Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2019
Straight to the Point:
I wanted to get my thoughts down while the setup is still fresh in mind, and hopefully this will help others. To get straight to the point, don't buy this thinking it's for home use and that you can just hook up a USB cable to your PC then start printing and scanning (like every other printer I've seen). This is meant to be in an office environment (i.e., you print from a computer not attached to the printer, you scan to a computer not attached to a printer, you send copies via email through your company's hosted email service, etc., but doing things through a direct USB cable connection doesn't work). Getting set up on your home network is pretty easy, and that will allow you to print. Scans are easily saved to a USB drive from the port in the front. However, if you want to use other features it gets complicated.
Purchase Decision:
I debated awhile before buying this, as the reviews are very low and at the time I could get the Canon 743cdw for the same price. I ultimately bought the Xerox as I wanted the quality of the office printers I'm used to in my own home. One of the problems I was trying to solve was my inkjet printers always dried up on me, so I didn't actually get many prints (and any time I needed to print it was a whole big thing). As such, I started looking at laser printers, wanted an all-in-one, and was willing to shell out as needed to get out of the home user disposable stuff. I bought this over the Canon as it seemed like it had better specs, had every feature I could possibly need, and just looks and feels like a sturdy machine. Canon of course has a 3 year warranty, so keep that in mind. I hope this will be a 5-10 year investment, so I was willing to have a bit of a learning curve to set it up if it was the better product.
Internet/Wifi:
I'm currently using the Wifi model. You have to physically attach the adapter to the back of the unit when you get it. You then just power on the unit and walk through it's internet setup on the touchscreen. That will get you connected. However, I understand a lot of folks have an issue with disconnecting from the network/finding it on the network (this is due to the fact that if you don't have a static internet connection, when it powers on/wakes up it gets a new IP address from your router). The easy fix there is to log into your router and set your Xerox to operate from a static IP address. You should also do this on your printer. The printer (like every other enterprise level gear I've owned) has an embedded web interface that you can log into from your desktop by typing in its IP address at the top of the browser and you can set it up as static from there. I did most of my setup in that web interface, as it's where you configure most of your options.
Print Drivers:
There's a smart driver install file you need to download off of the Xerox website. I understand the disk that comes with the unit is useless, so I didn't bother to use it. The printer worked fine through Apple Airprint on my iPhone without the drivers installed, so this is really just for printing from the PC. Once you've gotten here, you're at a point where you can scan to USB, make copies, print from any computer on your network without connecting a USB cable, print from your air devices, etc. The more difficult features are as follows . . .
Scanning:
As mentioned, scanning to a USB drive is always an option. There's a "scan to desktop" icon that you can enable from the web interface of the scanner, but I didn't really have any luck figuring out what it would actually do. I assumed this would allow you to do the usual USB cable connection, but that wasn't the case. The way everyone seems to hook these up is to set up folders on their computers that the printer will automatically scan to without using a cable at all. Once set up, this is actually pretty awesome and is very much like what you'd do in an office environment. However, setup is somewhat excruciating. I'll try to lay this all out for someone else to follow if they ever need it (and so I can trace my steps too if I need to relearn it)--though of course there are a number of threads online of people walking through this (and even a Xerox video). For me though, I watched the video and read threads, and then beat my head against the wall through a lot of trial and error. First thing I'd do is create a new local user for your computer, and set its rights to administrator (basic Windows searches can walk you through). Then what you have to do is create a folder on your desktop that you will use for scans, then go into its properties, sharing tab, then set up a couple things. First, click on "share" and then make sure that your new user is present, or else click the drop down and select that user, then add, then make sure your user has read/write privileges, then click share. Next go into advanced sharing from the sharing tab, then go into permissions. Now, click add, and in the big box type in your new user ID. Hit "check names" and it should confirm the right identity. Hit OK, then in the permissions tab click on your user, then click "full control." Hit apply on each screen/close it all out. Having fun yet?
Next, make sure the SMB 1.0 protcol is enabled on your computer. Use the Search Windows box to look for "Turn Windows Features on or off" and then scroll down until you see "SMB 1.0/CIFS File Sharing Support." Make sure that's checked. Still loving life?
Once that's all done, go into the printer's web browser to set up a new contact. The Xerox video showed the person doing this from the touchscreen on the printer, but for me that didn't work very well. Click on the address book tab, then add contact. Just give your computer a name (whatever you want is fine), then you're going to go down to Network (SMB) and hit the plus sign. There are only a few things you have to enter on this page, but by God they are all critical to get right! You need to first enter the IP address of your computer (oh yeah, make sure your computer is also given a static address or this could get all messed up later). The port (if you're using Windows) should be 445. Don't know why, it just is and it's across all Windows users. In the Share field you have to enter the name of the folder you created on your PC exactly as it is shown there. For login name, this one is incredibly misleading. You would think you'd just enter your user ID, but no. You have to enter the network name of your computer, then a backslash, then the folder name on your computer. So, let's say your computer shows up in your network as "Desktop-65" and your new user ID is "Login," then the Login Name field would read "Desktop-65\Login". Now, your password is whatever you designated when you created the user. If you follow this carefully you may magically get the first scan right and it goes where you want it. I personally had about a billion attempts that failed, and each time you fail you print an error page with a code that you can then google and try to figure out what you did wrong (which you can't turn off--meaning I went through a lot of toner during my adventures). One other thing to note, make sure whatever internet connection you’re using is set to primary from the touchscreen or that can mess it up too.
Now let me again clarify, this is awesome once set up. It's definitely worth it. But, for the average home user you're likely to never go through the hassle of doing this. One thing I really liked about this feature is it let me save files to a media server I have running on my home network that backs up nightly. So, if I have something important I can save it there even though it's located quite remotely from my other electronics (including the printer).
Scan to email:
So yeah, I didn't even bother with this one. If you are a business or very tech savvy (such that you host your own email server), then you can set this up. If you're not one of those people, then you have to consider whether it's worth buying a web domain so that you can host your own email address for purposes of your scans. You can't just hook this up with your hotmail account. For me, scanning to my PC folder is all I need, and if I need to email it I can do it from there. I understand this is the most difficult thing to set up on the printer.
Summary:
If all of this setup sounds like a waste of time for you/not something you want to do, then definitely take a look at a different brand. The Canon seemed like it would have been the much easier option. I think the bad reviews are mostly driven by folks who are frustrated by setting up various options that the printer offers. The positives here are that there are a lot of people who have set up this product over the years, and consequently a lot of threads where people ran into the same issues. It's also a commercial quality machine with high end features, and I hope it will last a long time (and if this setup is a "cry once" type thing, then I should be glad I went with this model for years to come). Another thing to think about is toner cost. As of now there are a number of replacement toner sets for around $60 on Amazon (as opposed to hundreds if you look up what you're paying to buy from Xerox). These third party replacement options take some time to come around, so if I'd gone with the Canon I'd be paying through the nose for replacement toner. Now, some folks are having issues with different third party options, but it seems like there are some winners out there. At the $330 price these things are currently at (closing out the model, since it's a few years old and due a replacement), you're getting a pretty killer machine for not a lot of money. If you're willing to put in the work, this can be a great investment.
