Ricoh Aficio SG2100n – Print Speeds

Ricoh rates the Aficio SG2100n at up to 29ppm in both mono and colour print. Frankly, we don’t see how it could have achieved this figure. Our 5-page mono text document gave a speed of 9.4ppm and this only rose to 10.1ppm on the longer, 20-page test. In draft mode, with all settings for speed, we saw a top speed of 14.3ppm.

The speed we saw for our five-page mono text and colour graphics document was 3.1ppm, barely a tenth of what’s claimed and a pretty average result. Even when we took off the pre-print processing time and just timed the page-to-page print speed, we could only see 10ppm. Ricoh must have used a very short document to get that throughput figure.

There’s no duplex print on this machine, which is fair enough at this price, and no wireless connection, which is less so. Without a wireless link, it’s not possible to print from mobile devices. Most devices, even at this price, now include wireless.

Ricoh Aficio SG2100n – Print Quality and Costs

The print quality on plain paper is good. Colour print is very good, with rich colours and solid fills. A photo print on plain paper was also good, with no signs of banding, but some loss of detail in darker areas. Black print is fair, with a little feathering; the gel nature of the ink doesn’t appear to reduce this in comparison with regular, liquid ink.

Ricoh printers further up its range can take normal or high-yield cartridges, but this one can only take the standard-yield, 600 page consumable. This gives page costs, including 0.7p for paper, of 3.9p for mono print and 13.2p for colour.

Both of these are high in comparison with most rivals, even all-in-ones at this price. Canon’s £62 https://www.trustedreviews.com/canon-pixma-mx475_Printer_review PIXMA MX475, for example, costs 2.9p for a mono page and 6.1p for a colour one, the colour costs less than half that from the Aficio SG2100n.

Should I buy a Ricoh Aficio SG2100n?

Although basically competent, there are a few issues with this machine and plenty of others offer more at the same price. The main issues are the lack of a scanner and wireless connection and high running costs. Canon’s PIXMA MX475 and Brother’s https://www.trustedreviews.com/brother-dcp-j132w_Printer_review DCP-J132W have all of these features and HP’s https://www.trustedreviews.com/hp-envy-4500_Printer_review Envy 4500 is £10 cheaper and adds in duplex print.

Verdict

There’s always room for another player in the inkjet market, but the lower end is very competitive and you need to have a unique selling point to carve your niche. Ricoh’s Aficio SG2100n is a single-function printer, rather than an all-in-one, and has no wireless connection. It’s quite speedy, but costs a lot to run, so may struggle to muscle its way in.

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