In Short:
The new Ricoh C420dn is Ricoh’s replacement for the very popular C410/C411dn business color laser printers. The new C420dn uses a 3rd generation Ricoh engine that keeps up with the fastest color engines available coupled with a PMC-Sierra 800MHz processor. The printer was easy to set up after it was unpacked. The four color toners that ship with the printer install easily in the top of the printer. The four imaging units are already installed. The Ricoh C420dn printer drivers were also easy to install using the Ricoh installation utility. We found the print quality at 1200 dpi was very sharp on text and line art even on very small details. The color gradations came out smooth and fairly accurate right out of the box. The C420dn comes packed with features usually found in color laser printers priced significantly higher. Standard features include auto-duplex for two sided printing, true 1200 x 1200 dpi, Adobe PostScript Level3, PCL5c, 256 MB RAM, and Ethernet 100 Base TX, and USB interfaces. The Ricoh C420DN prints full color or black & white at up to 31 pages per minute. Both the standard 550-sheet drawer and the 100-sheet bypass feeder can accommodate paper as large as legal size paper, 8.5”x14”. The C420DN handled envelopes very well out of both the bypass and lower feeder. Most color lasers do not do well with envelope handling but we were able to feed as many as 30 at a time from the lower feeder with excelent results. Another impressive feature is that both paper sources can handle heavier paper stock up to 80lb. cover or 216gsm. We were also amazed that this machine could auto-duplex paper as heavy as 60lb. cover or 163gsm. Many upgrades are available like additional RAM, a 60 GB internal hard disk, a second and third 550-sheet feeder, and parallel or wireless interfaces.

The Bottom Line:
The new Ricoh C420dn is a feature packed, high performance, network color laser printer. The C420dn produces excellent print quality and has above average paper handling. The combination of speed, great print quality, and low operating costs, make this model an easy editor’s choice. Overall this printer represents an outstanding value. The Ricoh C420dn support the Mac OS (8.6-9.2x, OSX), UNIX, all current Windows platforms.