Ricoh SP 4100N User Manual

Ricoh Aficio SP 4100N

31 PPM Laser Printer

June 2007

Ricoh Aficio SP 4100N

BUYERS LABORATORY INC. Lab Test Report

A Comprehensive BLI Laboratory Evaluation

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

Administrative Utilities .............................. Excellent

Feedback to Workstations .......................... Very Good

Ease of Network Setup .............................. Very Good

Print Drivers ........................................... Excellent

Applications Compatibility .......................... Excellent

Image Quality ......................................... Very Good

Productivity ........................................... Very Good

Ease of Use ............................................Very Good

Feature Set ........................................... Very Good

Toner Yield ............................................. Excellent

Cost per Page ............................................. 1.111¢

Value ...................................................Very Good

Test duration: Two months, including a 75,000-impression

durability test.

Manufacturer’s recommended monthly volume: Up to 150,000 impressions.
BLI’s recommended monthly volume for optimum performance: Up to 25,000 impressions.

More information on the Ricoh Acio SP 4100N is available through bliQ (www.buyerslab.com/bliQ).

BLI RECOMMENDATION

BLI RECOMMENDATION

Proving itself to be an excellent choice for small to mid-size workgroups, the

ALSO INSIDE

 Test Procedures

 Specications

 Certicate of

Reliability

Ratings scale:

Excellent, Very

Good, Good, Fair

and Poor.

Ricoh Acio SP 4100N, a 31-ppm printer supporting up to legal-size output,

provided an exceptional overall performance during BLI’s two-month evaluation.
In addition to being highly reliable, completing its 75,000-impression test
without experiencing a single misfeed and with no service calls required, the

Acio SP 4100N provides very good quality output and very good ease of use.

Offering resolution modes of 600 x 600 and 1200 x 600 dpi, the Acio SP 4100N

produced output that was very good overall. BLI technicians cited text that was
crisp and cleanly formed; circular lines that were smooth and of consistent line
weight; and diagonal lines that were smoothly formed, with no stair-stepping
evident. However, halftones were visible over a narrower range than would be
expected for a printer in this class and transitions between some levels were
not distinct.

1

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-

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

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-
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 SP 4100N

Buye rs LaBo rator y Lab TesT RepoRT

The Acio SP 4100N was also easy to use from the desktop via the well-laid-

out print drivers. Further enhancing ease of use is the very good feedback

on device and print job status provided by the SmartDeviceMonitor utility.
SmartDeviceMonitor for Admin allows the administrator to create groups of
printers, lock the control panel, congure printer settings and monitor the
Ricoh Acio SP 4100N, as well as any other Ricoh or non-Ricoh device on the

network—printer or multifunctional—with an embedded Web page. In addition,
Web Image Monitor, the embedded Web page, offers device status information
such as the amount and size of paper in the drawers, the amount of toner
remaining and a temporary job history, as well as a listing of current settings
and error messages.

Because of its very good output quality, strong reliability and thorough

administrative utilities, the Ricoh Acio SP 4100N is highly recommended

by BLI for mid-size workgroups with monthly print volumes of up to 25,000
impressions.

PERFORMANCE OVERVIEW

, — and  represent positive, negative and neutral attributes, respectively.

RELIABILITY

 The Ricoh Acio SP 4100N is certied highly reliable by BLI, completing a

75,000-impression durability test with no service calls required and without
any misfeeds.

ADMINISTRATIVE UTILITIES

 SmartDeviceMonitor for Admin allows the administrator to create groups of

printers, lock the control panel, congure printer settings and manage the
Ricoh Acio SP 4100N, as well as any other Ricoh or compatible non-Ricoh

device on the network—printer or multifunctional—with an embedded Web
page.

EXCELLENT

EXCELLENT

 Web Image Monitor, the embedded Web page, offers device status infor-

mation such as the amount and size of paper in the drawers, the amount
of toner remaining and a temporary job history, as well as a listing of cur­rent settings and error messages. The Administrator mode of the embedded
Web page, which is password-protected to ensure only authorized users can
make changes to the device, allows the administrator to view information

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-

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

2

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-
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 SP 4100N

Buye rs LaBo rator y Lab TesT RepoRT

on device status and make changes to conguration settings, as well as set
up e-mail alerts to notify specied users of error and warning conditions.

SmartDeviceMonitor For Admin – Device Discovery

 Ricoh also provides plug-ins for HP Web Jetadmin so that users of this popu-

lar network device management utility can use it to manage their Ricoh
devices, as well.

