XEROX & RICOH’S NEW FAST COLOR PRINTERS

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Ricoh and Xerox deliver fast color in a big way
The
past couple of years have seen the consolidation of color laser
printers as affordable, reliable mainstream machines, delivering a big
boon to office workers who need to produce attractive, informative
business documents. The next frontier is color machines that can print
on tabloid or larger paper (up to 12 inches by 18 inches), offering the
versatility to produce posters, technical illustrations, double-sided
saddle-stitched booklets, and similar complex documents.
For this
review, I looked at two new oversize color printers with revved-up
engine specs: Ricohs Aficio CL7300D and Xeroxs Phaser 7400DN, both
specified for between 30 ppm (pages per minute) and 40 ppm on text and
color. To provide performance and cost perspective, I looked back at
two similar machines, Lexmarks C920dn and Oki Printing Solutions
C9600hdn, that Melissa Riofrio and I reviewed on Oct. 3, 2005.
The
new Ricoh and Xerox machines run fast, are a pleasure to operate, and
generate creditable prints. But I uncovered some important differences.
The Ricohs print quality is a smidgen better, but aggressive pricing
from Xerox plus faster performance give the Phaser 7400DN a slight lead
overall.
Ricoh Aficio CL7300D
The Ricoh Aficio CL7300D is easy to
set up and use. For one thing, the company includes instructions for
both dealer and owner, plus a long, detailed maintenance manual.
Moreover, the color-calibration sheet has instructions printed right on
it. (I didnt need the sheet because the automatic calibration function
worked well.)
This printer gets mostly good marks for mechanical
design. It weighs more than 200 pounds, but deep handholds at each
corner (replaced on duplexer-equipped models, like the one I tested,
with a sturdy steel bar on one side) make it easy to lift. The paper
trays adjust smoothly and have stops to prevent them from being dumped
on the floor. The three trays come in handy for letterhead, second
sheet, plus plain paper for internal documents. The imaging components
inside the front door are somewhat inconvenient to remove and replace,
but the huge toner tubs drop easily into place under a flap on the
right side.
Ricohs control panel menus are logically organized so a
beginner could probably figure out how, for example, to print a
password-protected document. But the two-line LCD doesnt accommodate
much hand-holding such as prompts. The printers internal Web site, in
contrast, provides pages and pages of admin features to authenticate
users and control access, set up various error-notification schemes,
and configure network parameters.
Minor complaints: The printer
comes with single-use paper-size labels for the paper trays, so if you
change sizes youll soon resort to sticky notes. Also, with two internal
trays, the CL7300D is so tall that when I put it on a workbench I had
to climb on a chair to see the control panel LCD; consider a rolling
base instead, which costs $175. And one of the jam-clearing doors only
opens 45 degrees, which makes for an awkward reach.
The Ricoh falls
slightly behind the Xerox on text-printing speed, churning out plain
text at 26.1 ppm, compared with the Xeroxs 27.4 ppm; it falls further
behind on graphics, at 6.6 ppm versus the Xeroxs 8.5 ppm.
We scored
performance and tested print speed using each printers Adobe PostScript
drivers default settings. It might be possible to coax better
performance or better print quality from the machines by juggling
driver settings before each job, but because the printers do not have
equivalent nondefault settings, I stuck with the common denominator
settings.
On print quality, the Ricoh beats the Xerox. It produces
matte black text with a crisp, sharply focused look, not letting heavy
text blob together nor dropping fine detail on light text. It prints
color swatches spot on, although density does drop off somewhat in the
middle of large areas. It also shades color and grayscale photos well,
although a dot pattern visible in grayscale photos interferes a bit
with rendering detail.
Ricohs Aficio CL7300D costs $5,095 in the
configuration I tested — $1,746 more than the Xerox Phaser 7400DN. The
Ricoh does come with an extra internal paper tray plus a hard drive,
but when you equip the Xerox with those useful items, the Ricoh still
costs $748 more.
Ricohs consumables, however, are a bargain. After
50,000 prints (about a years worth), youll have spent $1,039 to keep
your Ricoh CL7300D humming (not including paper or electricity),
compared with $1,520 for the Xerox Phaser 7400DN; after 250,000 prints,
