Beyond the Specs: How to Optimize Your Ownership Experience When Buying New Multifunction Printers

For many decades, technology purchases focused on the speeds and feeds of hardware and the features of software or services. The goal, then and now, was to buy the right product. But as technology becomes an indispensable part of how we work or learn every day, the criteria used in making a buying process have to change to include all of the elements of the ownership experience. When it comes to multifunction printers (MFPs), print speed matters, but if the product is unreliable, difficult to manage, expensive to operate, or otherwise problematic to use every day, it’s not a good choice.

This buying guide explains how to expand the scope of your evaluation process to ensure not only that you choose the right product, but also that the product will be a pleasure to own and use. InfoTrends estimates that a typical printer will be used for four years1. If an organization purchases a device that costs a lot to own or requires constant intervention, it’s a problem that doesn’t go away quickly. There are also many potential negative financial impacts that can occur when the wrong MFP is chosen. These will also be covered in the following sections.