The Ricoh 132 P ($237) mono laser printer is a bit of of an anomaly. A lot of its in a similar way priced competition—together with the Canon ImageClass LBP246dw, the Brother HL-L6210DW, and the Lexmark MS431dw—be offering quicker speeds, upper paper capacities, and a cheaper price in line with web page. The 132 P’s major merit is a 1,200-by-1,200dpi answer atmosphere that delivers top-tier high quality for line drawings and textual content as small as 4 issues. So even if its velocity, paper capability, and working value prohibit it to reasonably light-duty printing, it may be a compelling selection for a small administrative center or workgroup that still wishes prime quality for small fonts or complicated line drawings.
Design: A Acquainted Mono-Laser Structure
The 132 P weighs a reasonably heavy 28.7 kilos and measures 10.3 by way of 14.6 by way of 15.4 inches (HWD), making it the heaviest of the printers discussed above, and hefty sufficient you could need assist unboxing it. Alternatively, bodily setup is each standard for a mono laser, and simple. Merely take away the packing fabrics, together with from the toner cartridge that ships throughout the unit, slide the cartridge again into the printer, and fasten the ability twine.
Paper dealing with is acceptable for many small workplaces or workgroups. The bottom unit gives a 300-sheet capability, divided right into a 250-sheet drawer and a 50-sheet multi-purpose tray, plus automated duplexing (two-sided printing). You’ll be able to additionally upload a moment 250-sheet drawer ($187), for a most of 550 sheets. If you wish to stay refills right down to more or less as soon as every week, that interprets to printing as much as about 2,200 pages per thirty days for those who get the not obligatory additional drawer, or a mean of 110 pages in line with running day. In the event you stick with the bottom unit, it really works out to 60 pages in line with day. Ricoh pegs the advisable responsibility cycle at 1,500 pages per thirty days.
For motive force set up, you need to pass to Ricoh’s web site and both obtain particular person drivers or the total set up bundle, which handles many of the setup robotically. For my checks, I used it to put in the PCL6 motive force, even though you’ll be able to inform it to put in a PostScript 3 motive force as a substitute, in case your administrative center wishes it, or set up each.
Connection choices come with Ethernet and USB. You’ll be able to additionally upload Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct with an not obligatory dongle ($44), however observe that you just don’t want one for cellular printing. The 132 P means that you can print from Android and iOS units by way of both Wi-Fi Direct or a Wi-Fi connection to the similar community the printer is the use of. You can additionally realize an NFC brand at the height panel close to the entrance, however it is not for setting up a connection to a cellular tool, and Ricoh says the model of the printer supposed for small workplaces does not make stronger NFC in any respect. It is wanted as a result of NFC verification may well be added in a variation supposed for enterprise-level small workgroups.
(Credit score: Ricoh)The price in line with web page is a bit top, at 3.5 cents, however, as at all times, the extra essential factor when making comparisons is the entire value of possession, which we talk about in How one can Save Cash on Your Subsequent Printer. Additionally observe that the 132 P’s toner cartridge contains the drum, so for printers that do not mix the toner and drum in the similar cartridge, you can want to upload within the comparability printer’s value in line with web page for the drum unit as properly.
One welcome additional for the 132 P is an choice within the motive force for personal printing, which helps you to ship a record to the printer, however no longer print it till you input a PIN on the entrance panel. For shared printers which can be even a brief stroll out of your table, this avoids the opportunity of any individual discovering delicate knowledge sitting within the output tray ahead of you retrieve the pages.
Checking out the Ricoh 132 P: Best-Tier Textual content High quality
To pass judgement on the 132 P’s efficiency, I when compared it with the 3 different printers discussed above. All had been examined the use of our same old Home windows testbed and all had been attached by way of Ethernet.
For simplex (one-sided) printing of our 12-page Phrase record, the effects for the printers had been in line with their rated speeds, which range from a top of fifty pages in line with minute (ppm) for the HL-L6210DW to a low of 34ppm for the 132 P. As is standard, the measured ppm for pages two thru 12 used to be a fit for the score in every case, inside the vary of a rounding error. So even if the 132 P lives as much as its score, and the measured 33ppm is a good clip, it is the slowest on this crew. As well as, its first-page-out (FPO) time used to be slower when compared with the others, so it’s going to be in closing position amongst this crowd regardless of what number of pages are in a report.
