The Imaging Channel

Ricoh has released two new departmental color laser printers. The firm replaced its Aficio SP C420DN with the new SP C430DN and expanded its color laser printer lineup with the addition of the new SP C431DN. At 37 ppm, SP C430DN is peppier than the SP C420DN, which is a 31 ppm device. The new SP C431DN is a 42 ppm machine. Both new machines are based on an enhanced version of the engine used in the SP C420DN, and all three machines share many of the same specs, including 1,200 x 1,200 dpi resolution, standard duplexing, and 10/100Base-TX Ethernet and USB 2.0 connectivity. Although the new machines print faster, they sport a 600 MHz processor, compared to the faster 800 MHz processor used in the older device. The new printers are the first laser units to offer Ricoh's Economy Color mode, which was previously available only on Ricoh's GelSprinter inkjet machines. In the Economy Color mode, text is rendered at 100 percent density, but graphic elements and photographs are printed at 50 percent density to reduce color toner usage. The SP C431DN also ships with Enhanced Locked Print. The technology allows each job that goes to the printer to be locked. Entering a code into an onboard key pad, end users can release the job. The machine also supports card authentication, which allows users to release jobs with a proximity card.

While the SP C430DN and SP C431DN are based on an engine deployed in previous units, they employ a new set of consumables. Rather than offering standard and high-yield cartridges, as it had in the previous machine, Ricoh deployed a new 24,000-page black toner container and 21,000-page CMY toner containers in its latest printers. The photoconductor units have the same yield as those used in the SP C420DN, but the life of the fuser has been improved from 100,000 pages to 120,000 pages.

Ricoh has managed to keep the operating costs of its two new machines down, and this will give them an advantage in the marketplace. The cost per page for a black-and-white document is only slightly over a penny, and color printing costs just over a nickel a page. These costs include the cost of all the various components and make the new SP C430DN and SP C431DN among the least expensive machines to operate in their class. It costs 1.8 cents to print a page with the recently released Konica Minolta bizhub C35, for example, and 11.3 cents for a color page. HP doesn't do much better. It costs 1.7 cents to print a black-and-white page with the HP Color LaserJet Enterprise CP4025dn and 9.2 cents to print a color page. At a penny a page for mono, these new Ricoh units make excellent general purpose printers with the added benefit of cheap color. The Economy Mode makes it even less expensive to operate the machines.

Standard

Enhanced Locked Print-NX (SP C431DN only), Administrator Authentication, 500 User Codes, Address Book and Password Encryption, WAP (Wi-Fi Protect Access)

Optional

DataOverwriteSecurity System, HDD Data Encryption, HDD Data Overwrite Security