Ricoh Aficio SP C242SF

The Ricoh Aficio SP C242SF ($700 street) has a lot in common with the Ricoh Aficio SP C240SF ($400, 4 stars) that I recently reviewed. Both are aimed at small to medium size offices with relatively heavy duty print needs, and both offer a similar set of MFP features, from fax capability to automatic document feeders (ADFs). The two differ in speed and output quality, but arguably the most important difference is cost. The C242SF costs more to buy but less to run. Compare it to either the C240SF or to other printers, and the more you print, the more attractive it will be.

The C242SF is essentially the single function Ricoh Aficio SP C242DN ($450 street, 3.5 stars) with MFP features added. It uses the same toner cartridges and offers the same low claimed cost per page, at 2 cents for a monochrome page and 10.1 cents for a color page. In comparison, the Ricoh C240SF claims a running cost of an additional 1.2 cents for a mono page and an additional 9.6 cents for a color page. Even if you print only one color page for every 10 mono pages, that works out to a 10.8 cent difference for every 11 pages you print, or $108 for 11,000 pages. In short, you don't have to print all that much to make up the difference in the initial price. Run the numbers comparing the C242SF to most other color MFPs, including the Editors' Choice Dell 2155cn ($549.99 direct, 4 stars), and you'll come to pretty much the same conclusion, although the actual numbers will differ.

That's the good news. The bad news is that even though the C242SF generally rises to the level of being good enough in most areas, it's also a bit below par in many.

The Basics
In addition to printing, the C242SF can scan to and fax from your PC, including over a network, and it can work as a standalone copier and fax machine. It can also scan directly to a USB memory key and print directly from PictBridge cameras. Other key office-centric features include the 35-page ADF, which complements the letter-size flatbed for scanning multi-page documents and legal size pages.

The printer also offers ample paper handling for a small office or workgroup, with a 250-sheet tray, a duplexer (for printing on both sides of the page), and a one-sheet manual feed tray so you can feed individual sheets of a different paper stock. This should be enough for most small offices, but if you need more, you can also get a 500-sheet second tray ($149 list), for a total 750-sheet capacity.

One potentially annoying oversight that the C242SF shares with the C240SF is that the default installation doesn't install the driver for faxing from your PC's hard drive. As I pointed out in the Ricoh C240SF review, if you don't notice the separate option for the fax driver when you install the printer, and you don't know that PC faxing is supposed to be available, you could easily use the printer for its entire lifetime and never find out that you don't have to print documents before you can fax them.

Setup and Speed
The C242SF is big and heavy. It measures 18.7 by 16.5 by 19.4 inches (HWD), and weighs a substantial 66.2 pounds, which means moving it into place is best considered a two-person job. Setup is standard fare otherwise. For my tests, I connected it to a wired network and ran the tests from a Windows Vista system.

The printer turned out to be surprisingly slow for its 21 page per minute (ppm) rating for both mono and color. On our business applications suite, I clocked it (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing) at an effective 3.2 ppm. That's significantly slower than either the C240SF, at 6.3 ppm, or the Dell 2155cn, at 5.9 ppm. In fact, it's essentially tied with the much less expensive HP LaserJet Pro 100 Color MFP M175nw ($349.99 direct, 3 stars), at 3.3 ppm.

Output Quality
The printer's output quality is good enough for most purposes, but below par for a color laser MFP across the board. Text in particular is well below par. However, lasers set such a high bar for text quality that you shouldn't have any complaints unless you have an unusual need for small fonts, which in this case means smaller than 8 points for most fonts used in business documents.

Graphics output is just a touch below par, but still within the tight range where virtually all color laser MFPs fall. Most people would consider it good enough for any internal business use. However I'd hesitate to use it for, say, PowerPoint handouts if I wanted the output to convey a sense of professionalism. Photos are good enough for a client or company newsletter, as long as you're not too demanding.

Clearly, the C242SF's strengths are its ample paper handling, its full complement of office-centric features like the ADF and duplexer, and its low running cost. It doesn't earn many points for quality or speed, but both are good enough for most purposes. The combination adds up to a potentially money-saving workhorse. If you print enough pages to get the full benefit of the low cost per page, it can be a great fit.

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