14 DAY TRIAL // Ricoh is one of the world's best-known manufacturers of various printing solutions, as it has come up with various such products over time, targeting both home users and the corporate environment. And the company's latest announcement is the Aficio SP W2470 wide format printer, a device that is supposed to increase the work flow efficiency in small business environments, although its price tag is...well, a bit out of reach even for this specific market segment.
Nevertheless, it would seem that the product itself is worth all the money, since according to the company's statement, the device produces sharp, high quality black & white documents at 600 dots-per-inch (dpi) resolution and has the ability to stamp documents with dates, page numbers, headers and footers prior to printing, storing or retrieving them for reprinting. Additionally, handling large print runs is no biggy, with the 50-sheet output and 40-sheet bottom stackers, while changing the paper is quite an easy task due to the flange-based roll-paper changing and optional paper cassette tray.
Furthermore, the full-front clamshell design of the Aficio SP W2470 provides quick and easy access to consumables and the open architecture controller allows users to utilize the simple, intuitive Web Printing GUI to access network directories/files, build print jobs and send them to the printer IP address for faster, more efficient printing. Print drivers supporting Windows, Postscript and AutoCAD files are also standard. For added convenience, users can print immediately, print a sample document, hold the print job on the hard drive for print on demand and password protect a document for authorized printing.
The Aficio SP W2470 also provides a relatively high level of security, since the printer allows users to password protect documents with Windows Authentication as well as prevent unauthorized recall of sensitive data by completely erasing it from the hard drive with optional Data Overwrite Security.
"The development of the Aficio SP W2470 printer provides all the print functions found in large production houses combined into a single compact unit," said Ron Potesky, vice president, Corporate Product Marketing, Ricoh Americas Corporation. "The Aficio SP W2470 offers small business environments big printing capabilities that improve their competitive edge while keeping costs down."
Unfortunately, wide format printing comes at a price, and a pretty steep one, for that matter. Thus, the suggested retail price for the Aficio SP W2470 is $15,203 (well, one could purchase a pretty good car for this amount), which clearly limits the printer's target audience to the corporate environment.
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