Hybrid Color Copiers: The Next Copier Generation?

ALL COPIER manufacturers are now offering hybrid color copier/printers that any company can afford. These products, suitable for business-quality color applications, generally produce less than 40 pages per minute (ppm), with even faster units promised by the manufacturers for 2006 and 2007.

Canon, Xerox, Konica Minolta and Ricoh (also offered under the Savin, Lanier and Gestetner labels) have been the hybrid copier/printer manufacturing leaders to-date, but Kyocera Mita, Toshiba and Sharp have also offered hybrid products of merit. This article will explain the reasons for the hybrid copier/printer revolution and what the advantages and challenges are to consumers going forward.

Color Hybrids Defined

Let’s define what we mean by a hybrid copier/printer. (No, it’s not like a hybrid vehicle that uses less energy.) A hybrid copier/printer is one that can copy and print in monochrome as well as in color at a minimal price premium over the cost of the monochrome-only digital copier/printer. That price premium has turned out to be only about 20 percent.

The introduction of the industry’s first hybrid copier/printer, the Canon Color ImageRunner 3200 in 2001, caused quite a stir among the various competitors selling Canon products. The people and organizations selling the CLC (Color Laser Copier) product line were incensed that the company would offer such a low-cost competitive solution well ahead of the market curve. Nevertheless, Canon’s competitors had to respond, and they have in full force.

Leading color hybrid copier/printers on the market today include the Xerox DocuColor 240, Canon Color imageRUNNER C3220 and Konica Minolta Color bizhub 351. While all hybrid copier/printers offer color/monochrome copying, printing and scanning, many models also offer at least monochrome faxing.

Some may be reading this and wondering what all the buzz is about. After all, color devices have historically been able to copy/print in black as well as in color. The difference with the new hybrid class of equipment is that these units are primarily monochrome devices with full-color copying/printing added as an additional (albeit high-powered and high-cost) feature. Clearly, these units are no threat to eliminating jobs being sent to an in-plant, but rather should be viewed by CRD managers as helping to increase color utilization throughout an organization.

Why Hybrid Copier/Printers?

Manufacturers believe that adding color to the new generations of digital copiers will provide the business consumer with a logical upgrade path. Copier makers also argue that workers want to print what they see on their screens. No doubt, however, the primary motivation for the introduction of hybrid copier/printers is financial. That is, as one major manufacturer announced to a gathering of industry consultants recently attended by Pro Buyers: “Our revenue and thus our profit will increase five-fold for every monochrome copier/printer we replace with a hybrid copier/printer.”

Somewhat smugly, manufacturers are stating that business consumers will be able to buy a monochrome copier/printer in about five years about as easily as a consumer can now buy a black-and-white TV. We think the demise of the monochrome digital copier will take much longer than manufacturers are stating, however.

Benefits and Risks

Let’s look at the top three rewards and risks of the hybrid copier/printers on today’s market:

Reward #1: Speed. Hybrid copier/ printers are great for office environments that produce significant volumes on color laser printers. This is the “sweet spot” of the hybrid color copier/printer market. Dedicated color laser printers are terribly slow with marginal quality and very high per-page supply costs. Any office producing more than 1,000 prints on one of these devices would benefit greatly from a color hybrid copier/printer.

Reward #2: Lower costs. Toner alone costs 12 to 15 cents per printed page on most office-caliber color laser printers, while all-inclusive costs for these single-function devices are in the 25- to 30-cent range. Clearly, hybrid copier/printers can cut those costs by up to 50 percent or more.

Reward #3: Better message retention. Traditional color theory suggests that color documents are easier to read, and so the author’s message is more effectively delivered. We won’t argue this point.

