BLI Honors Five Vendors with Awards in the A3 Category

January 13, 2015 – Hackensack (NJ) – Buyers Laboratory LLC (BLI) today announced the winners of its coveted Pick awards for the Winter 2015 season, naming Kyocera, Ricoh, Canon, Xerox and Samsung as the victors in the A3 realm. Ricoh also took home an Outstanding Achievement in Ease of Use award for its Smart Operation Panel. 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. BLI’s Outstanding Achievement Awards acknowledge products or capabilities that stand out for attributes such as innovation, energy efficiency or value.

KYOCERA Wins Across the Board           KYOCERA delivered a remarkable performance this Picks season, taking home wins in nearly every category from mid- to high-volume in both monochrome and color. The TASKalfa 3010i, 3510i and 8001i were the winners in the monochrome category, while the TASKalfa 3551ci, 6551ci and 7551ci were the winners in the color category.         

All in all, the devices stood out most for their exceptional reliability and ease of use. “Time and again, KYOCERA impresses us with the consistency it provides across its line and its clear emphasis on convenience for the end user,” said Pete Emory, BLI director of laboratory testing. BLI analysts praised the models for convenient features, such as the ability to add shortcuts to control panel menus with the press of a button and their redesigned print driver, which includes PCL and PostScript in one and lets users fluidly switch between the two.

Many of the winning models also delivered an outstanding productivity performance. And to top it off, a number of them are priced considerably lower than average, including the TASKalfa 3010i, 7551ci and 8001i, which is the lowest priced device in its competitive group.

Ricoh Dominates in Numerous Categories          

Ricoh was a sweeping winner in the Winter 2015 season, earning six Pick awards along with an Outstanding Achievement in Ease of Use award for its Smart Operation Panel. Pick winners include the monochrome MP 3554, MP 5054* and Aficio MP 9002 Series, and the color MP C4503, MP C5503 and MP C6003.      

All of Ricoh’s Pick-winning models proved to be highly reliable and exceptionally productive. “These machines consistently outshined the competition in all of the key areas,” remarked George Mikolay, BLI’s senior product editor for A3 Copiers/MFPs. “Not only are they reliable, they’re fast too, meaning they can be counted on to keep workers moving.”

Other than the Aficio MP 9002 Series, all of the models also offer Ricoh’s award-winning Smart Operation Panel as an inexpensive option. The 10.1", Android-based Smart Operation Panel has been honored with an Outstanding Achievement award for the convenience it offers, with drag-and-drop, pinch-and-flick functionality, along with smartphone-like swipe scrolling. A key benefit is that it also allows users to fluidly switch between Ricoh’s traditional user interface and the newly designed Quick user interface, which simplifies selections for commonly used functions.

Another useful option that many of the Pick-winning devices offer is Ricoh’s stapeless stapler finisher, which earned an Outstanding Achievement in Innovation award last Picks season.

*This model not yet available in some regions

Canon Recognized for Outstanding Performance in the Mid-Range Monochrome Segment           

The Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE 6255 has earned a Pick in the 51- to 60-ppm A3 monochrome category this season thanks to its excellent reliability, print productivity, ease of use and robust scan functionality.

Not only is the imageRUNNER ADVANCE 6255 highly reliable, it was also the fastest in its competitive group in a number of BLI’s productivity tests. And as is typically the case with Canon models, the device stood out further for its exceptional ease of use and impressive scan functionality.

Xerox Stands Out in Entry-Level Color Category          

The Xerox WorkCentre 7220 Series stood out among entry-level color devices in its class, earning a BLI Winter 2015 Pick award.        

The device is highly reliable and offers an outstanding value, with a purchase price that’s lower than the average for models in its speed band. BLI analysts further praised the WorkCentre 7220 Series for its excellent multitasking functions and convenient features, such as bidirectional print drivers (which display device and job status, eliminating the need to install an additional utility) and the ability to access the Xerox Online Support database right from the control panel.

“Buyers Lab’s selection of the Xerox WorkCentre 7220 MFP Series as a Pick award winner for Winter 2015 reinforces that small to large enterprises benefit from Xerox’s ConnectKey® technology,” said Kara Rayburn, global marketing manager for Xerox’s Office and Solutions Business Group. “This breakthrough platform, common to most of our A3 multifunction printers, maximizes the resourcefulness of these devices while increasing productivity and reducing costs.”

Samsung Offers Low-Volume Environments More for Less          

Providing outstanding reliability and print quality, along with a number of convenient features, all for a price that is among the lowest for models in its class, the 30-ppm Samsung MultiXpress X4300LX is BLI’s Pick in the 21- to 30-ppm color segment.         

BLI analysts praised the device for its superior print quality and black copy quality, along with its Android-based control panel and impressive network device management utility, which includes the ability to manage not only devices but user access as well. The unit also offers three copy interfaces for users to select from based on their needs and level of expertise.

“We are honored to receive the Outstanding 21- to-30-ppm A3 Color MFP award,” said David SW Song, senior vice president of strategic marketing and sales, Printing Solutions, Samsung Electronics. “We have worked hard to provide easy-to-use solutions utilizing the Android user interface and Samsung’s open platform XOA. The MultiXpress X4300 demonstrates our continuous efforts to deliver powerful performance with faster printing speeds.”

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.   

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