Ricoh Aficio SP C242DN

At first glance, the Ricoh Aficio SP C242DN ($450 street) seems like it can do its job as a color laser printer well enough, but doesn't seem to offer anything to separate itself from the pack. Its speed and output quality are suitable for the small office or workgroup that it's meant for, but the speed is on the slow side for the price, and output quality is a touch below par overall. What should catch your eye, though, is a low claimed running cost that can translate to a bargain price for the total cost of ownership. That alone may be enough to put it on your short list.

Like the Dell 2150cdn ($399.99 direct, 4 stars) that's the Editors' Choice in this category, the SP C242DN is a little too big to comfortably share a desk with, but small enough so you shouldn't have too much trouble finding room for it. At 12.6 by 15.7 by 17.7 inches (HWD), it's a little shorter than the Dell printer, but it has a bigger footprint. As with the Dell printer too, it's heavy enough, at 52.5 pounds, that you may want some help moving it into place.

Other than the low running cost, the printer's best feature is its paper handling, with a 250-sheet tray, a duplexer (for printing on both sides of the page), and a one-sheet manual bypass tray, so you can feed an envelope or a different paper stock without having to swap out the paper in the tray.

This should be enough for most small offices and workgroups. If you have heavier duty print needs, however, or need a second type of paper available for printing—so you have both legal and letter size available, for example—you can also add an optional 500-sheet tray ($149 list) for a total 750-sheet capacity. Few small offices will need more than that. And note that although the 2150cdn matches the SP C242DN point for point in standard paper handling, the SP C242DN has the higher maximum capacity.

Setup and Speed
Setting up the SP C242DN is typical for this class of color laser. For my tests, I connected it to a network, using its Ethernet port, and installed the drivers on a Windows Vista system. The printer's speed is appropriate for a small office, but very much on the slow side.

Ricoh rates the printer at 21 pages per minute (ppm) for both monochrome and color, which should be close to the speed you'll see when printing text with no graphics or photos. However, I clocked it on our tests (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing) at an effective speed of only 3.4 ppm. In comparison, the Brother HL-4570CDW ($500 street, 3.5 stars) came in at 6.8 ppm when I reviewed it, and even the less expensive 2150cdn managed 5.5 ppm.

Also note that the SP C242DN comes with three printer drivers. Because of the slow speed, I ran the tests with all three to see if the other drivers would do any better. The speed I'm reporting here is for the PCL6 driver, which offers the fastest speed.

Output Quality
The SP C242DN's output quality is pretty much in the same class as its speed—good enough so it's not a problem, but far from impressive. The overall quality is just a touch below par, primarily because of subpar text. Fortunately, par for laser text quality is so high that being a bit below par isn't much of a problem. I wouldn't use the SP C242DN for desktop publishing where high quality is critical, but for anything short of that, you shouldn't have any complaints unless you have an unusual need for small fonts.

Graphics output is at the same level as the vast majority of color lasers. The quality is certainly good enough for any internal business need, including PowerPoint handouts and the like. Depending on how much of a perfectionist you are, you may consider it good enough for output going to an important client who you want to impress with a sense of your professionalism. However, it falls a little short of being suitable for marketing materials like one-page mailers or brochures.

Photo quality is at the low end of the very tight range where most color lasers fall, making it close to true photo quality but with some obvious flaws. The quality is easily good enough for printing Web pages with recognizable photos. Depending on your level of perfectionism, once again, you may or may not consider it good enough for, say, a client newsletter.

Running Cost
What makes the SP C242DN interesting is its low cost per page, at a claimed 2 cents for a monochrome page and 10.1 cents for a color page. As a point of reference, the Dell 2150cdn costs less to run that most color lasers in this price range, and its claimed costs are 0.4 cents higher for monochrome pages and 4.2 cents higher for color pages.

Do the math, and you'll get some interesting numbers. If you print just 12,500 monochrome pages over the lifetime of the printer, or 1,190 color pages, you'll make up the $50 difference in initial price between the SP C242DN and Dell 2150cdn. That works out to just 350 mono pages or 33 color pages per month for three years. Print more, and the SP C242DN will cost less than the Dell 2150cdn in the long run. And the more you print, the more it will save.

What this all adds up to is that if you don't expect to print a lot, there's no compelling reason to choose the Ricoh printer. But if you print enough, you can easily save the difference in initial cost compared to a printer that costs less to buy but more to run. For small offices with tight budgets and heavy duty printing needs, this is a pretty compelling argument. Quite simply, the more you print, the more attractive the Ricoh Aficio SP C242DN will be.

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