It is unclear as to how many ink blocks you get in the box. Please can you clarify? Thank you.

Our Comment:

We can confirm that the printer comes with a "Rainbow Pack" which contains 1 of each single ink stick. So, one cyan, one magenta, one yellow and one black. Please note that when you buy your inks they will come in packs of 3 (or 6 if black).

The ink does not last long enough

Our Comment:

Hmmm, a little more info would be appreciated. Is this compared to another printer that you have been using? Is it the same type of printer? Same sort of cost of inks? Same type of prints etc? Thanks for rating it though…

The Xerox printer is very good - superb quality printing, easy to use, and fast. However, a very strong point against buying one for small office/home use is the fact that it has to be left switched on all the time to keep the ink warm; failure to leave it switched on could result in the ink drying out and clogging the nozzles. Increased electricity consumption should be added to the running costs.

Our Comment:

Very valid point about leaving it switched on although it is a very small amount of electricity that is used to maintain the printhead temperature. This is actually a good environmentally friendly printer when compared to other laser type devices.

We are more than happy with this machine. We also have earlier models of the phaser 8560 which we are happy with.

Excellent value for money

This is not a printer for casual use because it is very wasteful.It is not for the person who faxes copies in a thermal fax machine. It is totally unsuitable

Our Comment:

Yes, we agree that the printouts from a wax printer should not be put through a hot thermal fax machine. A toner-based machine would be more suitable for this type of application.

Our first wax printer was a phaser 8400. It was brilliant! We upgraded to the 8560 after a few years (thinking it would be just as good if not better) and have had nothing but trouble with it. I would always recommend wax printers, but not this one.

We purchased this printer in June 2008 as part of a cash-back arrangement with Xerox for our old Phaser 8550 printer. The arrangements for collection of the old printer (necessary for the cash-back cheque to be issued) was a shambles, taking months and several attempts by the carriers to get it back to Xerox before finally successful. However, the new printer has behaved impeccably ever since.

This is the third version of the Phaser that we have purchased and we would have no hesitation in continuing to use these products in the future. Completely satisfied.

Ok but seems to waste a lot of ink in the cleaning process!

Good print quality, reasonably quick. Environment friendly consumables. Engineer call out during warrantee for ink feed and paper feed problems

Despite the problems we experienced over Christmas, there is no doubt that the 8560 is a better printer than our previous 6500.

I've been using this printer for ten months and I have to say that I'm extremely pleased with it in terms of reliability and quality of output. I was in two minds about having the double-sided print facility but I couldn't live without it now. I only had one problem with the printer which seemed to correct itself. Xerox's online support was very disappointing so I deducted one point from what would have been a perfect 10. I recommended this model and Printware as a supplier to someone else who was equally satisfied on both counts.

I have found the printer excellent. Would consider to buy more next time we are in the market for printers.

Bought this printer a few months ago, it's our third printer purchased from Printware over a few years, their sales and support really is excellent. We decided we wanted to get a duplex printer for environmental and postage cost reasons, then came across solid ink printers Had to put the purchase off a while for financial reasons, but Printware had a special offer on which made getting the printer similar to what we'd have paid for the laserjet we were also considering. Well they also had an offer on that, but we still went for this solid ink printer and are glad we did. It's a better experience overall and the ongoing printing costs a lot less than the laserjet so it's cheaper over a year or two. *Pros* Environmental aspect of solid ink Print quality excellent Duplex printing Replacing ink on a printer makes you smile (pretty crayons) rather than sigh as (you get covered in toner dust) No more cartridges littering the office No more taking cartridges to the post office Even a bulk box of replacement ink takes up the same room as a box or two of pens *Cons* Have to keep it on all the time to keep the inks liquid, so we can't turn it off in the evenings and weekends Noisy even when not in use, this isn't constant but at odd times Broke down within a couple of months after a power surge and had to wait weeks to have it fixed (although actual engineer excellent) Xerox helpdesk atrocious - not sure where in the world they are, and it's possibly linked to the training and scripts they are given rather than location, but conversations are very hard going, it's like speaking to robots. Overall, very happy with the printer, but worried about what happens after it's a year old and out of warranty. I think Printware have their own support facility so we will likely pay for that.

Have now done 80k copies without any major problems since the change of the "ink" holder under guarantee - broken ink sticks have been a problem. Quality not as clear as old Panasonic (toner) unless you use ehanced mode which then "chews up" the ink! Cost of sticks is expensive for what they are but compatibles not good in quality. Don't like the fact that heat is generated all the time and switch off is not worth it for the amount of ink consumed on switch on. Would I buy another - would have to survey the costing over a 3 year period to check.

Basically I like this printer vey much. Excellent quality prints - incl photos, fast, printing costs comparable to normal laser printers with powder toner - i.e. not particularly cheap. Great for maintenance - refill any time and no shaking to get last bit of toner out, rarely needs cleaning. Few downsides but may be relevant. Wax ink can not easily be written upon if required, printer needs to be switched on all the time and sleep settings can inadvertently lead to multiple part-prints as it warms up and printer very fussy about paper settings - if a user sends a document letter size it will not print it on A4. Having said that, I got the 8560 several ears after my 8550 whic is still going strong every day in a school environment.

