Before you buy an iColor 650 printer read this.

What to know before you buy an IColor 650

If you’re reading this, most likely you’re in the research stage of getting into the white toner transfer market, and you should have all the facts before you make such a large investment.

To be or just not meant to be?

An age old question that certainly applies here with a CMYK printer that wasn’t meant for transfer printing.

At some point you’ve probably heard the expression, “if you put lipstick on a pig, its still a pig”. This rings true for just about anything someone tries to “dress up” and pass off as something its not, including printers. With that said – the IColor 650 was not manufactured to be a toner transfer printer. The printer is an OKI C844 office model, which was manufactured exclusively as a true CMYK printer.

As is expected with a CMYK printer that wasn’t OEM authorized to be converted to a white toner transfer printer, numerous complaints are filling Facebook Groups on people having issues with the toner not sticking to the transfer sheet.

So why is this happening? Simply put, its a combination of the fuser and firmware. To expand on that, it boils down to the firmware controlling fuser pressure and temperature with a variable of time. While the IColor 650 printer will work fine with some papers some of the time, the C844 fuser and firmware weren’t designed to work for textile transfers. “The C844 has not been developed for textile transfer use and steady print quality is not ensured.”, quoted one of the OKI engineers after testing the IColor 650 at their facilities in Japan. The images to the right are from their results.

Confirmation of results

Crio purchased an IColor 650 (yes, you read that right), to run our own series of test for confirmation.

For authentication purposes, we purchased an IColor 650 to verify that the results could be duplicated. We tested the same papers and received the same results OKI found – the toner just doesn’t consistently stick to the paper. The video clearly shows the papers printing through the IColor 650 and the resulting issue.

This is the raw, unedited video using the IColor RIP.

The other questions people should be asking is “why does my IColor printer have OKI toners?” Didn’t Uninet / IColor just run a marketing campaign that OKI is leaving the market and that the availability of consumables could be in jeopardy? So is this printer an IColor printer or an unauthorized conversion of an OKI disguised as an IColor?

From IColor 650 customers

NOTE: Below are from real IColor 650 users finding similar issues with IColor one and two step private label papers, as well as those supplied by IColor dealers to the end user.

Is there a future for the IColor 650?

According to OKI, the future of the unauthorized rebranding of the C844 is a firm "No".

In a letter from the head of the OKI Peripheral Products Division, he states, “OKI has not allowed or authorized UniNet to modify any OKI standard printer to sell in the digital transfer market.” OKI went on to say, “To prevent future leakage, OKI is in the process of applying countermeasures to combat this issue. Again, we, OKI, have not agreed at all with what UniNet has been doing, and we will take appropriate measures to ensure there is an end to this behavior.” These countermeasures will make future support and supplies more difficult to obtain, which could leave iColor 650 users without consumables in the near future.

Coincidence or uncanny similarity - you decide.

Side-by-side comparison of both printers. Even the Uninet Icolor 650 image appears to be a photoshopped version of the original OKI C844 image. See the OKI C844 here.

NOTE: Both product images are current as on 11/11/2021

Uninet Icolor 650

OKI C844

Wait, there's more

Lets talk speed, performance, and white density oh my.

some other bullshit goes here

UNINET IColor, IColor ProRIP and all product names are trademarks of UNINET Imaging, Inc. – OKI, Propeel, Forever and other product names used herein for reference are trademarks of their respective owners. Products, product appearance and/or specifications are subject to change without notice.