BLI NAMES PRODUCT OF THE YEAR AND FALL '05 COLOR "PICKS"
Outstanding Achievements Also Recognized
December 12, 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. 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. "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 . . .
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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.
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.
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
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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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