Inkjet & Digital Printing

Konica Minolta wins BERTL readers’ and Buyers Lab colour competence awards

John M. Donnelly III, Managing Director at the Buyers Laboratory International Ltd. (right), hands over the “BLI Pick Award” to Carlos Baart, Manager Corporate Communications and Marketing Communications at Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe GmbH.

Thursday 24. January 2008 - Konica Minolta has won two 2007 BERTL Readers’ Choice awards for Colour Range and Colour Reliability. The results are based on thousands of surveys reflecting the customer satisfaction of resellers and end users such as IT managers and business buyers. Furthermore, three Konica Minolta multifunctional products (MFPs) have proved their excellence in extensive laboratory evaluations, especially for reliability, productivity, image quality and ease of use.

The Buyers Laboratory Inc. (BLI) assigned its Pick Awards for Outstanding Segment 4 Business Colour Multifunctional Products (MFPs) to the bizhubs C451, C 550 and C650.

For the third year in a row, thousands of readers of the BERTL reports and research have rated Konica Minolta the best colour range with its office products. In addition to this Platinum Award, Konica Minolta received the BERTL Readers’ Choice Gold Award for Colour Reliability in recognition of the company’s efforts to provide customers with low-maintenance and high-quality colour technologies. In the annual survey, respondents select their primary imaging manufacturer by numerous factors (18 in total in 2007) such as quality, ease of use, ongoing service and solutions provided.

“We always aim to excel in colour printing standards by constantly investing in research and development,” says Olaf Lorenz, General Manager, Product Marketing Division, Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe. “So we are delighted that the users of our products recognise our longstanding expertise in colour imaging technologies – and that these results are also backed up by independent laboratory evaluations.”

The Buyers Laboratory Inc. has just awarded the bizhubs C451, C550 and C650 its semi-annual 2007 Pick Awards as Outstanding Segment 4 Business Colour Multifunctional MFPs in the speed ranges of 41 to 50, 51 to 60 and 61 to 69 pages per minute respectively. In extensive laboratory tests, the three devices – all based on the same engine – especially impressed with their reliability, productivity and very good overall image quality.

“Konica Minolta has certainly done its homework in developing this new engine,” said Pete Emory, manager of laboratory testing at BLI. “Print quality is one thing, but to have copy quality that rivals it is outstanding. From multitasking to scanning, to their competitive to aggressive prices, these three units are dependable MFPs for business colour customers, general office use and colour environments.”

Additionally, the BLI rated the ease of use of the Konica Minolta bizhubs C451, C550 and C650 very positively thanks to the new InfoLine Design. This design supports intuitive use of the multifunctional products, for example with the control panel’s big, tilting colour LCD display and integrated LEDs indicating machine status. Furthermore, the BLI emphasised that all three devices proved to be very productive overall in their speed segments, especially in colour copy mode, and that they are equipped with a wide range of security features as standard.