Excellent price / quality but mediocre scanner

Excellent price / quality but mediocre scanner

Ricoh SP 204 SF - MFP 4-in-1 laser B & W, 22 ppm A4 (Personal Computers)

Customer Review

The Ricoh SP SF 204 is a multifunction laser printer (copy / printer / scanner / fax) monochrome (black and white) to the performance of 22 pages per minute.

CONTENT
It comes with 1 standard 220V power socket, 1 CD of utilities and drivers, 1 cover protection for the sheet tray and 1 RJ11 telephone cable to the fax. The USB cable to connect it to the computer is not provided.
On the CD are two PDF documents in French whose 204-page user manual, USB Quick Install software for DHCP and static IP network but also the network TWAIN drivers, the DDST printing, fax and FC Utility Smart Organizing Monitor for MS 200 Series, which provides information on the status of the printer, the number of pages printed and the% remaining toner.

USE
This model is a light version of the model Ricoh SP 204 and SP 204 SN SFN. It has no key "SCAN", USB flash disk and Ethernet ports but only Line and Tel ports for fax.
Finally, it is impossible to scan the network via FTP, email or in the direction of a folder.
For the scanner function, no software is provided. To scan a paper document, it will have an external software required to use (as XnView) provided compatible with Twain drivers.

This device handles paper sizes A4, Letter, Legal, B5, Half Letter, Executive, A5, A6, B6, 16K (197 x 273 mm, 195 x 270 mm and 184 x 260 mm) and custom sizes (width 90 to 216 mm and length from 148 to 356 mm).
The type of managed paper: thin paper (between 52 g / m² and 64g / m²), recycled paper (75 to 90 g / m²), plain paper (65 to 99 g / m²), thick paper (100 to 130 g / m²).
To store the sheets were either 150 sheets tray (weight 70g / m²) or manual loading tray ("bypass") which hosts the temporary sheet to print.
The printer is bit noisy at start and use. Warm-up time is short.

She quickly starts power saving mode:
- Power Saving Mode 1: after 30 seconds (consumption 40W max).
- Power Saving Mode 2: after 1 minute (only 3.9 W).

Printing: The resolution is 600 x 600 or 1200 x 600 dpi. You can select a portrait or landscape orientation and type of documents such as text, photos and mixed (text / photo).
The printing of black and white documents is good. With laser technology, office prints are very fast (between 8 and 10 seconds) and quality except a sense of non-uniformity on certain characters. As for prints, they are very rich and precise than those of my MF3110. The pictures come out crisp and almost would compete with prints with an inkjet printer.

In "Draft" or "Toner Save", the result is honorable. Blacks are less pronounced (less intense) and appear rather dark gray but perfectly adequate for personal work like proofreading. Readability is always present (unlike my Canon laser, the "draft" mode turns pale gray and my old Canon inkjet almost illegible).

The duplex is possible if the paper is loaded into Tray 150 sheets. This is a "fake" because manual duplexing: One must first print on both sides (odd pages), then put the pages into the device so that the printer continues with the even pages in the back. Any printer can do the manual duplex.

Cost of printing: The printer works with toner capacity of 2600 pages for the original model with high capacity (about 100) and 1500 pages for the classical model (about 75). With the model 100, one arrives at a cost of 0.0391 to the page, which is pretty good. Print cheaper than an HP OfficeJet Pro 8600 Plus is the color inkjet printer market most of the currently economic (cost per page: 0.0483). However, it is far from my old Canon MF3110 laser multifunction purchased in 2006, which with its toner capacity of 2500 pages findable at 53.45, allows a cost / page 0.0213 (2 times less than the Ricoh ). This will bring down the cost of printing the SP204SF by purchasing generic toner.

COPIES
For photocopies, putting the possible scale between 50% and 200% depending on the predefined size of the copy. By custom report, you can choose specifically between 25% and 400%. 2 multiple pages can be combined in 1 (portrait or landscape), 4 in 1 You can choose the number of copies using the numeric keypad (1 to 99).
A special function triggered via the dedicated button "ID Card Copy / On Hook Dial" will copy the 2 sides (front and back) of an ID card onto one side of paper. Very interesting feature to the administrative requirements, but it is questionable whether it deserves a dedicated button.

FAX
Fax features are available when you connect the printer to a PSTN (fixed phone) or PBX (Public Branch Exchange). I did not try this functional telephone line fault functionality. It can scan an original and send it by fax by typing on the keypad the destination number. The steps are described in detail in the documentation provided. Send a fax should be accessible to all (unless you are penguin 2 arms, in this case you might encounter some difficulties).

THE SCANNER
The possibilities offered by scan MS 204 SF are quite low. Unlike the larger models, the scanning function is not accessible via the control panel and the Smart Organizing Monitor program. To scan, it will necessarily go through TWAIN software that acquisition as freeware XNView. The TWAIN driver is included on the CD-ROM.
The optical resolution is 75 x 75 dpi to 4800 x 4800 dpi (Mode "full color" and "grayscale"), up to 600 x 600 dpi (fashion "photo", "text" and "text / picture "). The default is 150 x 150dpi, 300 x 300 dpi and 600 x 600 dpi.
The time to scan a document goes from very fast to the 300dpi A4 (12 seconds!) With the very slow for the 600dpi A4 (from 1 minute to 1 minute 10).
The quality of the scans is only OK, even by reducing the compression in XNView (default 20%). Comparing the Ricoh SP 204 SF with dedicated scanner Canon CanoScan LiDE 210 Flatbed Scanner USB 4800 dpi, one is quickly struck by the obvious differences: the images from the scan Ricoh are increasingly blurred (obvious on texts ) less respected and colors (red orange spring). It is known that the scanning software from the excellent LiDe 210 significantly improves outcomes, but then to get such a big difference However the Ricoh generates dark colors "clean" and natural, and dust are very visible (unlike the Canon).

CONCLUSION
Given its price barely higher than 100, the Ricoh laser SF is an excellent investment for those wanting to put some money in a laser multifunction printer, be it for personal or business use. If the quality of scans of documents is vital to you, I invite you to consult the offers of the competition or to purchase a dedicated scanner like the excellent Canon CanoScan LiDe 2010 or very fast but very expensive reference Fujitsu ScanSnap Scanner iX500 Deluxe papers duplex USB 3.0 / Wi-Fi. Overall it's a multifunction mono laser printer that I recommend for its price / quality ratio, compact volume, low printing cost and silence. The prints are also quality.

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