The Okidata C9600 and Ricoh Aficio CL7000 are similar printers and supply features to medium work groups to help in their printing needs. The OKI C9600 comes equipped with a 720 MHz processor which beats the Ricoh’s 500 MHz and delivers quicker rendering of printed documents. This provides the OKI C9600 with faster print speeds of 36 pages per minute color and 40 pages per minute in black and white; the Ricoh comes in slightly lower at 26 pages per minute and 38 pages per minute respectively. Media handling is comparable, but the OKI C9600 can handle large format sizes in addition to the shared legal, letter, envelope, and card stocks on both printers.

The Ricoh CL 7000 serves Windows, Mac, and UNIX systems while the Okidata C9600 falls short only supporting Windows and Mac systems. The main difference is that the Okidata printer is an LED printer which by design delivers faster prints and lower costs. What the Ricoh lacks in speed it makes up for in color production providing quality color prints time after time and monochrome documents are clearly readable down to 6 point fonts. The OKI C9600 delivers great images and color reproduction but is markedly more expensive than the Ricoh CL 7000.

Both printers offer finishing options like staplers, sorters and additional paper trays, but again the OKI C9600 delivers a few more options than the Ricoh. The image enhancements are comparable on both printers and deliver good user interfaces via desktop browsers for simplicity of use. Print job accounting and statistics are handled by their respective software and are typical for this class of printers; the OKI has a more intuitive interface but not by much.

The Ricoh CL 7000 is a lower priced model delivering quality prints in quick speeds while the Okidata C9600 has comparable printing quality it is able to print on large format media and has a few more options such as finishers and a hard drive option.