Fantastic Machine for the Money

I just got this Color Laser All-in-One and am very pleased with my choice after reviewing comparing and worrying over this purchase for months.

It prints beautifully. I love the duplex feature and my husband has put it to use on brochures for his work. We printed these double sided items manually previously. I am now scanning in my work and sending it on as PDF files rather than faxing and it was a snap. I was afraid that the included software would not be adequate to achieve this but after talking to a Ricoh representative; I was reassured and found it to be a simple operation and a time saver. I was looking at a necessary purchase of some pricey scanning software with another machine I considered.

I have my C222SF connected by USB for now and set up was a snap. I understand there are more features with networking and I may switch to wifi if I move the machine.

The biggest negative in my opinion no printed manual plus in some areas I've found that more information would have made me happier. I had downloaded the PDF version form Ricoh's web site to help me in my purchase and the CD that comes in the box has the manual included but I like a "book" so I can be right at the printer with it in hand or can read it over my morning coffee. Somehow an online manual doesn't get it for me. Also the `Quick Set-Up' sheet in the box is not worth much graphic and some not clear but the machine is really easy to get going.

This multi-function is loaded with features prints quality output and at a rating of 35000 copies per month makes an ideal solution for the small office.

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Get to know the PCU because you'll be replacing it often

Our company purchased the CL3000 not more than 4 months ago. It worked out of the box and the color printing is fast. This lasted to about a week. After a week the printer began making a horrible grinding noise. After letting the Ricoh help desk listen to the noise over the phone they scheduled a tech to come out and fix it. The tech showed and said that the auger waste doors on the color PCU were jammed and the color PCU needed to be replaced. He didn't carry the part on him so it would have to come from Ricoh direct. This took about a week so no printer for two weeks since the problem occurred. We replaced the color PCU and continued printing for 3 more months. We began to notice red streaks in the color sections of print. Again we consulted Ricoh's help desk (which is nothing more than a tech scheduling service) and they sent out the same tech again. This time he claims the black PCU is faulty. He actually broken the flimsy auger door and used a wadded up piece of paper to force the door open. This time he requested we return the PCU under warranty to Ricoh for exchange. I would like to heave this over a cliff before I invest more time on a clearly defective design. For those of you who love this unit are you printing more than 400 pages a week? Maybe it's just a matter of time for you.........More detail ...

Wonderful printer

This is a great printer it is a little larger than I realized but I love it. It scans very fast and I have had no problems so far. Great price and fast shipping!More detail ...

Prints nicely but the rest of the machine is a nightmare

The print quality of this machine is quite good but that is where the benefits end. These are the problems that I have had in the two months that I have owned it:

1. Regular paper jams. There is no apparent paper jam but the machine stops and paper jam is the error message. I called tech support and they told me to fan the paper more. Fanning the paper is not the issue it jams no matter how or how many times you fan the paper.

2. Missed faxes. Sometimes the fax does not pick up. This hasn't happened to me in many years since the fax was perfected 15-20 years ago. But this machine will sometimes not pick up the fax or pick up only part of the fax. C'mon this is a fax machine! You can buy them for under $100 and they work better a lot better than this!

3. Does not send the fax. I have had repeated problems with this machine not sending any or only part of a fax. This has happened many times and is frightening since I am sending contracts and similar important biz documents. Once again: this is a fax machine! The technology was perfected a long time ago but apparently not by Ricoh.

4. Fax: Not very easy to adjust ring times or volume. My assistants each read the manual and were not able to do it. We had to bring in the tech guy and even then he was only able to turn the volume off completely not what I wanted and the minimum number of rings is three.

5. Warm up time: I takes 1 minute and 25 seconds to print a monochrome copy first thing in the morning. It takes nearly a minute to print once the machine goes into the saver mode. Nothing like seeing the staff wait and wait for prints to kick out! That will get your BP up.

