Thursday August 2, 2007
Water-resistant prints
By CHONG JINN XIUNG
If your office documents have been suffering from one too many accidents involving water, Ricoh's Aficio GX3000 printer may be just the solution for your printing woes.
The GX3000 may look like an ordinary office printer on the outside, measuring 416 x 491 x 263mm in size and weighing 14kg. The printer is not as big as a regular office printer but it is larger than most consumer grade printers.
However, upon closer inspection, you will find that the GX3000 is more than your average run-of-the-mill printer.
 |
Instead of using regular ink, the GX3000 uses Ricoh's special gel-based technology, which utilises quick drying, water resistant liquid gel.
Quick and easy
The GX3000 has a very simple looking exterior and does not feature a lot of complicated buttons on its interface. On the front you will find the LCD screen, which provides basic information on what process the printer is running. You will find the USB 2.0 and Ethernet ports located on the back of the printer.
It is pretty easy to replace the gel when you run out of it as the cartridges are located at the very front of the printer and is within easy reach.
 |
EASY BUTTONS: The GX3000's front panel interface allows you to perform basic printer maintenance without the need for a PC. |
Setting up the GX3000 is relatively quick and easy. All you need to do is install the necessary drivers, connect the printer via USB port and let your PC detect it.
All in all, the GX3000 has an easy set up procedure that will help you have it up and running in under half an hour.
Performance
The GX3000 isn't exactly what I would call a speedy machine. Upon starting up the printer, it took 40 seconds to warm up.
The obvious drawback to this is the long startup time will inevitably force you to wait it out for your first print.
The GX3000 is able to print at resolutions of up to 3,600 x 1,200dpi (dots per inch).
In terms of print quality, the GX3000 showed some impressive results when producing colour printouts.
We tested the printer by printing out some coloured webpages and pure text documents at various printer settings including the GX3000's Level Colour mode, which is said to save cost on printing pages with colour images and text by reducing colour density on graphics and images while retaining full density for text.
The GX3000 produces some gorgeous looking printouts when set on the highest quality with text turning out razor sharp even when on Level Colour mode.
However, as we switched to the printer's speed priority, there was a noticeable drop in quality of text printouts upon turning on the Level Colour mode.
The GX3000 has been touted to have very fast print speeds of up to 30 pages per minute (ppm) regardless of whether they are in monochrome or in colour.
Having tested the printer's print speed, we found that monochrome printouts are pretty fast, with 29 pages printed out before the timer hit one minute.
However, the same cannot be said for colour printouts, as even at the highest speed setting, the GX3000 was only capable of printing out 10 colour pages per minute.
Additionally, the printer is capable of performing duplex prints, so it will definitely come in handy if you are on a drive to save paper in the office.
Water? No sweat
In case you have been wondering, the printouts are indeed waterproof. Any accidental spilling of water does not affect the quality of your printout.
Both text and graphic images didn't suffer any form of degradation such as blotching when splashed with water.
We did some water testing on the paper were pleased to see that the ink is very resistant to water. In fact, depending on the type of paper used, your paper is more likely to wear out than the ink itself.
The verdict
Overall, Ricoh's GX3000 is a good and reliable printer that is easy to set up and it produces decent printouts. We found that the printer is particularly good at printing text when set to high quality.
The printouts themselves, while exhibiting minor deformities, are very durable making them suitable for rough office use.
At RM888, the printer is a little on the high end of the price spectrum if you are a consumer. However, comparing it with to other full-fledged office printers, the GX3000 seems like a good deal.
Pro: Easy setup; sharp text printouts; durable prints that are resistant to both water and light.
Cons: Minor deformities in prints.
| AFICIO GX3000 (Ricoh) Colour laser printer Print resolution: 3,600 x 1,200dpi Toners: Black, magenta, yellow and cyan Interface: USB 2.0, LAN Paper handling: 250-sheet input tray, 150-sheet output tray Paper sizes: Up to A4 size Dimensions: 416 x 491 x 263mm Weight: 14kg Price: RM888 Toner prices: RM153 for black, RM142 for each colour cartridge Review unit courtesy of Ricoh (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd. |
Related Review(s)
RSS
