Ricoh Aficio CL5000

Ricoh Aficio CL5000 Review

by Dan Littman

- WHAT'S HOT: The Ricoh Aficio CL5000 ripped through text-printing jobs at 21.3 ppm--faster than any other recent printer we've tested, and half again as fast as the average--so you definitely won't need to supplement it with a monochrome laser. It also produced stellar text quality, rendering very clean and solid type even at small sizes, and it printed narrow parallel lines with only a hint of roughness. The main paper tray holds 11-by-17-inch paper, and the printer has an auxiliary tray that can feed 12-by-18-inch paper--not bad for a $3000 machine.Using the printer's control panel is easy, thanks to buttons that match the menus displayed on the LCD (though we wish the LCD were backlit), and Ricoh's documentation--except for the setup guide--is excellent, with separate detailed manuals on network administration and client management. The CL5000's driver has a clever feature for printing transparencies: You can instruct the printer to insert a blank slip sheet between each transparency so they don't stick together or get scratched. Another plus: Moving the 130-pound, 27-by-25-inch machine is no sweat, thanks to four sturdy metal rods that slide out and give two or four people secure handles for lifting it.