The rewards may be enticing, but they don’t come without risks:

Risk #1: Unnecessary color copying/printing. Who wants the financial exposure of making color copies/prints at four times the cost of monochrome copies? No Pro Buyers client we have talked to wants to incur this kind of up-tick in costs for internally delivered documents that will just be filed anyway. Our clients are asking what measures can be taken to limit, or at least track, color usage? There are two concrete ways that we recommend to do this:

1. Provide the color print drivers only to specific individuals who have a demonstrated need to produce color documents.

2. Passcode-protect the device’s color function.

Risk #2: Acceptable quality. Lack of fuser oil for color hybrid copier/printers leaves the copies and prints without that glossy look that we, as printing professionals, look for. Hybrid copier/printers are meant for “business color” applications like bar charts, not for reproducing photographs. Clearly, for in-plants, the color quality will not suffice for production jobs. Hybrids are not substitutes for the market leaders in the photo-quality production color segment.

Risk #3: Speed sacrifice. Business consumers are sometimes surprised to discover that the 40-ppm copier they just traded in for a color hybrid copier/printer slows down significantly when producing color. Many of the hybrid copier/printers introduced into the marketplace so far produce full-color copies and prints some 20-30 percent slower than monochrome output.

Examples include:

• The Canon imageRUNNER C5870U, which produces 58 ppm in monochrome mode but only 16 ppm in color.

• The Ricoh Aficio 3235C, which produces monochrome jobs at 35 ppm but color jobs at only 28 ppm.

• The Xerox DocuColor 240, churning out 55 ppm in monochrome but only 40 ppm in color mode.

Still, some products manage to produce color and monochrome at the same rated speed:

• The Ricoh Aficio 3131 outputs 31 ppm in both color and monochrome.

• The Konica Minolta bizhub C351 produces color or monochrome pages at the rate of 35 ppm.

• The Xerox DocuColor 3535 offers the same 35-ppm speeds in both modes.

First-page-out times for hybrid copier/printers can be dramatically different for color and monochrome output, as well. Typically, first-page times for Segment 3 (35-ppm range) hybrids are in the six-second range for monochrome but in the 10-second + range for color output.

Consumers should always check to make sure the first-page and multi-page speed ratings being quoted are for color production. And we always recommend testing any product in-house before you buy. All copier/printer dealers offer free trials, so there is no reason not to take advantage and put the product to the test.

How Much Should You Pay?

The all-inclusive cost per impression (hardware, software and all supplies except paper) is down, on average, to about 8 cents a page for a hybrid copier/printer. This is a far cry from the 35-cent-per-page all-inclusive cost for production color units just a few short years ago.

Still, we think the industry needs to bring the cost of color down much further before the hybrid devices are accepted as universally viable substitutes for the copier/printers they are supposed to be replacing.

Should You Invest?

Should your in-plant invest in these new hybrid copier/printers the industry is touting? Our advice is that yes, these are truly revolutionary products but the associated costs, although reduced compared with a few short years ago, still represent a significant increase over what organizations are used to spending for monochrome digital copier/printers.

Ironically, the same reason manufacturers want to introduce hybrid copier/printers (higher dollar signs) is what has scared the business consumer away from implementing these devices enterprise-wide. Despite falling prices for color, consumers still have to pay four times more for color than for monochrome.

Our primary concern in this area is copier/printer vendors pushing hybrid technology into customer locations without regard for whether the need is present. Your internal customers are not always given the choice of hybrid or monochrome devices.

While we agree color hybrid copier/printers have a place in many organizations replacing single-function laser color printers, and they offer several important benefits, for the reasons stated in this article we believe the risks of a full-scale hybrid copier/printer implementation need to be very carefully evaluated in comparison to the potential rewards to the organization.

Our advice is to not jump onto the friendly industry hybrid bandwagon until color costs are more in line with current costs for monochrome copies and prints. Make certain to encourage your internal customers to review the all-inclusive costs for the hybrid copier/printer as well as a comparable-speed monochrome-only device and clearly identify the up-charge for color before signing on the bottom line. IPG

Jeffrey A. Smith, is President of Pro Buyers LLC, a leading independent copier consulting organization. He has more than 25 years of copier industry experience. Pro Buyers clients enjoy lower pricing, stronger service contract protections and equipment matched to actual need. Mr. Smith can be reached via phone at (800) 743-0526 or via e-mail at: JSmith@ProBuyersLLC.com