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Buyers Lab Names Printer ‘MFP Product of the Year’
Buyers
Laboratory Names Konica Minolta Printer ‘Product of the Year’; also
selects ‘Fall ’05 Color Picks’. Companies cited for ‘Outstanding
Achievements’.
December
2005 – Hackensack (NJ) – Completing its Fall 2005 “Pick of the Year”
announcements, Buyers Lab has selected the Konica Minolta bizhub PRO
1050 as the “Most Outstanding Multifunctional Imaging System of the
Year” for 2005.
First Award Since 2000
This is the first time
since 2000 that a product has been singled out for this special
recognition. Said BLI Managing Editor Daria Hoffman, “Rarely has a
product impressed us the way the bizhub PRO 1050 has. Its performance
was so stellar in every way-reliability, productivity, ease of use,
image quality, paper-handling-that, of all the many products tested in
the past year, it is the unanimous favorite of BLI’s technicians and
editors.”
“The bizhub PRO 1050 being honored with BLI’s award for
‘Most Outstanding Multifunctional Imaging System of the Year’ is a
testament to the research and development efforts that were devoted to
the production of this industry-standard setting device,” said Indiana
Nakagawa, senior vice president of marketing and corporate planning for
Konica Minolta Business Solutions, U.S.A., Inc.
Superior Black Printing
“This
system features ground-breaking innovations in imaging, including
Konica Minolta’s Simitri® polymerized toner. The first monochrome
Segment 6 device to include polymerized toner, the bizhub PRO 1050
brings superior black image reproduction to production print customers
who are looking for the highest quality in digital output.”
Nakagawa
continued, “We designed our 105-ppm monochrome MFP to be a highly
competitive offering for the in-plant, CRD and print-for-pay markets,
with the durability and capabilities of production print machines, yet
delivered in a footprint and at a price point that is unbeatable. We
are proud to be recognized for the bizhub PRO 1050 and the superior
engine design, paper handling, finishing and imaging features that it
has brought to the market.”
And The Color Winners Are . .
Having
evaluated color multifunctional products from Canon, Ricoh, Xerox,
Konica Minolta and Panasonic during the last six months, BLI has
recognized the best performers in this populous category with Fall 2005
“Pick” awards.
In the office color category, awards went to the
Konica Minolta bizhub C450 and C250, while in the production color
category the honors went to the Xerox DocuColor 250 and the DocuColor
240.
bizhub C450
BLI Manager of Lab Testing Pete Emory said, “The
Konica Minolta bizhub C450 improves upon an already great product, the
bizhub C350, offering faster speed, standard PostScript and optional
fax.” Featuring Konica Minolta’s standard Emperon controller, the
bizhub C450 proved to be an outstanding performer in BLI’s exhaustive
lab tests, demonstrating exceptional reliability, excellent
multitasking, very good image quality, good productivity and
competitive supplies costs. This model is also available with an
optional Fiery controller.
While the bizhub C450 gives Konica
Minolta an excellent color product in a higher speed range than the
C350, the bizhub C250 does the same at a lower speed (25 ppm). This
unit also gave an excellent reliability performance, completing its
75,000-impression test with no service required and just four misfeeds.
“With its standard Emperon controller, this unit will satisfy the needs
of most office users, with very good image quality and a price that
makes it an excellent value,” said Emory.
Production Color Winner Xerox DocuColor 250
In
the production color category, the Xerox DocuColor 250 and its sibling,
the DocuColor 240, were selected as Fall 2005 “Picks.” These
outstanding products offer exceptional ease of use, very good output
quality and productivity that, while competitive when outputting black
documents and full-color documents, is above average to well above
average when outputting mixed color and black documents in auto-color
mode. “I loved the large, bright display on these models, which
provides excellent context-sensitive help. Either of these products
would be an excellent choice for customers in need of highly reliable,
fast, quality color output,” said Emory.
“We are thrilled that
Buyers Lab has selected the DocuColor 240/250 as ‘Picks of the Year’ in
the production color class,” said Jon S. Renault, worldwide product
marketing manager for Xerox. He added, “The response from our DocuColor
240/250 customers has been fantastic. It is pleasing to know that BLI’s
testing and overall evaluation confirms the feedback we have received
from our customers.”
Outstanding Achievement Awards
Buyers Lab
also recognized three companies with Outstanding Achievement awards.
Canon U.S.A., Inc. was acknowledged for the innovative Web access
feature of its 55-ppm and faster imageRUNNERs; Panasonic Digital
Document Company was recognized for the incorporation of SD and PC card
technology in its C3 series color multifunctional products (the
DP-C322/DP-C262); and RISO, Inc. was honored for the outstanding
reliability of its digital duplicators.
The Web access feature of
Canon’s higher-speed imageRUNNERs is the latest of many innovations
that have come from Canon in the past few years. BLI’s Emory explained,
“With this optional feature, a Web browser is embedded within the
imageRUNNER and allows users to access the Internet or a corporate
intranet from the control panel of the imageRUNNER. This means it can
be used to access and print forms from a corporate intranet, which
could be very useful in environments without PCs. As a security
measure, this capability can be restricted to only certain users.”
“Being
honored with Buyers Lab’s Outstanding Achievement award speaks to
Canon’s commitment to develop and deliver value-added technology to our
customers,” said Sam Yoshida, director and general manager of Canon
USA’s Imaging Systems Group’s product marketing division. “Web access
functionality, an industry first, delivers unprecedented performance
and sets a new standard.”
“Another ‘wow’ feature seen in the lab in
this past six-month test cycle is the SD card and PC card adapter slots
in Panasonic’s DP-C322/DP-C262,” said Emory. This capability, which is
a first for MFPs in this range, enables Panasonic’s DP-C322 and DP-C262
to store data onto and print directly from SD cards and, via a PC card
adapter, a range of other types of memory media. “We were very
impressed by this capability. It enables users to view photos stored on
these media on the unit’s large control panel and then print selected
photos,” said Emory. He explained that this would be a great
convenience, particularly for organizations such as real estate
agencies, which frequently use digital photographs, because it allows
printing of images without requiring a PC configured with a PC card
reader (an optional accessory) and the necessary software to open
images, which can sometimes be hard to find.
Also acknowledged with
an “Outstanding Achievement” award is RISO Inc., for the reliability of
its digital duplicators, which has been exemplary. BLI Senior Test
Technician Tony Maceri said, “RISO is well-deserving of this
recognition because during the past year, BLI has tested five RISO
digital duplicators, each for 500,000 impressions, which, combined,
have produced an amazing 2.5 million impressions without a single
malfunction or misfeed.”
“We are very pleased to receive this
recognition from Buyers Laboratory, a firm known throughout the
industry for its high standards. For the past twenty years, RISO has
been committed to advancing digital printing technologies that provide
our customers with reliable, productive, versatile and cost-effective
solutions,” said Bob Gregorowicz, senior product manager for RISO, Inc.
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