Ricoh CW2201SP vs OCE Colorwave 500

To lease the Ricoh MP CW2201SP or the Oce Colorwave 500, which is it going to be?  Both are excellent wide format plotters, however both fit differently with every client.

The OCE Colorwave 500 wide format plotter is a behemoth, coming in at over five hundred pounds.  For those that may want to install the device where their is not an elevator, you may want to consider the CW2201SP.  The CW2201SP settles in at about two hundred and eighty pounds.

Toner pearls vs Ink

Toner pearls or  “gumballs” as I call them.  Those Oce toner pearls are actually solid spheres of a specially formulated polymer that transforms into a gel-like-state around 250 degrees. (special thanx to Kevin Vaughan for that). Is that good or bad, I’m not sure since I’m not familiar with many owners of the OCE Colorwave 500.  What I can tell you, is that you will pay a premium of $8-$10 thousand dollars more to use those “toner pearls”.

On the other side, Ricoh MP CW2201 uses liquid ink as the consumable. There are four independent cartridges with black being the largest and then cyan, yellow and magenta. In addition the Ricoh MP CW2201 utilizes two color print heads to produce excellent color renderings.  Cost for Black ink is about 3 cents per square foot and color will run about 5 cents a square foot.  Keep in mind that if your output is CAD drawings with color lines, your color costs will be 2-3 cents per square foot.

Both of these system offer scan to email, scan to folder and scan to USB Drive. The Ricoh CW2201SP offers superior scanning speed over the OCE.  While the OCE Colorwave has dreadfully slow scanning speed of .78 inches per second in black and a painful .26 inches per second in color! OMG

Scanning black documents at 6.3 inches per second and color scans at 1.57 inches per minute give the Ricoh a great advantage.  Since most clients in New Jersey scan legacy drawings for archiving, the CW 2201SP offers superior value with faster scanning.

With a price tag of more than $25,000 dollars the OCE Colorwave offers faster color print speed than the Ricoh CW2201SP.  Color CAD speed for the OCE is 3.53 “D” size per minute. The Ricoh clocks in at 2.1 “D” per minute for color.  Understood, the OCE is almost twice as fast in color, however it’s also almost twice the price of the Ricoh.

If you’re interested in leasing the CW2201SP in New Jersey, then please email me apost@p4photel.com Oce Colorwave 500 vs Ricoh MP CW2201SP Side by Side

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