Ricoh SP8300DN Spec Review "the reveal"

I ask you, when was the last time you hugged your printer? Odds are you haven't just because there's not much too like about laser printers these days.  You know the ones, they have the low purchase price and a very high cost per page for the consumable items.

Lately many manufacturers have lowered their toner cost to lure you in, yet they forget to tell you about the other consumables items that are needed (the manufacturer treats these as parts), fuser, maintenance kits, transfer kit, drum, etc.. So, there's not much to like about these systems especially when you want to print some volume.

At this time Ricoh offers three A3 (printers that will print 11x17 size document), the SP 6330N (35 pages per minute), the SP8300N (50 pages per minute) and the SP9100DN (75 pages per minute).


We're going to concentrate on some of the new features that are associated with the SP8300DN that make this printer so huggable!  I'm going to go through all of the hardware features first and we'll then have additional blogs where we'll get a better feel for the features, advantage's and benefit's of the system.

Hardware (Standard):

• 4.3 inch color touch screen, means no more squinting to see the menu options and the ability to preview images on the screen. The 4.3 color screen also has integrated USB/SD Card Slots.
• 1,200 sheet paper supply which incorporates two 550 sheet paper trays and one 100 sheet by-pass tray
• Auto Duplex (two sided) printing
• Eco Night sensor, which is a pretty neat feature that will sense when the lights are turned off for "x" amount of time and either turn off or enter a sleep mode.
• 50 page per minute print speed at 600x600dpi
• 500 sheet exit tray

Hardware (Optional):

• 3,000 sheet finisher integrates with the system and also has a 250 sheet proof tray.  This finisher will multi-position staple up to 50 sheets of letter paper, note that legal may be less (I have to check). You can also add the optional 2/3 hole punch unit, plus you'll also need to add the bridge unit in order for the finisher to attach to the SP8300DN.
• 1,000 sheet finisher integrates with the system and also has a 250 sheet proof tray.  This finisher will multi-position staple up to 50 sheets of letter paper, note that legal may be less (I have to check). You can also add the optional 2/3 hole punch unit, plus you'll also need to add the bridge unit in order for the finisher to attach to the SP8300DN.
• Jogger Unit which is usually found on higher speed system is now an option that will only work with the 3,000 sheet finisher only!  The Jogger unit will tap both sides of the paper once the paper ejects from the finisher thus aligning the sets so they can be used for off-line binding.
• 120GB Hard Drive don't be cheap, order the hard drive it will increase print productivity plus you'll benefit by having DOSS.
• 2 Tray Paper Feed Unit will give you a total of four paper trays (since two come with the system), both of these trays are universal in size meaning you can set them for 7.25x10.5 up to 11x17. Each tray will hold 550 sheets. Paper Weight is 16-57lb Bond.
• 2,000 Sheet Large Capacity Tray can be used in place of the 2 Tray Paper Feed Unit. This tray is dedicated for letter size only, however with this configuration you could have a total of 3,200 sheets of paper on line.  Paper Weight is 16-57lb Bond also.
• 1,200 Sheet Side Capacity Large Tray can only be used in conjunction with the 2,000 Sheet Large Capacity Tray, letter size only, enables a total of 4,200 sheets of paper on-line.  Paper Weight is 16-57lb bond.
• Cabinet is required or at least I require it when you're not going to use the the 2  tray paper feed unit or the 2,000 sheet large paper tray.  Keep in mind that this is not a desktop printer, you need the cabinet!!

It's getting late and I need to catch Walking Dead. In the next blog I'll be going over all of the cool new print features and provide additional reasons why you'll want to give this printer a BIG hug!

-=Good Selling=-