Ricoh GX5050N User Manual

Ricoh Aficio GX5050N

15.5 PPM Color • 19.5 PPM
Monochrome Inkjet Printer*

Test period duration: Two months, including a 16,500-

impression durability test.

MAY 2007

Ricoh Aficio GX5050N

BUYERS LABORATORY INC. Lab Test Report

A Comprehensive BLI Laboratory Evaluation

Reliability ..............................................Excellent

Misfeeds ...................................................... 0

Service Calls ................................................. 0

Print Quality .......................................... Very Good

Color Photographic Images ........................... Good

Color Business Graphics ............................... Good

Black Text .........................................Very Good

Black Line Art ........................................... Good

Halftone Range .................................... Excellent

Halftone Fill ......................................Very Good

Black Solids .......................................Very Good

Wicking .................................................. Good

Ink Bleed ................................................ Good

Pricing Analysis ....................................... Very Good

Supplies Cost Per Page (Color/Black) ....9.218¢/1.612¢

Ease of Use ............................................. Excellent

Status Information .................................... Excellent

* In “Standard” mode, the unit’s default setting. 30 ppm in color

and black in High Speed Draft mode.

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Suggested retail price: $369
Manufacturer: Ricoh Corporation; West Caldwell, NJ; made in China.
Maximum monthly duty cycle: Up to 33,000 impressions.
BLI’s recommended monthly volume for optimum performance: Up to 3,500 impressions.
Type: Desktop, color piezo inkjet printer.

GENERAL APPRAISAL

ALSO INSIDE

 Specications

 Certicate of

Reliability

Ratings scale:

Excellent, Very

Good, Good, Fair

and Poor.

Offering awless reliability and admirable productivity, the Ricoh Acio

GX5050N provided an exceptional overall performance in BLI's tests. In
addition to completing its 16,500-impression test with no service required
and not even a single misfeed, the competitively priced unit proved to be
economical as well, featuring the a cost per page that is among the lowest
for comparable inkjet printers.

With a rated speed of 19.5 ppm in black and 15.5 ppm in color in the default
Standard mode (the unit features speeds of up to 30 ppm in black and color
when printing in High Speed Draft mode) and support for up to legal-size output,

LAB TEST

This report has been reproduced with the written permission of Buyers Laboratory Inc. Any duplication of this report, in whole or part, in any form or manner,

© 2007 Buyers Laboratory Inc. WARNING: This material is copyrighted by Buyers Laboratory Inc. and is the sole property of Buyers Laboratory. Duplication of this proprietary report or excerpts from this report, in any man-
ner, whether printed or electronic (including, but not limited to, copying, faxing, scanning or use on a fax-back system), is illegal and strictly forbidden without written permission from Buyers Laboratory. Violators will be pros-

without the written permission of Buyers Laboratory, is unlawful and violators will be prosecuted. © 2007 Buyers Laboratory Inc. To purchase reprints,

ecuted to the fullest extent of the law. To purchase reprints of any BLI reports or articles, contact BLI at [phone]. Buyers Laboratory Inc., 20 Railroad Avenue, Hackensack, NJ 07601. Contact us at [e-mail].

contact BLI at [phone] (x17) or at [e-mail].

Ricoh Aficio GX5050N

BUYERS LABORATORY Lab TesT RepoRT

the Ricoh Acio GX5050N proved to be a productive unit, demonstrating
above-average efciency rates and rst page times that were faster than

average compared to similar tested inkjet printers. The unit, which employs
four separate ink tanks, also produced very good output overall. This is due
in part to Ricoh's Modulation-Dot (M-Dot) technology, which allows up to
four droplets of ink to be ejected in rapid succession, thus combining into

a single larger dot, producing better ll and higher resolution. Black output
produced by the Acio GX5050N in the default “Standard” mode was rated
“Very Good.” Color business graphics and photographic images were rated
“Good.”

The Acio GX5050N received excellent ratings for ease of use and the included

utilities. The unit is very easy to set up: using the quick-install routine on
the included CD, users can easily install the drivers and software in just a

ADVANTAGES

The Ricoh Acio GX5050N’s supplies cost per page for both black and color output are the second lowest

•

for competitive inkjet products tested.

The rst-print times for all ve le types used in testing are faster than the average for inkjet products

•

tested to date. In fact the rst print times for the Word, PowerPoint, TIFF and PDF les are the fastest

of inkjet printers tested to date.

