An exciting day, no doubt! Congratulations on taking the next step forward; how confident are you that you will purchase?
Here are some general things to consider, when getting a live demo on the machine (things that I would consider, anyways):
1. Never let them print their own artwork; Lord knows how long they've had to tweak, test and re-tweak their files. What is important to you, the business owner, is how well the machine will process YOUR files, or the files that your customers provide to you. Take at least a half dozen of your own files, demonstrating a wide range of print capabilities. For instance:
- smooth gradients / gradient transitions to shirt color
- wide range of colors / shades of each color (especially problem colors like purple, blue and red)
- small text and detailed images
- photorealistic images (skin tone in photos is critical)
- etc....
2. Please make note of ANY type of maintenance the reps have to do in your presence (ie, if they have to do any sort of manual purging, or if they have to stop printing for any reason); chances are, if THEY have to do it, YOU'LL have to do it, a lot more! Don't let anybody dismiss these things by saying "oh, it usually doesn't do that" or "it won't do that as long as you don't stop printing".... Trust me, it does, and it will.
3. Take lots of pictures! I don't know how much flexible they will be on this matter, but hopefully they don't mind you getting lots of detail shots (I am most concerned with how the prints look after curing, when provided by average, regular people) and maybe some video...
4. Pay close attention to the CC usage that is displayed; do NOT start running numbers in your head based on ANYTHING other than the CURRENTLY available price of ink! Brother has lots of things in the pipeline, I am sure. However, by their very nature, they move slower than a herd of turtles, stampeding through peanut butter - I wouldn't count of what they PLAN to do, in the "near" future. If and when ink becomes more reasonable, we can revisit the issue. Make sure you are taking note of how many CC's each specific image uses, as well as the measurements of the images and the approximate ink coverage (it would be cool if you could post this info!). That would probably be the most useful thing I could think of for potential machine owners who want to do a proper comparison; it is critical to one's success to properly anticipate one's ink costs.
That's all I can think of, at the moment (although I am sure more will pop up, later); good luck, and congrats, either way!!
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