Customer Reviews

Ricoh Aficio GX3000 GelSprinter Color Printer

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Like most printers this works best in high quality mode. I was recommended this printer for photos. It works great with even low quality photo paper. The images are clear, color is good and the ink does not smear. The salesperson said that you can spill water on the print so I tested it . . . image (on photo paper) did not smear or come off the paper.

Test with card stock did not fare very well. The pictures were not clear. The printer was able to handle the thick stock without any jamming.

In fast mode even the text is a little pixilated and not really clear.

Conclusion: with good paper this makes long lasting crisp clear images in high quality mode. The printer will not print to the edge of the paper so for a photo printer you will need a cutter.

I was very happy with this printer for the first few months that I had it. Like noted, the print quality is good for a laser printer. It is also fairly fast. However, I ran out of yellow toner one day & wouldn't you know it, you can't print a darn thing without all of the cartridges being full (even if I only wanted to print black text). So, I go to buy a new cartridge. Don't bother going to Walmart to find one. It's Office Depot or the internet & you'd better hope they have this rare one in stock. Oh, & if you're used to refill kits or remanufactured cartridges, that won't happen here. It's OEM or nothing, so $40 a pop for the cartridges x 4. Yup, $160 to refill the toner on this for 1000 pages (that's assuming that you use economy mode like two thirds of the time, my experience is actually closer to 300-500 pages before refill). That's $.16 a page. You could go to Kinkos for that much & they'd provide the paper. Now, don't get me wrong, this is a very good printer & does everything it says it will. I only have a gripe about the cost of ownership. I ended up buying another printer for less than the price of refilling the cartridges.

I got this because I wanted a decently fast duplexing color printer. At first I thought that limited me to laser printers or those expensive wax printers until I found the GelSprinters. This is safer and more environmentally friendly than a laser printer, but similar performance and durability.

Pros: good business-quality product, fast, quality ink, duplexing
Cons: long startup time, large footprint, limited ink sources (no cheaper off-brand compatible)
Tip: Wait till this goes on sale. The standard price is much higher than the sale price.

Duplexing was a must for me. I like to have the option to print on both sides without having to put it back through the machine.

Resolution isn't as good as a good photo printer, and there's no borderless printing, so for photos, look elsewhere. This will do fine for general color documents.

As with many printers, performance on high-gloss stock is poor.

Drivers are compatible with older models, like Win98, for those still in the dark ages. (Hey, I remember liking Win98 better than I like Vista.)

Since I use it infrequently and leave it off, my biggest complaint with it is that the startup time can be minutes long, which is annoying. However, if you're using it in an environment where you use it frequently and just leave it on all day, it should do fine.

The starter cartridges do not last long, so go ahead and order ink when you order the printer.

This printer is fast, and produces excellent quality, crisp, clean images. My only grumbles are that I haven't found 3rd party ink (the brand name stuff is shockingly expensive), and that the variety of paper sizes it supports are somewhat limited.

I haven't had it long enough yet to get a good sense as to how long the cartridges last, so maybe the pricy-ness is justified (if they last a good long time, that is).

Otherwise, this is an excellent workhorse quality color printer.