Overall color and monochrome print efciency is well above average in simplex and duplex modes when

•

compared to tested inkjet printers.

When printing from the PCL driver, the unit completed BLI’s 19-page job stream at 109.14 percent of its

•

rated color speed, which is the best performances for comparable inkjet printers in this test to date.
When printing from the PCL driver, the Ricoh GX5050N completed the monochrome job stream at 87.60
percent of its rated engine speed, which is above average. Performance from the RPCS driver was even
better, at 107.28 percent of its rated speed for monochrome and 116.3 percent of its rated speed for
color.

The standard memory capacity, at 64 MB, is 48 percent higher than the average for competitive inkjet

•

printers.

SHORTCOMINGS

Color photographic output produced by the Ricoh Acio GX5050N showed a heavy yellow undertone in

•

some skin tones.

LAB TEST

This report has been reproduced with the written permission of Buyers Laboratory Inc. Any duplication of this report, in whole or part, in any form or manner,

© 2007 Buyers Laboratory Inc. WARNING: This material is copyrighted by Buyers Laboratory Inc. and is the sole property of Buyers Laboratory. Duplication of this proprietary report or excerpts from this report, in any man-
ner, whether printed or electronic (including, but not limited to, copying, faxing, scanning or use on a fax-back system), is illegal and strictly forbidden without written permission from Buyers Laboratory. Violators will be pros-

2

without the written permission of Buyers Laboratory, is unlawful and violators will be prosecuted. © 2007 Buyers Laboratory Inc. To purchase reprints,

ecuted to the fullest extent of the law. To purchase reprints of any BLI reports or articles, contact BLI at [phone]. Buyers Laboratory Inc., 20 Railroad Avenue, Hackensack, NJ 07601. Contact us at [e-mail].

contact BLI at [phone] (x17) or at [e-mail].

Pricing Analysis



Ricoh Aficio GX5050N

BUYERS LABORATORY Lab TesT RepoRT

few minutes with about four clicks of the mouse. Specifying job requirements
from the well-designed print drivers was also simple. Further enhancing ease
of use from the desktop is the good feedback to PC workstations, including
pop-up messages on device and print job status and the ability to proactively
check status information. In addition, the unit features simple procedures

for loading paper and removing misfeeds. The Acio GX5050N also offers

clean and simple procedures for replacing the four separate ink cartridges.
Printers that employ a separate ink cartridge for each color are generally
more economical than models that use tri-color cartridges, which must be
thrown away as soon as any one of the colors is depleted.

BLI's pricing analysis reveals that the Ricoh Acio GX5050N is priced

competitively with the average for network-ready inkjet printers with
similar standard features (i.e., support for 8.5" x 14" output and automatic

duplexing). The Acio GX5050N’s cost per page for monochrome and color

is lower than the average for competitive tested products. In fact, its color
cost per page is lower than the average for workgroup color laser printers
in the 20- to 30-ppm range, which have traditionally offered lower supplies
cost than inkjet.

Summary



Based on its excellent performance in BLI's tests, the Ricoh Acio GX5050N is

highly recommended by BLI for small workgroups with monthly print volumes
of up to 3,500 impressions.

LAB TEST

This report has been reproduced with the written permission of Buyers Laboratory Inc. Any duplication of this report, in whole or part, in any form or manner,

© 2007 Buyers Laboratory Inc. WARNING: This material is copyrighted by Buyers Laboratory Inc. and is the sole property of Buyers Laboratory. Duplication of this proprietary report or excerpts from this report, in any man-
ner, whether printed or electronic (including, but not limited to, copying, faxing, scanning or use on a fax-back system), is illegal and strictly forbidden without written permission from Buyers Laboratory. Violators will be pros-

3

without the written permission of Buyers Laboratory, is unlawful and violators will be prosecuted. © 2007 Buyers Laboratory Inc. To purchase reprints,

ecuted to the fullest extent of the law. To purchase reprints of any BLI reports or articles, contact BLI at [phone]. Buyers Laboratory Inc., 20 Railroad Avenue, Hackensack, NJ 07601. Contact us at [e-mail].

contact BLI at [phone] (x17) or at [e-mail].

FEATURES

Ricoh Aficio GX5050N

BUYERS LABORATORY Lab TesT RepoRT

Controller:

Ricoh controller based on a 400-MHz TMPR4956 CXBG processor.

Automatic features:

Auto duplexing; auto tray switching; auto color calibration.

