Ricoh has never been a big player in the small-office arena, but the company recently set its sights on precisely this market. The Aficio SP C222SF ($850 street) is one of the first results of Ricoh's new strategy. This color laser all-in-one (AIO) is clearly aimed at small offices or even busy home offices, as well as workgroups in larger work environments. In fact, the SP C222SF is one of six related color laser models—three printers and three AIOs—that Ricoh introduced at the same time, which emphasizes its new commitment to the small office.

These printers include the Aficio SP C220N ($400 street) rated at 16 pages per minute (ppm), the Aficio SP C221N ($500 street) rated at 21 ppm, and the Aficio SP C222DN ($600 street) which is also rated at 21 ppm and adds duplexing. The three AIOs essentially add a scanner and some additional features to each of the printer models. The Aficio SP C220S ($650 street), built around the 16-ppm SP C220, adds scanning. The Aficio SP C221SF ($750 street) based on the SP C221N—and the SP C222SF—based on the SP C222DN—both add scanning and faxing plus a 35-page automatic document feeder (ADF).

According to Ricoh, the print engine for all of the 21-ppm models is the same, but the controllers vary, so both the quality and speed results may differ somewhat from what I found for the SP C222SF.

Setup is typical for this breed of printer. Like most color laser AIOs, the SP C222SF is big, measuring 18.7 by 16.5 by 19.4 inches (HWD). It's large enough that you probably won't want it sitting at your desk towering over you. At 66.1 pounds, it's fairly heavy, so you'll want some help moving it around. Once you've found a place for the printer, physical setup involves little more than removing the packing materials, loading paper, and plugging in a power cord and cables. At that point, it's ready to use as a standalone copier and fax machine.

I tested the SP C222SF using Windows XP, but the disc also includes drivers for other operating systems, including Vista and Mac OS X 10.2.8 through 10.4. Network setup for printing is standard, with a fully automated installation program. Setting up for scanning is a little unusual, however, and more difficult than it should be.

I ran into two problems with setting up for scanning—one for setting up to give the scan command from a PC and one for setting up to give it from the front panel.

The setup program installs a Twain driver to let you scan over a network, but it doesn't automatically set the driver to work with the SP C222SF. Instead, you have to enter the AIO's IP address manually in a drop-down list on the Twain driver's screen. Unfortunately, the only message to enter the information is in the drop-down list text box itself. If you don't happen to notice the message, you'll be left wondering why you can't scan. And, of course, if you don't know the IP address, or how to find it in the AIO's menu system, you won't be able to enter it in any case.

At least it's easy to set up scanning from the PC, even if I can't say the same about scanning from the front panel. As with some other networked AIOs, you have to enter setup information into the SP C222SF's built-in Web pages by way of a browser window. Unfortunately, the options on the Web pages are far from intuitive, which makes setup a lot harder than it should be. There's a good chance you'll need to call Ricoh tech support to guide you through it.

Once you get past this hurdle, the SP C222SF does a reasonably good job across the board. It printed our business applications suite in a respectable 13 minutes 17 seconds (timed with QualityLogic's hardware and software, www.qualitylogic.com). As a point of reference, the somewhat less-expensive Brother MFC-9440CN, the fastest sub-$1000 color laser AIO I've tested, was only a little faster, at a total 11:25.

The SP C222SF's output quality is best described as good enough for most business needs, but well short of impressive. On our standard text tests, all the fonts you're likely to use in business documents qualified as easily readable and well formed at 6 points, with some qualifying at still smaller sizes. Unless you have an unusual need for small fonts, the SP C222SF should be enough for any text you need to print.

Graphics were good enough for any internal business use, including output like PowerPoint handouts. But I saw unevenness in solid fills and visible dithering in the form of graininess. These flaws are significant enough to make me hesitate before handing this output to a potential client or customer who I wanted to impress. I certainly wouldn't use the results for marketing handouts, like trifold brochures. Photos were suitable for things like client newsletters or printing Web pages with photos.

One feature the SP C222SF lacks is the ability to fax directly from your PC, which means you have to print documents before you can fax them. If you don't need to fax very often, this is only a minor annoyance. Even so, it unnecessarily uses up time, paper, and toner. There's certainly room here for improvement, starting with easier installation and adding a PC fax feature. Except for these, the SP C222SF is a more than reasonable choice, and a worthy small-office contender.

Check out the Ricoh Aficio SP C222SF's test scores.

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