Quailty of the Phaser 850 for photos?

[Bubber]

I have located a refurbished Phaser 850DX at a reasonable price. Xerox brags that they ar the onbly company using the color-stick technology. Is this a good thing? Or have the other companies turned away from it because of problems?

I am a photographer who wants to use the Phaser 850 to print contact sheets, about 300-1000 per month. I will alos print proofs. What is the quailty of this printer?

How do ya'll rate this machine, and would you buy a refurbished used one?

I am either going to buy this machine, or a B&W Laser Printer. Any recommendations?

Curt Norman
Charleston SC

 

[inktek99]

These are excellent, well-made printers for the type and volume of printing you plan on doing. Several things to consider: the Phaser 860 and 8200 models are somewhat faster, and their output has a less-waxy feel due to less ink being applied to each page than in the 850. The 860 and 8200 ink is also more heat-resistant and able to be fed through an auto feeder on a copy machine with no problem (not recommended with 850 output). I find that the DX option does not add much, but be sure to buy at least the DP version for the higher output resolution and the two-sided printing cabapbility. The things to look for in a used printer is that all the stripes are present on the "light stripes test page", and a low page count (also printed on this test page). - Steve

 

[Bubber]

The 850 that I am looking at has been remanufactured from Xerox.

Do you know if they completely gut it and replace all of the components?

For proof sheets, you'd buy it?

 

[inktek99]

No, it is not 'gutted' but just tested to make sure it works properly. Any broken parts would be replaced. If you'd like to receive samples printed on the Phaser 850, let me know.

 

[pintailduck100]

hi-
i had the 850 and the 8200. i loved the 850 before xerox bought tektronix, and changed the postscript drivers. now both print with candy specs that are not very noticeable, but they eat ink. that is one of the reasons the 8200 test page is not a photo like the old 850. xerox will not give up the old drivers because they say they didn't keep them, yea right. i used to get a 1000 pages now i only get 300-400. ask them to send you the test page off the 850 of the frog and book, and look at the white of the book it is filled with specs. it used to be pure white. even the xerox support has admitted to the problem.

 

[ispconsultant]

I bought the 840 for doing photography. The only problem I have with the printer is that if you dont consistently print a lot of color, you will run into problems with this technology. I couldnt get blues to print correctly.
Turns out that according to Xerox support, if you dont print enough to keep emptying the hot wax/ink that is in the printer, it ages and changes colors. To fix my print colors, I have to print 150 pages of solid cyan and then the blues are blue again. This is kind of expensive if you consider the price of the ink.
I was told that ink will begin to change color within a week (assuming you have power save option off which causes the ink to be kept liquid all the time, which is also expensive from an electricity perspective.).
If you run with power save mode on, ever time you print a page after being in power save, it purges all the old ink and you waste a LOT of ink.

I am considering selling mine on ebay cause I just dont print enough. When it does print, its great quality. But if you dont do a lot of printing consistently, consider the dry toner printers.

 

[aborack]

Tell Xerox that the color blue turns magenta a week after the print is made. Complain that the ink/system is defective. I did, on the advice of a tech, and they replaced the unit, no charge, with an 850. The two inks are different. Good luck.
Allen