July 15, 2014 – Hackensack (NJ) – Today Buyers Laboratory LLC (BLI) announced the winners of its coveted Pick awards for the Summer 2014 season, naming MFPs from Canon, Konica Minolta and Ricoh as the winners in the A3 monochrome category. The leading provider of intelligence on the document imaging and solutions industry, BLI has been putting products to the test for more than 50 years. Its Pick awards, presented twice annually, acknowledge the hardware and software offerings that measure up as the best in BLI’s rigorous and comprehensive lab testing, which assesses a wide range of the most important features and performance factors for buyers.
 | Ricoh Americas Corporation Ricoh MP 2553 (also sold under the Lanier and Savin brands) Outstanding 21- to 30-ppm A3 Monochrome MFP Ricoh MP 3353 (also sold under the Lanier and Savin brands) Outstanding 31- to 40-ppm A3 Monochrome MFP Canon U.S.A., Inc. Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE 4251 Outstanding 51- to 60-ppm A3 Monochrome MFP Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE 8205 Outstanding 90+ ppm A3 Monochrome MFP Konica Minolta Business Solutions, U.S.A., Inc. Konica Minolta bizhub 454e Outstanding 41- to 50-ppm A3 Monochrome MFP Konica Minolta bizhub 654e Outstanding 61- to 70-ppm A3 Monochrome MFP Konica Minolta bizhub 754e Outstanding 71- to 80-ppm A3 Monochrome MFP |
Ricoh Delivers a Standout Performance for Small to Mid-Size Organizations
Ricoh is the winner of two BLI Summer 2014 Pick awards in the 21- to 30- and 31- to 40-ppm categories with its MP 2553 and MP 3353, respectively.
In addition to exhibiting perfect reliability over the course of 100,000 impressions, both models impressed BLI analysts with their fast scan speeds and the consistently high level of image quality they maintained from the beginning to the end of testing.
Productivity was another strong point for the MP 2553, delivering class-leading efficiency when printing BLI’s job stream, which simulates typical office use, and when copying and printing multiple sets. Both units were further commended for their feedback to users and their customizable control panels, which allow users to program up to 72 shortcuts for common jobs.
“With capabilities that go beyond those of ordinary MFPs, the MP 2553 and MP 3353 embody Ricoh’s commitment to information mobility,” said Jason Dizzine, director, Technology Marketing, Ricoh Americas Corporation. “We greatly appreciate this tribute from Buyers Laboratory.”
Canon Offers Award-Winning Monochrome Devices for Mid- and High-Volume Needs
The 51-ppm Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE 4251 and 105-ppm imageRUNNER ADVANCE 8205 have been honored with BLI Pick awards in their respective categories for the Summer 2014 season.
Both devices proved highly reliable and were praised for their ease of use. “Whether it’s the control panel, print drivers or user maintenance tasks, ease of use is consistently a stand-out strength for Canon,” said Pete Emory, BLI’s manager of laboratory testing. They offer a well-organized, highly customizable control panel, along with features such as Canon’s Page Composer, a document assembly tool that allows users to merge two or more documents created in different applications into one file, among many other abilities. In addition, Canon’s Quick Printing Tool lets users easily print without having to open any applications, by simply dragging and dropping documents onto a desktop icon that represents the output device. BLI analysts were further impressed with the robust scan functionality the devices offer, including the ability to scan documents as searchable PDFs and fully editable PowerPoint files, along with small compressed color scan file sizes.
The imageRUNNER ADVANCE 8205 also stood out for its productivity—a particularly important factor for the high-volume environments the device is geared towards. It was the most productive device in its competitive group when producing booklets and outperformed the majority of competitive devices when printing BLI’s job stream, which simulates printing in a busy office environment.
“Canon is proud to be recognized by the BLI Summer Pick awards for the imageRUNNER ADVANCE 4251 and imageRUNNER ADVANCE 8205 as leaders in the A3 monochrome category,” said Junichi Yo****ake, senior vice president and general manager of Canon U.S.A.’s Business Imaging Solutions Group. “The imageRUNNER ADVANCE 4251 MFP is a high-quality printing solution for busy workgroups in a compact space. And with incredible speed, simple operation, and outstanding reliability, the imageRUNNER ADVANCE 8205 delivers the quality output that high-volume offices, in-plant reprographic facilities and print-for-pay businesses desire.”
Konica Minolta Dominates the Mid-to High-Volume Category
Konica Minolta earned three BLI Pick awards for the Summer 2014 season for its monochrome bizhub 454e, bizhub 654e and bizhub 754e.
Highly reliable, all of the engines performed flawlessly or near flawlessly over the course of BLI’s extensive durability testing. Additionally, all three models were easy to use, featuring an extremely well-designed control panel that gives users a choice of three easily accessible interfaces and supports dragging and dropping, pinch-to-zoom and the ability to rotate pages in a scan preview using multi-touch controls. Also contributing to ease of use is the MyTab feature in the print drivers, which allows users to configure a tab with their own frequently used features.
The models were further praised by BLI for their print quality, with all three earning excellent or very good ratings in all categories evaluated.
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“Receiving three BLI Pick awards for our bizhub A3 monochrome MFPs demonstrates that, through our new range of devices, we are able to give our customers seamless integration, increased productivity and reduced costs, whatever their business needs are,” says Kevin Kern, senior vice president of marketing for Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc.
About Buyers Laboratory LLC
Buyers Laboratory LLC (BLI) is the world's leading independent provider of analytical information and services to the digital imaging and document management industry. For over 50 years, buyers have relied on BLI to help them differentiate products’ strengths and weaknesses and make the best purchasing decisions, while industry sales, marketing and product professionals have turned to BLI for insightful competitive intelligence and valued guidance on product development, competitive positioning and sales channel and marketing support. Using BLI’s web-based bliQ and Solutions Center services, 40,000 professionals worldwide create extensive side-by-side comparisons of hardware and software solutions for over 15,000 products globally, including comprehensive specifications and the performance results and ratings from BLI’s unparalleled Lab, Solutions and Environmental Test Reports, the result of months of hands-on evaluation in its US and UK labs. The services, also available via mobile devices, include a comprehensive library of BLI’s test reports, an image gallery, hard to find manufacturers’ literature and valuable tools for configuring products, calculating total cost of ownership (TCO) and annual power usage. BLI also offers consulting and private, for-hire testing services that help manufacturers develop and market better products and consumables.
For more information on Buyers Laboratory LLC, please call (201) 488-0404, visit www.buyerslab.com, or e-mail info@buyerslab.com.