If you’ve been looking at copiers to lease or buy lately, copier reps have likely given you all kinds of “speeds and feeds” specs. However, one other specification is also important to consider when measuring a copier’s performance: warm up time.

Most copier reps will talk about the speed of a copier, but that speed is only valid when a copier is fully warmed up and ready to go. The reps fail to mention the other half of the productivity puzzle, how long the copier takes to get warmed up.

What Is “Warm-Up Time?”

Warm-up time is when the copier takes from placing the document onto the scanner and pressing the copy button to warm up and produce your copy.

This warm-up time matters because if you’re not using a copier consistently, that copier will cool down. Once it cools down, it takes time to warm back up to make more copies.

Warm-up time becomes a factor when your copier cools down, and you need to warm it up again to make more copies. If you use your copier with long intervals of downtime, the faster copier for your work will be with the lower warm-up time, not necessarily the one with the quicker “copier speed.”

Would a Smaller Copier Be A Better Choice For Your Business?

When thinking about warm-up time, you can compare a small copier and a large one to a cup of water versus a giant pot of water.

While larger copiers usually have faster copier speeds when they’re warmed up, they take a significantly longer time to warm up than a smaller copier.

A larger copier will typically take more than a minute to warm up and print five pages in a real-world test, while a smaller copier will warm up and print those same five pages in only twenty seconds.

Think of how many copies you would need throughout your average day. If time is a concern with each print, but you aren’t using your copier for hours at a time, taking a smaller copier would be the best decision. Not only will you finish your print jobs much faster, but you’ll also save potentially thousands of dollars on your copier purchase.