mita has not cut costs in this department.
Boy, it looks like our whole company is responding here. As a former "real" tech, and long time service manager of a long time Ricoh dealer and relatively new Kyocera Mita dealer, my opinion is that over all, the Kyocera products are much more reliable, have much longer PM cycles and require much less service time for both the infrequent emergency calls and PM's. Bottom line...much cheaper to service!

Although the 2035 is an improvement over it's predecessors (350, 1035) it's not a herritage that I would be proud of! Of course there can be specific features that would dictate the Ricoh over the Kyocera Mita, but if what your customer wants to do is copy, print or scan in a manner that 95% of end users do, then for me the Kyocera products are the clear winner.

And as far as copy quality falling off after the first PM, we haven experienced this, but since the PM cycle is 500K, we haven't done too many PM's to date. With the Ricoh one would have done at least 3 PM's in the same interval, each of which would take at least 1 1/2 hours and the copy quality woouldn't be too good before each was done.

Don't get me wrong, I still think the Ricoh products are good and in some ways better than the Kyocera Mita. But if I had a friend who wanted to buy a 35-40 ppm copier, I know what I would recommend.
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Actually, the official PM cycle for the 3035 is 400K while the 4035(3530) and 5035(4030) are 500K. However, "everyone" does the 3035(2530) at 500K since everything about the three models is identical including the PM kit. The 4530 and 5530 PM cycle is 400K.

The really nice thing is that the PM kits for the 3035-5035 consist of modules (throw away) that you just swap out. They are guaranteed for the life of the PM. At first, Kyocera was very liberal with this warranty but lately they've been tightening up a bit (but not unfairly).

The only real problem with this series has been with lines developing because the charge corona and grid get dirty after around 100-200K prints. The end user is supposed to clean them with a tool that comes with the toner, but as the toner cartridge last about 50K, many people forget. Also, they often run up to 200K or more without a service call so techs aren't getting a chance to clean them if the end user doesn't. Occasionally this problem can lead to drum damage which now isn't being covered by the warranty since it can be prevented by proper cleaning. Imagine that the only thing close to a "common" problem is caused by the fact that the machine runs so well a tech doesn't see it often enouogh.

The assemblies for PM's for the 4530 and 5530 are available at a reduced price from Kyocera and these are designed to be rebuilt with parts up to 7 times. These assemblies (not the replaceable PM items in them) are guaranteed for the 2.8M prints. Again, thier idea is that you would use the assemblies (which in this case are rebuilt in the shop).

As you may have guessed, I'm really pleased with these products. We took on the Kyocera Mita line after they bought out Mita and only handle the "new" products since the aquisition.

Cheers!
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Tom:

Nice report on this unit! Kyo still uses corona wires? I would tend to think that they would have switched to ceramic charge rollers years ago. They are the world leader in ceramic technology!

Using charge coronas emits ozone from what I remember.

Glad to have you aboard!

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