The printer is brilliant although any backup from Xerox if required is poor.

I bought a Xerox Phaser 8560N in October '09. It produces excellent graphics and text. Very professional finish to all documents. I would recommend to anyone looking to print professional looking documents.

Xerox 8560 is excellent.

We converted to the solid ink printers several years ago with Tektronic who were taken over by Xerox. We tend to upgrade to a newer model about every 5 years or so mainly because the print speeds get better and we use them a lot. The print quality is superb, the mahcines are generally trouble free and very low maintenance. The only slight gripe is that every machine has different shaped inks. When you upgrade or get a new machine you end up with surplus supplies which can be difficult to shift.

Our Comment:

Thanks Sue, we will happily buy any surplus inks from you in the future. The same goes for anyone else too.

The good point – it can print on most paper. The bad points It keeps using up ink sticks even when on standby mode, I have to keep emptying the ink waste tray. The ink fades when exposed to sunlight. The ink sometimes smears on the print. The ink sticks are too expensive. The out of ink stick warning has appeared, but there is plenty of ink sticks in the reservoir. When using Microsoft print picture program, it often glitches the data, I get rubbish printed, and it prints rubbish on ALL the pages in the paper tray until they are used up. My advice is DO NOT BUY THIS PRINTER.

Our Comment:

It sounds like you're having a few problems with your printer, and our honest advice would be to call Xerox tech support and explain what's happening. There will always be a small amount of wasted ink or toner in printers, the difference with the solid ink machines is that you see it - with most laser printers the waste toner goes in to a separate compartment within the print cartridge so you never see how much is wasted. That said, from what you've written, I would say that you're loosing too much ink and Xerox should be able to fix that with adjustments to the internal temperature and purge settings. They should also be able to offer advice on the issues you're having when printing your pictures. If you have a Printware warranty, you can use our Online Call Logging facility and we'll have an engineer out to you within 24 hours.

With regard to the inks being too expensive, you will more than likely see better value for money once Xerox have made the afore mentioned adjustments. If you still feel that you're paying too much for inks, why not give compatible inks a go? Before going ahead with non-original inks, have a read of the Originals or Compatibles article in our Resources section, it explains the truth behind the myths of warranty implications and other pros and cons of using compatible consumables.

Thanks very much for posting this review, we hope it helps other customers.

An easy to use printer with good results. But be warned does seem to go through a lot of consumables quickly which aren't cheap!

The quality of the colour prints is excellent, but the solid ink blocks are very expensive considering how small they are, and they don't last very long! For that reason I rate the printer as merely 'Average'.

Xerox Solid ink printer is an excellent product with good quality printing.

Excellent print quality, setup easy and troublefree; running usually ok but noisy - but ink blocks can jam and need wire prodder to free them (not supplied - use bent coathanger). Refuses to run if kit run out - would be nice if could just finish job.

This is a superb printer. So easy to set up and use and very economical (and eco friendly!). It needs no maintenance except to put in the solid ink tablets. Highly recommended.

The printer arrived on time and prints extremely well. We use it with two machines (both iMacs) and we had problems installing the drivers on one of the machines, but after rebooting it seemed to recognise the device as intended. Beyond that, I can't fault the printer - it prints well and has been easy to use, which is a god send for those of us who're not too technology friendly!

The main problems with this dry ink technology are a) you can't laminate documents with it the heat re-melts the ink); b) the colours are not true; c) you can't write on documents with a high print density (pen ink doesn't stick); and d) the printer gives off a paraffin like smell occasionally. Ignore the hype and avoid this printer

Our Comment:

Thanks Ian. We appreciate you comments. For your info - you can get cold lamination pouches for solid ink printers that do not require the same level of heat as standard lamination pouches if this is something that you still need to do. We hope that helps.

The printer and solid ink is a wonderful idea. I like the ease of use and speed that this machine offers. The cost per page is lower than a colour laser printer. However, in my view, this is still a developing product.

Negative points: You cannot print letterheads on this printer and them run them through your black and white or colour laser printer. If you do, the laser printer makes the writing and images unreadable. Secondly, the printer occasionally prints "light stripes" This means you get a faint area of colour or no colour at all in lines on the page. This means that one of the nozzles is clogged and means that you have to clean the printer. The cleaning programme wastes an enormous amount of ink, which cannot be reused. I spent £180 on ink and £120 was probably wasted, even though I always used genuine xerox ink and left it on. If the light stripes did not occur, it would be perfect. To fix light stripes, you can activate jet substitution mode. However this slows the print speed down dramatically! The printer occasionaly prints a load of text and does not stop. You have to press cancel. This wastes ink and paper AKA money! I would not recommend this printer.

Our Comment:

Thanks very much for your review. It would be worth noting that although Solid Ink technology is unique to Xerox, it's not a new technology and has in fact been around since around 1986 when Tektronix first brought the Phaser Solid Ink machines to the masses.

Your comment about running pages pre-printed on a Solid Ink machine through a traditional laser printer is very valid and we always advise against this when we’re asked for our a views. Solid Ink technology uses wax ink melted and pressure-sealed on to a page, when it goes through a laser printer that uses extremely high temperatures to fuse its image to a page the wax ink re-melts and often causes a mess.