Ricoh's Gelsprinter technology, while not taking the world by storm, has proven its worth in the company's first range of printers and all-in-ones, but the Aficio GX e3350N is almost like a second-generation machine. Building on the use of a slightly more viscous inkjet ink, the printer has the kind of speed normally associated with a laser printer but with advanced features, such as duplex colour print, which are rare in budget lasers.

This is a substantial printer, bigger than most business inkjets and with a robust mechanism. Paper feeds from a 250-sheet input tray at the bottom of the front panel, makes a 180-degree turn and feeds out to rest on the tray's lid. The four ink cartridges slide in behind a cover on the right-hand side and above this is a straightforward control panel, with a cross of navigation keys and a 2-line by 16-character LCD display.

At the back are sockets for USB and network connections, though the USB socket is positioned awkwardly high up the back panel. Software installation is straightforward from the supplied CD and drivers for Windows and OS X are available directly.

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The Aficio GX e3350N is rated at 12ppm for black print and 11.7ppm for colour and there are two surprises here. For a start, we recorded speeds of 9.4ppm for black print and 7.9ppm for colour, close to the rated figures. The second surprise is that colour speed is pretty close to the black print figure and is very high for a budget colour printer, no matter what the technology

The final surprise shows when you print duplex documents; duplex is standard on this machine. We saw an excellent speed of 8.6 sides per minute. Most inkjet printers have to wait between printing the first and second sides of a duplex page, to allow the ink to dry. Ricoh's machine doesn't do this and there's no noticeable pause during printing.

The print quality is acceptable, with good quality black, though showing some slight over-inking. Colours are vibrant and bright, and black registration over colour is good. Even photo prints, which aren't a major feature for this machine, come out reasonably, though a more conventional inkjet would be a better choice if photos are a big part of the workload.

Although the cost of cartridges is high, so are their page yields and the cost per page comes out at a very reasonable 1.4p for black and a slightly more pricey (relative to its competitors) 9.0p for colour.

Ricoh's Aficio GX e3350N shows where the Gelsprinter technology can take us in providing a fast, inexpensive business inkjet printer with useful extras, such as duplex print. Print quality is fine for business use and speeds are good for black and excellent for colour. If you're considering a colour laser printer, look at this machine too.