Ricoh SP-2240N review: a small, standalone, business-oriented scanner that aims to deliver high-end performance at a budget-friendly price

As I put virtual pen to paper, it’s been four months since I last reviewed a Ricoh desktop scanner. That’s a very short time in the scale of things, Ricoh being a major player in office equipment since 1955. The company actually dates back all the way to 1936, kicking off with sensitized lab paper and going on to make its first camera in 1950. Indeed, Pentax digital cameras still come under the Ricoh umbrella.

Anyway, the desktop scanner in question that I recently reviewed was the Ricoh ScanSnap iX2500, and I was mightily impressed. It’s great for personal and home/small office scanning, complete with built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, plus a handy 5-inch color touchscreen.

The new Ricoh SP-2240N that I’m reviewing here is more of a hard-nosed business machine, ditching Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in favor of Ethernet for networking, along with its USB-C port for direct computer control. It also bins off the touchscreen in favor of a simple row of customizable buttons. Even so, it’s about the same size and weight, being very compact and easy to find a home for, even in the busiest office environment, while aiming to combine smart usefulness with fast and high-quality performance, at a budget-friendly selling price. All in all, it sets out to be one of the best scanners for small office use, as well as being ideal for departmental use in larger companies.

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Ricoh SP-2240N: Specifications

Ricoh SP-2240N: Price

The jury was still out on international pricing when I wrote this review, but the Ricoh SP-2240N had just launched in the USA at $390, with a regular list price $420 being quoted. List for list, that makes it a good deal less expensive than the Ricoh ScanSnap iX2500 at $596, although the latter was simultaneously discounted to $400, only marginally pricier than the new model. Either way, the SP-2240N looks good value for money, if its features and performance live up to their billing.

Ricoh SP-2240N: Design & Handling

The vast majority of us don’t scan paperwork for a living. It’s just something we do to support the business of, well, going about our business. As such, anything that makes the scanning process quicker, more convenient, and less of a time-consuming chore is a bonus. And that’s exactly what this Ricoh sets out to do. It aims to be fast, efficient and simple to use.

Starting at the top, there’s an 80-sheet ADF (Auto Document Feeder) which accepts anything from 2-inch square sheets up to 8.5x14-inch paperwork and beyond. I say ‘beyond’ because there’s a ‘long page scanning’ option that can accommodate banners up to 240 inches in length. You can also feed the scanner with paper weights of between 27 and 413 gsm (7.2 to 110 lb) and plastic card up to 1.4mm (0.055in) thick. Suffice to say that if you can hold paperwork in your hand, from small business cards to folded A3 sheets on thick paper, you can probably scan it with speed and ease.

To simplify the scanning process, there’s a rank of buttons down the right hand side of the front panel. These include an on/off button, a start/stop button and three numbered buttons to which you can assign custom tasks. To my mind, that’s good and bad because while it keeps things simple to some extent, it’s not as elegant or informative as the color touchscreen on the Ricoh ScanSnap iX2500. If multiple office staff are using the scanner in standalone mode, it’ll require that everybody remembers what the three numbered buttons actually do, and you’ll probably need to make a note to keep by the scanner. Up on top, there’s a sliding ‘feed mode switch’ for selecting regular or manual single mode input.

To tailor the ADF input tray to the size of paper or plastic card that you want to scan, there’s a simple pair of adjustable paper guides that narrow or widen in the usual linked fashion. Unlike in the ScanSnap design, the input tray isn’t hinged and doesn’t fold down for relatively compact stowage. This is a more business-minded machine that’s always ready for duty. Even so, you can pull it out of the back of the scanner and stow it separately if you feel the need.

With the tray mounted in place, slotted into the rear of the scanner, the adjustable height comes to the fore, with dual telescoping elements that pull up or push back down again as required. To ensure the utmost in accurate consistency for paper-feeding and making scans look their best, the scanner features a range of tricks like de-skew, edge filler, edge repair, hole punch filling and automatic rotation. Going further, there’s multi-feed detection, overlap detection (courtesy of an ultrasonic sensor) and automatic length detection. All in all, the scanner really knows what it’s doing when it comes to automated tasks.

When you feel the need for speed, twice as fast is literally twice as good. With that in mind, the Ricoh doubles up on RGB LED scanning lamps and CIS (Contact Image Sensor) units, so there’s one each for the front and back of each page that passes through the scanner. The upshot is that if you’re scanning duplex, double-sided documents, both sides of each sheet are scanned simultaneously in a single pass, rather than having to flip over each sheet of paper and pass it through a second time.

As with the rear paper input tray, the output tray at the bottom front of the scanner has pull-out telescopic sections. It not only helps to keep things tidy and in order, but avoids the risk of the scanner throwing your scanned paperwork all over the floor as the final flourish of a job, if it’s positioned on the front of a table or desk.

Removing the input tray at the rear offers a glimpse into the inner workings of the scanner. Two pairs of rubber rollers are clearly visible, which do the job of feeding paperwork into the scanner.

