Ricoh Aficio SP C320DN

The Ricoh Aficio SP C320DN ($799 list), a color laser printer for small businesses and workgroups, has many office-friendly features. It provides a standard paper capacity suitable to meet the rigors of a busy workgroup. Its eco features include an auto-duplexer and a night sensor that automatically powers the printer down after hours. It has the ability to easily switch between draft- and presentation-quality output modes. It packs security features such as administrator and user authentication, as well as both data and address-book encryption. Unfortunately, all these were offset by its lackluster speed and output quality.

At 15.2 by 15.8 by 18.9 inches (HWD) and 64 pounds, the SP C320DN?off-white with a dark brown front panel?is a typical size and weight for a color laser. Its paper capacity is solid, befitting a 70,000-page-per-month duty cycle. It comes standard with a 500-sheet main tray that holds paper up to legal-size, as well as a 100-sheet bypass feeder. An optional 500-sheet tray is available for a maximum capacity of 1,100 sheets. An automatic duplexer, for printing on both sides of a sheet of paper, comes standard.

The SP C320DN provides both Ethernet and USB connectivity; we tested it over an Ethernet connection with a testbed PC running Windows Vista.

Print Speed and Output Quality
I timed the Ricoh Aficio SP C320DN (using QualityLogic's hardware and software, www.qualitylogic.com) on our business applications suite at an effective 4.6 pages per minute (ppm), a little slower than what we'd expect for its rated 26 page-per-minute speed in both black-and-white and color. The rated speeds are based on text-only printing, while our test suite combines text pages, graphics pages, and pages with mixed content. The OKI C610DN ($789 list, 4 stars) zipped through the suite at 6.7 ppm while the Samsung CLP-670ND ($600 street, 4 stars) finished the same tests at a 5.7 ppm clip, and I timed the Editors' Choice Xerox Phaser 6680dn ($649 direct, 4 stars) at 4.6 ppm.

The Ricoh's text quality was typical of a laser printer, which is to say good enough for any business use short of uses requiring very small fonts, such as demanding desktop publishing applications.

Graphics quality was a touch below par for a color laser, though still good enough for internal business use or for things like PowerPoint handouts. Issues included uneven distribution of toner, giving some solid areas (particularly blacks) a mottled and/or washed out appearance; posterization (the tendency for sudden shifts in color where they should be gradual); dithering (graininess, and in some cases visible dot patterns), and a tendency for thin lines to disappear.

Photo quality was good enough to print out recognizable images from Web pages, but whether you'd use the SP C320DN to print out a client newsletter depends on how much of a perfectionist you (and your clients) are. Color fidelity was decent, except for a monochrome photo that showed a slight tint. Some prints suffered from dithering, and a general loss in detail.

Other printers such as the Samsung CLP-670ND and Editors' Choice Xerox Phaser 6680DN provide higher-quality output, of a caliber capable of printing in-house marketing materials, and the SP C320DN's speed is lackluster compared with the likes of the OKI C610DN. But if your color printing efforts are for distribution within your company, the Ricoh Aficio SP C320DN is worth considering: it's a solid printer with very good standard paper capacity, an auto-duplexer, and some eco features designed to keep power costs down.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Ricoh Aficio SP C320DN with several other laser printers side by side.

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