We had inks for inkjet printers and also toners for laser printers, Ricoh wanted to try out a third alternative bridging the two; gel based printers. While the technology has a long way to go, Ricoh’s gel based printers seems to be an expensive affair.
Ricoh’s GX2500 was touted as an alternative to colour laser printers but as CA found out, it is no match to the tested solution in quality as well as economy.
The colour gel cartridge can print 1000 pages and is priced at £30 whereas colour toner for a laser cartridge costs £80 and can print around 4000 pages. Calculating per print cost, laser printers cost 2p per print while the technology meant for economical printing is at 3p per print. Clearly, Ricoh seems to have lost the plot with the economy of printing.
Major printing flaws were unearthed while printing text with images. Level Colour technology which ensures that colour gel used is minimal while printing images proved ineffective, as the text quality was found to be poor.
On the upside, although the photo print quality is poor, the speed of execution was quicker than most other printers.
Priced at £111, GX2500 is expensive and holds no race to other economical solutions available in the market. Replacement cartridges are no saints at £120. The bulky design at 13 kilos makes it highly unattractive for homes and small offices.
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January 27th, 2010 at 10:27 pm
while this printer might not be cheap for photos like any printer it is excellent quality, the autor of this article is an asshole that has not taken the time to properly evaluate this machine, I own one and its great but like a car with a large fuel tank when its time for a refil IT SUCKS, yes you can get cheap waterbased inks for inkjets but they are no match for pigment when it comes to durability. you get what you pay for. for the home user that wants the best this is it !
June 27th, 2011 at 10:36 am
We have used this printer for a few years, and yes its expensive to run, but it is so reliable, so quiet and the print quality so high that we just keep shelling out for the cartridges! You need to live with it to appreciate it. Don’t always trust reviews!
June 27th, 2011 at 2:17 pm
Thanks for your comments Peter. You’re right sometimes it’s worth paying a little extra for reliability, quiet operation and print quality.
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