Interface(s):

Standard: USB 1.1/2.0.

Tested memory:

64 MB of RAM.

Client operating system support:

Windows 95, 98, Me, NT4.0, 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista.

Network operating system support:

TCP/IP.

Ricoh Aficio GX5050N

Print drivers:

The Ricoh Acio GX5050N includes PCL 5c and PCL 6 print driv­ers, as well as a proprietary RPCS driver.

Fonts:

Host-based.

Resolution modes:

300 x 300 dpi and 600 x 600 dpi, as well as interpolated reso­lution modes of 600 x 300 dpi and 1800 x 600 dpi.

Control Panel

The user-friendly control panel consists of a two-line, 32­character LED screen and nine hard keys.

LAB TEST

This report has been reproduced with the written permission of Buyers Laboratory Inc. Any duplication of this report, in whole or part, in any form or manner,

© 2007 Buyers Laboratory Inc. WARNING: This material is copyrighted by Buyers Laboratory Inc. and is the sole property of Buyers Laboratory. Duplication of this proprietary report or excerpts from this report, in any man-
ner, whether printed or electronic (including, but not limited to, copying, faxing, scanning or use on a fax-back system), is illegal and strictly forbidden without written permission from Buyers Laboratory. Violators will be pros-

4

without the written permission of Buyers Laboratory, is unlawful and violators will be prosecuted. © 2007 Buyers Laboratory Inc. To purchase reprints,

ecuted to the fullest extent of the law. To purchase reprints of any BLI reports or articles, contact BLI at [phone]. Buyers Laboratory Inc., 20 Railroad Avenue, Hackensack, NJ 07601. Contact us at [e-mail].

contact BLI at [phone] (x17) or at [e-mail].

BUYERS LABORATORY Lab TesT RepoRT

TEST RESULTS AND OBSERVATIONS

Test equipment:

BLI’s dedicated test network, consisting of Windows 2000

servers, Windows XP workstations, 10/100BaseTX network
switches and CAT5 cabling.

Reliability



Ricoh Aficio GX5050N



PMs/Malfunctions Service Required

Meter count
(beginning of test)

End of test period 16,500

Total misfeeds/misfeed rate 0/Not applicable

Total Service Calls 0

Meter Count

(Impressions)

0

Ease of Operation

Ease of use:

Excellent. The included PCL and RPCS drivers are well laid out
and easy to use. Procedures for loading paper and adjusting
paper drawers are very straightforward, but the unit does not
automatically detect paper size; operators have to select the
paper size at the control panel. Removing misfeeds is an easy
procedure.

Ease of installation:

Excellent. Users insert the included CD-ROM, which auto­launches, and select “Quick Install for Network.” The soft­ware quickly and easily walks the user through the installa­tion, allowing the user to install the user’s guide, SmartDe­viceMonitor for Client, PCL 6 and RPCS driver with four clicks
of the mouse.

Impressions

Between Service

Feedback to PC workstations:

Excellent. Users can receive pop-up messages for completed
print jobs and device error conditions at their PCs, as well
as icon alerts. Ricoh offers two device monitoring utilities
for end users: Status Monitor and SmartDeviceMonitor for
Client. Users can access the RCPS print driver’s Status Moni­tor by double-clicking an icon under the Maintenance tab
of the driver. Status Monitor graphically displays remaining
ink supplies and displays device status. SmartDeviceMonitor

LAB TEST

This report has been reproduced with the written permission of Buyers Laboratory Inc. Any duplication of this report, in whole or part, in any form or manner,

© 2007 Buyers Laboratory Inc. WARNING: This material is copyrighted by Buyers Laboratory Inc. and is the sole property of Buyers Laboratory. Duplication of this proprietary report or excerpts from this report, in any man-
ner, whether printed or electronic (including, but not limited to, copying, faxing, scanning or use on a fax-back system), is illegal and strictly forbidden without written permission from Buyers Laboratory. Violators will be pros-

5

without the written permission of Buyers Laboratory, is unlawful and violators will be prosecuted. © 2007 Buyers Laboratory Inc. To purchase reprints,

ecuted to the fullest extent of the law. To purchase reprints of any BLI reports or articles, contact BLI at [phone]. Buyers Laboratory Inc., 20 Railroad Avenue, Hackensack, NJ 07601. Contact us at [e-mail].

contact BLI at [phone] (x17) or at [e-mail].