Ricoh Aficio BP20N Laser Printer

Replacement toner cartridges rated for 5000 pages by Ricoh may seem expensive at $110 each, but their integrated drum assemblies mean there are no other parts to replace. This keeps maintenance simple and avoids further costs, letting you achieve a reasonable cost per page of just 2.2 cents.

The BP20N doesn't win any prizes for performance. At 17 pages per minute for text printing, it ranks about average among the small office printers we've tested over the past few years, but slower than many we've tested recently. Graphics pages crawled out at a mediocre 6.4 ppm.

The printer achieved good text and line art scores in our subjective quality tests, but didn't cope so well with graphics. I saw nicely formed lettering, with only slightly fuzzy edges and a bit of stepping in diagonals. Solids were smooth and consistent. Some narrow banding affected blocks of both vertical and horizontal closely spaced parallel lines. Narrow banding marred our grayscale image, which also came out too light, but did contain some nice detail and textures.

Upshot: The straightforward and attractive Aficio BP20N can make an easy addition for supporting small workgroups on your network, particularly if you already have other Ricoh office equipment.

Paul Jasper