A latch on the right hand side of the top panel when viewed from the front enables you to release the captive top panel and pull it forwards, revealing more of the internals. You’ll be able to access the ‘pick roller’ and ‘brake roller’ assemblies, which are classed and consumables and have an expected life of 200,000 sheets before they need changing. The volume of expected work for the scanner is quoted at up to 6,000 sheets per day.

Around the back, there’s the power input socket which is fed by a small DC power pack that can accept mains voltages of between 100V and 240V. This lines up next to a USB-C socket, the scanner featuring USB 3.2 Gen 1 connectivity as well as being backwards compatible with USB 2.0 and USB 1.1. There’s also an Ethernet port with compatibility for 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX and 1000BASE-T. As I’ve mentioned already, however, there’s no built-in Wi-Fi nor Bluetooth connectivity.

Ricoh SP-2240N: Performance

One of the biggest potential spoilers for the performance of any scanner in an office environment is if you have to power up a connected computer each and every time you want to scan something. The Ricoh SP-2240N solves this problem because, while you can certainly use it directly connected to a computer via USB, it also works as a completely standalone scanner. Set up those customizable pushbuttons that I referred to earlier and you can accomplish repeat scanning tasks for different types of paperwork, and with destinations across your network or to cloud based services. Personally, I’d have liked to be able to scan directly to a flash memory stick as well, but that’s not on the menu.

While the Ricoh is quick and easy to use, it’s also very quick for actual scanning. Single-sided documents are scanned at a rate of up to 40ppm (pages per minute) and thanks to that single-pass facility for duplex documents, double-sided paperwork is processed at up to 80ppm. In my tests, single letter-sized pages took just under 2 seconds to scan in 200dpi (dots per inch) and 300dpi resolutions, and a still speedy 5 seconds in the maximum optical scanning resolution of 600dpi.

Another saver of time and effort is that you can configure the scanner to ignore blank pages in multi-page single-sided or double-sided paperwork. As I’d fully expect, black & white mode scanning at lower resolutions can look a bit round around the edges of mono text, but quality is great in greyscale and color modes. For color documents, colors are reproduced faithfully and with very good dynamic range and all-round accuracy. The gallery below shows a sample of screengrabs from the Windows edition of the scanner’s supporting software.

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I think it’s fair to say that the performance of any scanner stands or falls by the quality of its supporting drivers and companion software. The Ricoh continues to impress in these respects, with simple, effective and highly versatile drivers and scanning modes, along with very accomplished PaperStream ClickScan and PaperStream Capture software. Coming in Windows, Linux and macOS flavors, these offer a range of options for direct scanning and for setting up easily repeatable scanning tasks, outputting searchable PDFs and, if required, employing OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and saving to a variety of application file types. Barcodes are also supported. PaperStream Capture Pro and Pro Premium versions of the software are available to purchase with one-year licenses, while other paid-for options include protective carrier sheets for documents and photos.

The Ricoh is really designed as a business document scanner through and through but with my www.digitalcameraworld.com hat on, I naturally couldn’t resist scanning a few photo prints as well. I found that scanning 7x5-inch glossy color prints took less than 1.5 seconds each in 200dpi and 300dpi resolutions, and a still very fast 4 seconds in the top resolution of 600dpi. The results are pleasingly sharp and of very good overall quality, with good color rendition, brightness, contrast and dynamic range.

Photo quality isn’t as thoroughly excellent as I’d expect from a ‘proper’ high-end photo scanner, but its’ easily good enough for scanning snapshots. The gallery below contains digital images of four separate 7x5-inch glossy photos, each one scanned at 200dpi, 300dpi and 600dpi.

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Ricoh SP-2240N: Verdict

Does anybody actually enjoy scanning documents and business forms? To me, it always seems a bit of a chore and one of life’s necessities that never really qualifies as a ‘fun experience’. One thing’s for sure though… The Ricoh SP-2240N lessens the load and makes the activity much less of a potentially troublesome task, thanks to its ease of use, versatility and impressive turn of speed. I love that the single-pass system makes duplex scanning literally twice as quick, and that the 80-sheet ADF works with tireless efficiency and reliability.

The proof of the pudding is, as they say, in the eating. The bottom line is that the Ricoh delivers impeccably high-quality results, and that the speed of the hardware is backed up by excellent software, making all sorts of scanning tasks a breeze. I’d prefer a color touchscreen rather than a simple row of numbered buttons for standalone scanning, and I think it’s a bit of a shame that Wi-Fi and Bluetooth have been omitted from the design. Even so, as a desktop business scanner, the Ricoh is a star performer and very good value at the price.

Alternatives

The Canon imageFORMULA R40 delivers fast automatic scanning and, like the Ricoh, features single-pass duplex operation for an effective doubling of speed when scanning double-sided documents. Also like the Ricoh, it lacks a touchscreen and has no Wi-Fi connectivity but boasts good quality. A Canon imageFORMULA RS40 version is also available, tailored more towards photo rather than document scanning.

Like the Ricoh, the Epson WorkForce ES-500WII lacks a touchscreen or any real info display screen, although it does feature Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct. Similarities with the Canon and Ricoh scanners include an auto document feeder and single-pass duplex scanning.

See our guides to the best document scanners and to the best film scanners