the Ricoh bill will amount to $7,639 — $10,215 for the Xerox. By that
time, youll have long recuperated the higher purchase price. For my
calculations, consumables costs reflect a running total of all
purchases of replacement components at specific break points. They are
not based on a generalized cost per page.
Note that pricing for
Ricoh products is not entirely transparent because the company sells
through a dealer network and often under a monthly contract that
includes supplies. You may be able to negotiate better deals than the
list prices quoted here.
Xerox Phaser 7400DN
The 7400DN shows
some nice design touches. One of my favorites is the hinged control
panel, which swivels from horizontal to vertical to accommodate tall
and short people. The controller cover is also on hinges; you loosen
two captive thumbscrews, and the door folds out of your way. A bracket
over the output tray keeps prints in place if you open the case to
clear a paper jam.
All the flaps and doors are labeled to match
illustrations in the maintenance documentation. The external auxiliary
feed and the main paper tray both feel fairly sturdy, but the size
guides on it are somewhat balky. A slot on the tray holds reusable
plastic size labels, which Xerox provides.
The LED-array design
hangs the light sources from the ceiling of the printers paper path, so
that opening the lid lifts much of the innards out of your way. And a
cage that holds the drums and toner cartridges can raise a couple of
inches to allow you to access paper jams at the image transfer belt
without gutting the whole printer.
Xerox made the 7400DN friendly
for users and system admins alike. A big backlit LCD displays six lines
of text and takes advantage of the real estate to show prompts and menu
paths. Users can also print some help files that are stored permanently
on the printer, such as tutorials on color calibration and paper types.
Extensive on-screen manuals fill in for brief, oversimplified printed
documentation.
One minor UI flaw: The installation CD includes a
useful tool called SupportCentre that displays video tutorials, FAQs,
manuals, and so on, but it isnt documented in the install guide; I just
stumbled upon it by luck.
As an admin, if you already use Xerox
CentreWare for managing a fleet of Xerox printers, the Phaser 7400DN
will drop right into place; if not, an internal Web site provides a
wealth of security and admin features, including a job-accounting
database and fine-grained control over which control-panel features to
lock or leave accessible. You can set the printer to sleep and wake up
at specific times each day or tell it to track its own usage patterns
and figure out the most efficient schedule.
Print quality is where
the Xerox stumbles, and there only a bit. It prints text in an
attractive solid black, but with a hint of soft focus or fuzziness. At
the same time, the curves and diagonals of letters show a slight
choppiness, although serifs and other details come through well. Color
ramps show slight crosshatching but transition smoothly from light to
dark shades; however, diagonal lines look wavy because they are not
cleanly defined. Also, in my tests, I noticed some trapping problems
that left blank spaces between abutting blocks of solid color. My
grayscale test photo seemed tonally flat and had moire patterns but
preserved fine detail, while my color test photo looked dotty and
lacked detail.
Xeroxs Phaser 7400DN fits into this competitive
environment at the low end of the cost spectrum: Its $3,349 price tag
($4,347 fully configured) undersells not only Ricohs CL7300D but also
the Lexmark C920dn and Oki C9600hdn, equivalently equipped models from
our Oct. 3 review. And although Ricohs consumables cost much less over
time, Lexmarks and Okis cost somewhat more.
Xerox, however, doesnt
compensate by delivering an underperforming machine. Its 27.4-ppm
text-printing speed beats both the Ricoh and Lexmark, although not the
Oki; its 8.5-ppm graphics-printing speed takes first place.

Which big printer for you?
Either
printer is a fine machine but a big investment, and the differences
between them are subtle. The Xerox Phaser 7400DN performs somewhat
better, especially on graphics, whereas the Ricoh Aficio CL7300D has a
slight edge on print quality. The Xerox costs less to purchase, but its
operating costs add up faster. If purchase cost matters more than
speed, look at Ricohs slightly slower and much less expensive Aficio
CL7200.
The PC World Test Center contributed methodology, staff, and resources to this project.
Related ArticlesRicoh and Xerox deliver fast color in a big way

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March 28, 2006 at 11:21 AM