Ricoh claims that the latest members of its Aficio printer/copier family will compete with Xerox DocuTechs and Heidelberg Digimasters on quality and productivity at a fraction of the price.

The Aficio 1085 and 1105 deliver 85 and 105 black-and-white A4 pages per minute and cost 31,750 and 42,250 respectively.

"Historically weve competed with Xerox and Kodak analogue machines, now were taking on DocuTech- and Digimaster-based machines," said Ricoh UK head of marketing Richard De Lay.

"The Aficios are available at a huge saving and compare very favourably in speed and robustness."

The machines are based on the firms earlier Aficio 850 and 1050 machines. Ricoh claims they have been developed specially for the professional print market and are capable of producing 1m prints per month.

Maximum paper size is A3-plus with up to six paper trays capable of holding 7,550 sheets.

A range of finishing options can be added including four-position stapling and punching.

Contact: Ricoh UK, 020 8261 4000, www.ricoh.co.uk.

Story by Barney Cox