Ricoh SP C261DNw review | TechSwitch

The Ricoh SP C261DNw is a color laser print-only gadget aimed on the small to medium-sized enterprise and able to serve a modest-sized workgroup. Its footprint is pretty small, however it may possibly maintain 250-sheets of paper in its single deep paper tray and dump 150 pages in its top-mounted out-tray. It prices round Ricoh can even promote you an extra unit that may maintain one other 500 sheets of paper if required. It comes with Wi-Fi and NFC connectivity inbuilt and a free iOS/Android companion app.

Promoting for about £235 (round US$310, AU$420) it undercuts the equally specified Kyocera Ecosys P6230cdn, however it’s price noting that the cartridges that include the Ricoh comprise solely sufficient toner for 1,000 pages, relatively than the usual refills, which yield 1,600 pages for C, M and Y and a pair of,000 for black and price round £278 ($363.48) for the set. The Kyocera starter cartridges yield three,500 pages in mono and a pair of,500 in color. 

Design

Ricoh’s design crew have tried to melt the visible impression of this boxy unit with some delicate curves, however the wobbly beige plastic panelling seems dated to our eye and solely serves so as to add but extra bulk. The grimly utilitarian Brother HL-L5100DN manages to squeeze related performance right into a smaller dice. The Ricoh’s folding flaps and the sliding paper width markers of the bypass tray really feel unfastened and able to fail. The plain dice design of the Kyocera P5026cdw and Brother HL-L5100DN look higher and really feel extra strong.

Options

As a print-only gadget, the Ricoh SP C261DNw has just a few options to say right here. Duplex printing means it may possibly print on each side of the web page and it may possibly print onto a variety of paper codecs as much as A4 dimension, together with envelopes. You may load these in the primary paper tray, or feed them into the bypass tray. 

The Ricoh SP C261DNw could be very properly linked with Wi-Fi constructed and a tough button for making a Wi-Fi Direct connection. There’s additionally NFC for linking your Android telephone in a single faucet. There are additionally two USB ports, one for flash reminiscence drives and one to your PC. Ricoh has even included a USB knowledge cable within the field, which only a few producers do any extra. 

The print pace is quoted at 20ppm for mono and color prints, with a primary web page out time of 14 seconds. These are modest claims by in the present day’s requirements, however we didn’t handle to realize something as quick as that. 

Setup and operation

Getting the Ricoh SP C261DNw up and working is pretty straight ahead, despite the fact that there isn’t any setup wizard to stroll you thru. As an alternative you may comply with the directions within the consumer guide.

While you’re all set you may discover the printer settings by peering on the tiny and extremely reflective two-line LCD monitor. Altering your settings and deciding on paper kind on the printer is time-consuming as a result of the buttons and show are so small, the on-screen messages are sometimes cryptic and the menu is convoluted. The touchscreen of the Xerox WorkCentre 6515 feels mild years forward of this. 

With the intention to print an deal with onto an envelope, it’s important to really open the machine and pull a lever that adjustments the interior paper path, and naturally keep in mind to reset it while you return to printing on paper. Total, we’d must say that the Ricoh SP C261DNw is the least user-friendly machine we now have examined for a while.

Efficiency

Our varied assessments revealed blended outcomes from the Ricoh SP C261DNw. The very first thing we seen is that it’s considerably noisier than every other printer we now have examined and the racket is attributable to the 2 cooling followers that whine into motion as quickly because the printer wakes up.

The printer defaults to ‘Power Saver 2’ mode, which sends the printer to sleep after a matter of seconds of non-use, so that you’ll be listening to these annoying get up followers so much until you delve deep into the menu and change it off. It’s properly well worth the time you’ll spend tying to work out how to do that. 

It is usually frustratingly gradual to print the primary web page, gradual sufficient to make you marvel whether it is really working, whereas printing consecutive pages takes longer than different laser printers in its class. 

The printed outcomes are literally relatively good. Mono textual content seems darkish and wealthy and clearly delineated in any respect font sizes, web page after web page. Fonts in a distinct color, nonetheless, immediately look much less properly shaped and below a magnifying glass, look ragged on the edges.

Color paperwork look very vibrant and daring, whereas images additionally seem pleasingly vibrant. The lightness, nonetheless, is on the expense of distinction and normally, photographs appear to be containing barely an excessive amount of yellow and picture high quality merely common. 

Remaining verdict

The Ricoh SP C261DNw makes a fantastic job of printing black textual content on plain paper, making certain each character is wealthy and darkish and crisp. It might probably churn out plain mono pages steadily at an affordable pace and due to its deep paper tray it may possibly carry on churning them out too.

And don’t overlook that the paper capability will be expanded to a most of 751 sheets. It provides full wired and wi-fi connectivity so you may print from the Ricoh cell app through Wi-Fi Direct, or out of your PC with the equipped cable.

The Ricoh SP C261DNw is one thing of an unsightly duckling by way of design and it’s bulkier than print-only machines providing the identical paper capability, or extra. The wobbly plastic panels and flimsy sliders don’t encourage confidence and the cooling followers are too loud. 

The consumer interface primarily based across the tiny two-line mono show is cramped and the menu system is convoluted and unintuitive. We wasted a number of time understanding how one can choose the correct paper and print decision and needed to consult with Google, or the consumer guide many instances. The poor design, and irritating consumer expertise just isn’t particularly properly reward both. Color paperwork take a lot too lengthy to print and images typically look too vibrant and too yellow.

And whereas the asking value undercuts another print-only lasers, it additionally underperforms and the ‘starter’ toner cartridges which might be included within the field will solely final for 1,000 pages, in comparison with the standard three,000 pages. 

The Ricoh SP C261DNw does a very good job of printing textual content paperwork with an attractively wealthy and darkish end. Black and pages typically look crisp, constant , however in each different respect, this printer disappoints.

The design seems dated and ponderous, the construct high quality feels poor, the fan noise is simply too loud, the show is simply too small and the interface is horrible. Color paperwork take too lengthy to print and lack distinction and given the particularly small quantity of toner included within the field, we predict the Ricoh SP C261DNw is overpriced.