Best printer for printing hundreds of greeting cards?

I am looking to start a small business which would entail printing hundreds of greetings cards (including photos) per week. Can anyone recommend a good printer I could buy which is fast, reliable and economical?

I have been advised to get a laser printer but which is best to suit my needs?

I have used a Xerox Phaser 8560 for this sort of work and have found it works well. It has Duplex facility and will print about 20 copies per minute. It uses blocks of solid wax ink so prints are resistant to water and smudges but large areas of colour can show scratches if subject to a lot of handling. I have also found that a "PagePack" contract, which includes all ink and maintenance costs works out better than buying cheap ink and paying for engineer call outs, which can be very expensive.

Hi- did you find the right sort of printer in the end? I am a designer interested in short runs to test the market. Cheers

Dear K Berry, How economical is the Xerox Phaser 8560 ? A piece of string question I know but as rough estimate how many A5s would I get out of an ink set?
Cheers

Go to www.ashbournecolourprint.co.uk, they use a xerox 700. They will do a pro job and be cheap.

The Xerox ColorQube 8570 has replaced the Xerox Phaser 8560, it's faster that it's predecessor, now running at 40ppm, but essentially it's the same machine. In answer to Nigel Davies two solid ink sticks will produce 4,300 average standard pages (about 9 reams of paper according to the Xerox website), so double it for A5. At the moment you can claim £200 cashback from the Xerox website, although it's not mentioned on the Amazon site at the moment. Solid Ink is said to be a lot more environmentally friendly because of the lack of print cartridges, reduces the waste down to a bit of cardboard.

Xerox ColorQube 8570N - Printer - colour - solid ink - Legal, A4 - up to 40 ppm (mono) / up to 40 ppm (colour) - capacity: 625 sheets - USB, 1000Base-T

4300 A4 pages for the 2 ink stick packs so double it for A5, remember you need all 4 colours cyan, magenta, yellow and black. The PagePack contract turns out to be most economical for many people who are printing a lot, although as it's a contract you need to be printing regular and consistent amounts, otherwise it's better to just pay as you go like with a phone. There is a tool on the Xerox website called www.xerox.co.uk/interactive that works out savings over normal printer purchases. The PagePack contract isn't available from Amazon as it takes a phone conversation to sort out, the likes of Printerland, Printerbase, Misco etc... can do PagePack contracts. If you are looking for it on Amazon it's now the Xerox Colorqube 8570 Xerox ColorQube 8570N - Printer - colour - solid ink - Legal, A4 - up to 40 ppm (mono) / up to 40 ppm (colour) - capacity: 625 sheets - USB, 1000Base-T You can also get a duplex version for about £100 more. Hope this helps

The one review on Amazon is pretty poor... ... 5 min start up? expensive ink...? hmmm...

Kodak e550 is a good one, i can get it posted to you as soon as possible.

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