6. Scanning: I don't know yet I haven't been able to figure out how to scan to the computer yet but I have only spent a normal amount of time trying so far and have been using a canon Dr-2050C scanner since it is simple and easy to use.



I paid $850 and this machine has slowed down business beware. I will be happy to remove this review if Ricoh buys the machine back from me.



Overall a bad choice. What a waste of time. I am going to hook up the old Brother fax and buy a new printer/copier and try to sell this machine.



Update: December 2009. I'd like to report that after three visits from a repair crew that this machine is better than one star but it's not. If I hadn't paid so much for it plus a very expensive extended warranty I would have given it away but I can't in good conscience sell this lemon.More detail ...

Pretty good workhorse printer

Overall the 8200 is a pretty good black and white laser printer.



The company I work for just deployed 11 of these printers. After field testing them for a month I can say these printers are great. They are well made and dependable. I find them much easier to service than HP printers. They are also significantly cheaper per page to run than HP.



I will say that these printers are short so be prepared to put them on a cabinet or buy one of the additional paper drawers (the 2000 page paper drawer is great for high usage printers!). Also these printers are heavy so your average Hayworth cubicle system will not support them.



One of the nice things about this printer is that toner is sold in 4 packs. Each toner tube will cover 36000 pages for a grand total of 144000 pages at around $260 (roughly) for the set of tubes. The toner tubes are easy to change and recycle. It also means that end users have less chances to break stuff.



The only thing I disliked about the printer is that at the time of the review it did not have 802.1x authentication for wired networking. Now you can purchase an 802.1x upgrade from Ricoh/Ikon (the manufacturer). This is a minor annoyance: this was clearly stated as a supported feature in the specifications document on the Ricoh website.More detail ...

From love to HATE!

I loved my Ricoh when I first got it. It printed great and was a real workhorse. Then shortly after the warrantee expired (of course) everything went downhill. I replaced the transfer unit because I got an error message saying it needed to be replaced. Immediately I replaced it I started getting a "color registry error" and gradually the printer ceased printing color. After replacing several (very expensive!) parts at the recommendation of Ricoh's tech support to fix the problem I was finally able to print color again only now the colors do not align. Another call to Ricoh and now I'm having to pay nearly $200/hour to have a tech come out and fix it. A service contract is $75/mo and for that much money you can more than buy one or two new printers every year! Before you buy a Ricoh just google "ricoh color registry error" and you'll discover a very good reason why you should stay away from Ricoh printers. I will never own another Ricoh!More detail ...

heads up mac users!!

the mac support from ricoh and their affiliates (Lanier AC031cn & Gestetner SP C210SF) is essentially nil. ricoh supplies a basic printer driver. Currently the following features DO NOT work on a mac: 1) full color twain-compliant scanning 2) copy to file email or ocr 3) scan to file email or ocr. 4) postscript



if you like this machine i would strongly suggest you look at the brother mfc-9420cn. brother industries fully supports and offer all features for the mac. In addition they have postscript 3 emulation drivers. wish i knew this before i made my purchase.



Here's the real kicker the hardware is essentially the same ricoh and it's affiliates choose not to support or develop the features drivers and software for the macintosh platform.



If you're a mac person and you only want to print copy and fax this is a good choice. However if you would like to utilize all features I'd choose to look elsewhere. Also take a look at hp's solid multifunction printers (they are just a bit slower).More detail ...

Great printer for photos!

Like most printers this works best in high quality mode. I was recommended this printer for photos. It works great with even low quality photo paper. The images are clear color is good and the ink does not smear. The salesperson said that you can spill water on the print so I tested it . . . image (on photo paper) did not smear or come off the paper.



Test with card stock did not fare very well. The pictures were not clear. The printer was able to handle the thick stock without any jamming.



In fast mode even the text is a little pixilated and not really clear.



Conclusion: with good paper this makes long lasting crisp clear images in high quality mode. The printer will not print to the edge of the paper so for a photo printer you will need a cutter.More detail ...