 Web SmartDeviceMonitor is available for free download from the Ricoh Web

site. Web SmartDeviceMonitor allows administrators to discover, monitor

and manage Ricoh and compatible non-Ricoh devices on the network via a
standard Web browser without needing to install additional software.

FEEDBACK TO WORKSTATIONS

 Users can receive pop-up messages via the SmartDeviceMonitor utility. The

“Extended Features” selection of SmartDeviceMonitor enables the user to
specify the conditions to monitor and when notication via pop-up windows

is desired. The selections available are: “Notify of printout/data transmis­sion,” which launches a pop-up window whenever a print job is sent and
upon completion of a job; “Notify of printout/data transmission cancella­tion” and “Notify when errors occur while printing.”

VERY GOOD

 Users can also choose to receive e-mail alerts for specied error conditions

and events; a wide variety of events can be selected for up to four specied

users via the embedded Web page.

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-

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

3

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-
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 SP 4100N

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Web Image Monitor – E-Mail Alert Configuration Screen

 Further information on device status is available if the user right-clicks on

the SmartDeviceMonitor icon on the taskbar tray (the menu shows each of
the drivers associated with SmartDeviceMonitor). If the user selects one of

the drivers, the Properties screen for that driver will open and display infor-

mation on device status, device conguration and job history.

SmartDeviceMonitor For Client

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-

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

4

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-
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 SP 4100N

Buye rs LaBo rator y Lab TesT RepoRT

EASE OF NETWORK SETUP

 During installation, the SmartDeviceMonitor utility automatically locates

the device and displays the IP address, allowing the administrator to simply
select it to create the port, and automatically detects the installed hard-

ware when using the PCL and RPCS drivers. For the Adobe PostScript driver,
the congured options must be manually specied by the user.

PRINT DRIVERS

 The Ricoh Acio SP 4100N ships with four print drivers (proprietary Ricoh

RPCS, Adobe PostScript 3, PCL 5c and PCL 6). The drivers are well laid out

and easy to use on the Windows XP platform tested and offer a feature set
typical of most high-end printers.

 The PCL and RPCS drivers are very graphical and offer most of the commonly

used selections on the main screen. The Adobe PostScript driver is typical of
PostScript drivers in that users must access additional tabs to make common

print job selections.

 Although not uncommon, the appearance and layout of the PCL, Adobe Post-

Script and RPCS drivers differ.

VERY GOOD

EXCELLENT

PCL 6 Driver

5

PostScript 3 Driver

 The RPCS driver allows users to save print driver selections under custom

icons for one-click selection of commonly used print settings.

 The RPCS driver has a print quality summary feature that allows the user

to view all print quality selections before sending a job to the printer. This

RPCS Driver

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-

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

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-
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 SP 4100N

Buye rs LaBo rator y Lab TesT RepoRT

feature allows the user to conrm the print quality selections by selecting
the Print Quality Summary tab in the driver.

APPLICATIONS COMPATIBILITY

 No problems were experienced with any of the test les used in the applica-

tions compatibility tests. Units are tested for compatibility on the Windows
XP platform with Microsoft Word 2000, Microsoft PowerPoint 2000, Microsoft
Excel 2000, Adobe PageMaker 7.0, Adobe Photoshop 6.0 and Adobe Acrobat

6.0 using 25 application test les, which contain text, graphics, halftone

images, tables, etc., enabling BLI technicians to evaluate memory usage,

le processing, font rendering and grayscale capability.

IMAGE QUALITY

 Output produced by the Ricoh Acio SP 4100N was very good overall; text

was excellent, with crisp and cleanly formed characters, even at 6-point
font sizes; circular lines were smooth and of consistent line weight; and

diagonal lines were smoothly formed, with no stair-stepping evident. Solids
were also excellent, characterized by smooth, dark ll areas, with consis-

tent toner coverage and good density readings.

— Halftones were visible over a “Fair” range, from the 3 to 89 percent dot-ll

levels; however, transitions between some levels were not distinct. Toner

coverage within dot-ll areas was consistent.

EXCELLENT

VERY GOOD

PRODUCTIVITY

 Overall simplex print efciency demonstrated in testing is above average

when compared to comparable models in this speed range tested to date.

Overall duplex print efciency is the highest of printers in this class tested

to date.

 First-print times for all the le types used in testing (Word, PowerPoint,

TIFF, PDF and JPEG) are competitive to faster than average when compared
to those of comparable models tested.

 When printing from the PostScript driver, the SP 4100N processed BLI’s 19-

page job stream at 55.86 percent of its rated engine speed, which is above

average compared to competitive monochrome printers tested.

VERY GOOD

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-

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

6

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-
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].