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Ricoh model numbers explained: IM, IM C, MP, SP, Pro and Aficio
IM C3510SD tells you the generation, whether it prints colour, roughly how fast it runs and what is bolted to it. Once you can read one model code you can read the whole range.
Most conversations about this start and end with the purchase price, which is the least informative number in the decision. Over three years, on a machine doing real volume, the consumables and the service usually cost more than the hardware did.
So the question is not "buy or lease". It is: over the life of this machine, what am I actually going to pay, and which arrangement puts the risks where I want them?
The one number worth getting: total three-year cost, including every consumable, the service agreement, and any end-of-term charge — divided by the pages you realistically expect to print. Ask both suppliers for that and the comparison becomes trivial. Ask for a purchase price and it stays a guess.
Where the money actually goes
Cost per page
This is the number that dominates everything else at volume, and the one most likely to be quoted in a way that is technically true and practically misleading.
Ask what is in the cost per page. Toner almost always. Drums, fuser, transfer unit, waste toner box — sometimes, sometimes not. Labour and parts on a call-out — depends entirely on the agreement. Two quotes with the same headline figure can differ substantially once you list what each one covers.
Ask separately whether colour and mono are priced differently, because they always cost differently to produce. A single blended rate on a machine that runs 80% mono is a rate designed to look competitive.
Volume assumptions
Lease agreements are typically built around a monthly page allowance, with an overage rate above it. Both halves matter:
- If the allowance is set above your real volume, you pay every month for pages you do not print.
- If it is set below, the overage rate is where the contract's economics actually live — and it is often several times the in-allowance rate.
Before signing anything, pull the page counter off your current machine. Every MFP keeps a lifetime count, mono and colour separately. Two minutes of reading a panel replaces a year of guessing, and it is the single most useful thing you can do before a negotiation.
Service response, in writing
"We provide full service support" is not a commitment. A response time, in hours, during defined working hours, with a defined coverage area, is. If the machine is central to your operation, ask what happens when it is down for a day — and ask whether the answer changes if you are in Jebel Ali versus Deira versus Abu Dhabi.
End of term
The part nobody reads and everybody remembers afterwards. On a lease: who removes the machine, at whose cost, and in what condition must it be returned? Is there an automatic renewal clause, and what notice period cancels it? On a purchase: what is the machine worth, and who disposes of it?
When buying makes more sense
- Your volume is stable and predictable. The main thing a lease buys you is flexibility, and flexibility you do not need is flexibility you are paying for.
- You intend to keep the machine well past a typical lease term. Years four and five on an owned machine are cheap; on a rolling lease they are not.
- Capital is not the constraint and you would rather not carry a monthly commitment.
- You have in-house capability and only want parts and consumables rather than a full service wrap.
When leasing makes more sense
- Your volume is growing or genuinely uncertain. A young company that triples headcount in eighteen months does not want to have bought for the old size.
- You want a predictable monthly cost with service and consumables inside it, and no capital outlay.
- The technology matters to you and you want to be on current machines rather than running one to the end of its life.
- The project has a defined end — a site office, a fixed-term contract, a temporary expansion.
The questions to ask before signing either
- What is the total cost over three years, including everything?
- What exactly is inside the cost per page, and what is billed separately?
- Are colour and mono priced separately?
- What is the monthly allowance, and what is the overage rate above it?
- What response time is committed, in writing, and does it cover my location?
- What happens at end of term — removal, condition, renewal notice?
- Is the machine new, or refurbished? Both are legitimate; the price should differ.
- Who actually performs the service — the supplier, or a subcontractor?
A note on the machine itself
Pick the class from your volume, then decide how you pay for it. Doing it the other way round — settling on a budget and finding a machine that fits — is how offices end up with a device run permanently near its duty ceiling, which generates service calls that cost more than the larger machine would have.
If you are not sure how to read the model on a quote, the naming scheme is explained here.
We supply both ways, and we would rather size it correctly than sell you the bigger machine. See copier leasing in Dubai, browse the copier range, or send us your page counts and we will tell you what fits.
