Ricoh SP 4100N User Manual

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June 2007

Ricoh Aficio SP 4100N

Buyers Laboratory Inc. Lab Test Report

A Comprehensive BLI Laboratory Evaluation

Ricoh Aficio SP 4100N

31 PPM Laser Printer

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.

TESTLAB

ALSO INSIDE

Test Procedures

Specifications

Certificate of Reliability

Ratings scale:

Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair and Poor.

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 Aficio SP 4100N is available through bliQ (www.buyerslab.com/bliQ).

BLI RECOMMENDATION

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

Ricoh Aficio 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

Aficio 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 Aficio 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.

This report has been reproduced	the written permission of Buyers Laboratory Inc. Any duplication of this report, in whole	part, in any form	man-
© 2007 Buyers Laboratory Inc. WARNING: This withma erial is copyrighted by Buyers Laboratory Inc. and is the sole property of Buyers Laboratory. Duplication of this proprietary report or excerpts from this report,manner,yin
ner,withouthether printedthe orwritteelec ronicpermission(includ ng, but noft limitedBuyersto, copying,Laboratory,faxing, scanniis unlawfulg or use onandfaxviolators-back system),willis illegalbe prosecutedand strictly forbidden. © 2007withoutBuywrittenrspermissionLaboratfromryBuyersInc. LaboratoryTo purchase. Violatoreprints,will be pros-
ecuted to the fullest extent of the law. To purchase reprints of any BLI reports or articles, contact BLI at (201) 488-0404. Buyers Lab ratory Inc., 20 Railr ad Avenue, Hackensack, NJ		07601. Contact us at info@buyerslab.com.
	contact BLI at (201) 488-0404 (x17) or at info@buyerslab.com.

TESTLAB

Ricoh Aficio SP 4100N

Buyers Laboratory Lab Test Report

The Aficio 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, configure printer settings and monitor the Ricoh Aficio 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 Aficio 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

EXCELLENT

The Ricoh Aficio SP 4100N is certified highly reliable by BLI, completing a

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

Administrative Utilities

EXCELLENT

SmartDeviceMonitor for Admin allows the administrator to create groups of printers, lock the control panel, configure printer settings and manage the Ricoh Aficio SP 4100N, as well as any other Ricoh or compatible non-Ricoh device on the network—printer or multifunctional—with an embedded Web page.

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. 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

This report has been reproduced with the written permission of Buyers Laboratory Inc. Any duplication of this report, in wholereportpart, in any formreport,manner,y

© 2007 Buyers Laboratory Inc. WARNING: This ma erial is copyrighted by Buyers Laboratory Inc. and is the sole property of Buyers Laboratory. Duplication of this proprietary or excerpts from this in manner,withoutwhether printedthe orwrittenelectro icpermission(includ ng, but notof limitedBuyersto, copying,Laboratory,faxing, scanniis unglawfulor use onandfaxviolators-back system),willis illegalbe prosecutedand strictly forbidden. © 2007withoutBuywrittenrspermissionLaboratfromryBuyersInc. LaboratoryTo purchase. Violatoreprints,will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. To purchase reprints of any BLIcontactreports orBLIarticles,at contact(201)BLI488at-(201)0404488(x17)-0404.orBuyersat info@buyerslabLab ratory Inc., 20 Railroad.comAvenue,. Hackensack, NJ 07601. Contact us at info@buyerslab.com.

TESTLAB

Ricoh Aficio SP 4100N

Buyers Laboratory Lab Test Report

on device status and make changes to configuration settings, as well as set up e-mail alerts to notify specified 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 popular 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

VERY GOOD

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 notification 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.”

Users can also choose to receive e-mail alerts for specified error conditions and events; a wide variety of events can be selected for up to four specified users via the embedded Web page.

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TESTLAB

Ricoh Aficio SP 4100N

Buyers Laboratory Lab Test Report

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 information on device status, device configuration and job history.

SmartDeviceMonitor For Client

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PCL 6 Driver

LAB

Ricoh Aficio SP 4100N

Buyers Laboratory Lab Test Report

EASE OF NETWORK SETUP

VERY GOOD

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 hardware when using the PCL and RPCS drivers. For the Adobe PostScript driver, the configured options must be manually specified by the user.

PRINT DRIVERS

EXCELLENT

The Ricoh Aficio 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.

PostScript 3 Driver	RPCS 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

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TESTLAB

Ricoh Aficio SP 4100N

Buyers Laboratory Lab Test Report

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

APPLICATIONS COMPATIBILITY

EXCELLENT

No problems were experienced with any of the test files used in the applications 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 files, which contain text, graphics, halftone images, tables, etc., enabling BLI technicians to evaluate memory usage, file processing, font rendering and grayscale capability.

Image Quality

VERY GOOD

Output produced by the Ricoh Aficio 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 fill areas, with consistent toner coverage and good density readings.

—Halftones were visible over a “Fair” range, from the 3 to 89 percent dot-fill levels; however, transitions between some levels were not distinct. Toner coverage within dot-fill areas was consistent.

PRODUCTIVITY

VERY GOOD

Overall simplex print efficiency demonstrated in testing is above average when compared to comparable models in this speed range tested to date.

Overall duplex print efficiency is the highest of printers in this class tested to date.

First-print times for all the file 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 19page job stream at 55.86 percent of its rated engine speed, which is above average compared to competitive monochrome printers tested.

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