Reading the fine print: 7 laser printers tested

Ricoh Aficio AP3200

Ricoh Aficio AP3200

The Ricoh was one of the heaviest printers we tested and conveniently it had four internal metal handles to help with moving.

The standard unit comes with two 500-sheet paper trays. You can buy additional paper trays, which will allow you to hold a maximum of 3100 sheets of paper, as well as a stapling finisher, a duplex unit, a four-bin mailbox, and a 6GB hard disk.

Reading the fine print:
Introduction
1. Brother HL-2460
2. Fuji Xerox Phaser 5400
3. HP LaserJet 8150N
4. Kyocera FS-9100DN
5.Lexmark T622n
6. Minolta-QMS Page Pro 9100
7. Ricoh Aficio AP3200
How to pick a printer
Scenarios
How we tested
Editor's Choice
Specifications
Benchmarks
About RMIT labs

The Ricoh ships with 32MB of memory, which can be expanded to 160MB.

The Ricoh peaked at 33ppm in our simple Word document test and still managed 25ppm in our complex Word document. In our photo test the Ricoh was over 2.5 times faster than the Fuji-Xerox.

In plain text the Ricoh was excellent, and it produced a blacker black than many of the other printers. Characters were also well formed and there was no evidence of toner spatter. However when it came to printing photos we weren't very impressed in its ability to produce subtle changes in shading.

The TCO was quite low for the Ricoh and rivals the Kyocera printer in this area. It only becomes more expensive to own once you start printing more than 6000 pages per month (over three years). You have to replace the black toner bottle every 12,000 pages but that only costs $50.

Worthy of a mention is the monitoring software that was shipped with the printer. The Administrator and Client SmartNetMonitor will not only give full control of the printer over your network, but it also picks up the status of other printers attached to your network.

Product: Ricoh Aficio AP3200

Price: AU$4570

Vendor: Ricoh

Phone: 131 476

Web: www.ricoh.com.au

Interoperability:
10/100 Ethernet, bi-dir parallel.

Futureproofing:
Good paper handling options available.

ROI:
Low running costs.

Service:
2-year onsite warranty.

Rating:
Fast and inexpensive to run.

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