For the total 12 pages (together with the primary web page), we seen just a 3-second distinction from quickest to slowest for the opposite 3 printers, whilst the 132 P got here in at 9 seconds at the back of 3rd position. That may not be sufficient to topic if the printer’s a ways sufficient away that you need to stroll to it. However the distinction will handiest build up with every further web page, so for those who print a large number of recordsdata which can be tens or masses of pages lengthy, chances are you’ll believe the velocity a subject matter. Observe additionally that for the reason that FPO time is 12 seconds, when compared with 7 and eight seconds for the opposite printers, chances are you’ll realize a distinction in velocity for those who frequently print a number of quick recordsdata in fast succession.
For our complete business-applications suite, which is composed of six recordsdata, the 132 P took more or less 40 seconds longer than the opposite printers to print all of the suite, coming in at 102 seconds (15 ppm total) when compared with a bit greater than a minute for every of the others.
For duplex (two-sided) printing of the Phrase record, the relative speeds for the printers had been a bit other, however right here once more, the 132 P completed in closing position.
On our photograph check suite, it averaged 9 seconds for a 4-by-6-inch photograph.
The excellent news for the 132 P is that no matter issues it loses for the reasonably sluggish velocity, it makes up for on output high quality, in particular for textual content. The use of its default 600-by-600dpi atmosphere, the entire fonts you’ll most probably use in a enterprise report had been extremely readable and well-formed at 5 issues, and all had been readable at 4 issues, even if the strokes on some had been a bit skinny on the smaller measurement, making them a bit more difficult to learn. As well as, one of the crucial two closely stylized fonts with thick strokes used to be simply readable at 5 issues, whilst the one who’s more difficult to render properly used to be simply readable at 10 issues. Switching to at least one,200-by-1,200dpi maintained necessarily the similar point of clarity for the fonts with thick strokes, whilst making all of the fonts within the first crew extremely readable and well-formed at 4 issues.
Graphics on the default answer had been simply just right sufficient to put across all of the knowledge they had been supposed to, however a step beneath top-tier for a mono laser. I noticed simply visual dithering patterns in forged fills, obtrusive posterization in a single gradient that is laborious to render properly, reasonably refined banding, and asymmetric pile top in black fills, which displays as asymmetric mirrored image of sunshine from positive angles. A one-pixel-wide line on a black background held, however slightly, becoming a dashed line over a part of its period and turning into laborious to look in different portions. Printing at 1200-by-1200dpi lowered banding and dithering considerably, to the purpose of no longer having the ability to see both on some output, nevertheless it additionally made the skinny line on a black background more difficult to look.
(Credit score: Ricoh)Footage on the default 600-by-600dpi confirmed an identical ranges of banding and dithering plus some minor posterization and a slight darkening that misplaced some shadow element. Total they had been just about what you might be expecting from a Nineties black-and-white newspaper photograph. The use of 1,200-by-1,200dpi made virtually the entire banding, dithering patterns, and posterization disappear, boosting the footage to a bit of higher than newspaper high quality.
Verdict: High quality Over Amount
The perfect house for the Ricoh 132 P could be in an administrative center that completely wishes the printer’s high quality output and in addition prints little sufficient that the paper capability is acceptable and the reasonably top value in line with web page may not result in an overwhelmingly upper overall value of possession when compared with the opposite fashions discussed on this assessment.
Alternatively, for those who print sufficient to want a upper paper capability, you will have to believe the ones choices. The Brother HL-6210DW can deal with the heaviest-duty workload, at a most 1,600 sheets, whilst the Lexmark MS431dw and Canon LBP246dw each max out at 900 sheets. The Brother printer additionally gives the bottom value in line with web page, adopted by way of the Lexmark after which Canon fashions.
In the end, if the Ricoh 132 P can deal with your workload, its low preliminary value will no less than partially make up for its upper value in line with web page, and the high quality output could make the upper working value price paying for.