Production Comparison: the Xerox Versant 180 vs. the Xerox Versant 3100

Both entries in the Versant series of Xerox printing presses are attractive options for businesses making their first step towards top-quality high-speed production printing. The combination of world-class print quality and best-in-class affordability make obtaining one of these presses a logical step for growing businesses accommodating demanding print runs.

But there are multiple factors to consider when choosing between these two highly advanced automated printing presses. While they share much in common, each one is designed to meet a specific set of business needs. Learn more about these presses to find out which one is the best fit for your organization.

Introducing the Versant Series of Xerox Printing Presses

The Xerox Versant 3100 and the Xerox Versant 180 share a great deal of features and technical specifications. In particular, both presses offer time and money savings through automated print production technology. From job submission to finishing, these presses save time, money, and print resources whenever possible.

These automated tools include automatic sheet clearing, a stock library management system, a full width array for accurate print server calibration, and automatic job management processing. Both printers deliver Ultra HD print quality at a resolution of 2400 x 2400 DPI, with image rendering at 1200 x 1200 DPI at industry leading 10-bit depth.

But these two devices have their differences. The best place to start is with a quick overview of the business challenges each printer is designed to solve:

• The Xerox Versant 180 is a powerful mid-production printing press suitable for small, busy print shops and enterprises environments. It can comfortably handle 80,000 prints per month, with a maximum monthly duty cycle of 750,000 pages
• The Xerox Versant 3100 is in a class of its own when it comes to productivity and efficiency. It is designed to handle up to 250,000 prints per month and has a monthly duty cycle of 1.2 million pages. It includes a unique suite of support tools designed to improve high-volume workflows through automation.

Of the two, the Versant 3100 is the printer of choice for the most demanding print environments, while the Versant 180 is a cost-effective solution for print shops and business units that need world-class Xerox print quality and consistency. Both of these printers are ideal for print providers looking to establish themselves and provide for strategic growth in crowded markets.

Both presses offer automated color calibration that saves operators time by turning a twenty-minute process into an instant, two-click verification. Both presses use emulsion aggregation toner that produces astonishing image quality without consuming fuser oil. Both printers use less dry ink than competing printing presses with similar specifications.

Features Unique to Each Xerox Printing Press

Having covered where these two remarkable presses coincide in terms of features and specifications, we can now cover their differences. This is where cost considerations and production efficiencies come into play in choosing between the Xerox Versant 3100 and the Xerox Versant 180.

1. The Xerox Versant 180

With a smaller form factor and a print speed of 80 pages per minute, the Versant 180 is a modest fit for most office environments. It possesses a number of unique features that serve to separate it from its higher-performance cousin.

For instance, only the Versant 180 printing press features built-in copying and scanning features. The unit comes with a dual-head color scanner that offers automatic duplex scanning at 200 pages per minute at 400 dpi resolution. It can scan images to a USB dive, to an email inbox, or to a cloud storage location such as DropBox or Google Drive.

The Versant 180 also includes compatibility for third-party applications directly from its control panel through the Xerox Extensible Interface Platform. By contrast, the Versant 3100 does not support third-party applications in this way. This makes the Versant 180 a more versatile machine for office document processing tasks.

2. The Xerox Versant 3100

As the more productive of the two Versant-series Xerox printing presses, the 3100 incorporates several features the Versant 180 does not. These include automatic jam clearance, production accurate registration, and auto duplexing for sheet weights of up to 350 gsm.

Automatic jam clearance can be a lifesaver. When a jam occurs, operators need only remove sheets blocking the paper path – the system will automatically eject the other papers to the top trays so that operators don’t have to open every single door and remove every single sheet manually.

Production accurate registration is a unique technology that maintains precise front-to-back registration during printing. This printing press features registration accuracy of +/- 0.5 millimeters for paper stocks of up to 300 gsm. For auto-duplexed 350 gsm sheets, this figure is 0.8 millimeters.

Conclusion

If your business needs best-in-class print quality and versatility in a mid-production office environment, the Xerox Versant 180 will fulfill your needs while saving time and money. If you are looking for a robust, high-production workhorse printing press, then the Xerox Versant 3100 is the best place to start.

Want to learn more about these remarkable printing presses? Ask one of our product specialists for more information.