Ricoh Aficio GX3000 review

Gallery

Verdict:

The GX3000 is as fast as a colour laser, but we'd opt for a laser's higher print quality.

Review Date: 10 Nov 2006

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Reviewed By: Simon Handby

Our Rating 2 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

Ricoh's Aficio GX3000 is a heavy-duty inkjet printer, designed as an alternative to a colour laser for a small or home office.

It looks big enough to swallow a typical home inkjet, but it's smaller and not as heavy as a colour laser. Although its uninspiring two-tone grey plastic doesn't do its appearance many favours, looks aren't everything.

The GX3000 prints with gel, rather than the liquid pigment or dye-based inks used by most inkjets. Ricoh says that its 'GelSprinter' system creates waterproof, sunlight-resistant and quick drying prints. Gel cartridges fit into a compartment in the printer's front, supplying ink to the actual print heads through tubes. It takes the printer a while to prime itself after each cartridge change though - it's a bit like sucking thick milkshake through a straw.

You can load the GX3000's slide-out paper tray with up to 250 sheets and can print up to 150 pages before you need to empty the generous output tray. If you want to save paper or print booklets, you can choose to print in duplex mode. With this enabled, each page is automatically drawn back in for the printer to print its other side. Inkjets that duplex print have to wait for the first side to dry before printing the second, so they can be slow, but the GX3000 managed nearly 16 sides per minute in our test, suggesting Ricoh's gel ink does indeed dry quickly.

It was incredibly fast on all of our other tests too, rattling off our 50-page draft text document and our 24-page graphics test faster than some colour lasers we've reviewed. Unfortunately, the GX3000's print quality isn't as good as the best entry-level lasers we've tested. More importantly, for those printing high volumes, it isn't particularly cheap to run either. Most inkjets and lasers we've reviewed have lower colour running costs.

Prev Next

Get more reviews, tutorials and in-depth advice, every month with Computer Shopper.
Click here to try 3 issues for £1

< Previous Reviews : Printers Next >

Sponsored Links

Be the first to comment on this article

You need to Login or Register to comment.