January 17, 2012 - Hackensack, NJ Konica Minolta Earns BLI’s Pick for 2012 A3 MFP “Line of the Year” January 17, 2012 - Hackensack (NJ) – For the second consecutive year, Konica Minolta Business Solutions, U.S.A., Inc. has won Buyers Laboratory LLC’s (BLI’s) most coveted award—A3 MFP Line of the Year. Once each year, Buyers Lab, the leading global provider of information and testing services to the digital imaging industry, acknowledges the vendors whose product lines are determined to be the best overall in their respective categories based on the cumulative results of models tested in BLI’s rigorous two-month laboratory evaluation. By assessing reliability, image quality, ease of use, productivity and a range of other criteria, the tests reveal the products that deliver customers the best value and most trouble-free performance. Also considered are the breadth of the vendor’s line and the vendor’s ability to provide quality products suitable to a broad spectrum of customer needs, from low-volume to high-volume. “The Konica Minolta line continues to impress, currently including 14 A3 “Pick” winners—more than any other MFP vendor,” said George Mikolay, senior product editor, A3/Copier MFPs. “It’s a remarkable achievement that among all 14 ‘Pick’ winners, not a single malfunction occurred,” said BLI Managing Editor Daria Hoffman, pointing out that the only service required was for routine scheduled preventive maintenance. “When all currently available tested A3 models are considered, Konica Minolta has the best reliability record of all eligible vendors, proving that it offers the quality buyers consider more important than any other.” Konica Minolta currently has six individual “Picks” for its business color products, ranging in speed from 22 to 65 ppm. “Color print quality is also a differentiator for Konica Minolta, said Pete Emory, BLI’s manager of laboratory testing. “Unlike the majority of business color models we test, Konica Minolta’s products maintain very good and consistent output from start to finish over the course of our high-volume tests.” In addition, all of Konica Minolta’s color “Pick” winners received high marks for both business graphics and photographic images—something that can’t be said of most competitors. Even so, for more graphics-intensive environments, an EFI Fiery controller is also available for all the models from 28 ppm and above. Equally strong on the monochrome side, Konica Minolta’s line currently has eight monochrome “Pick” winners ranging in speed from 22 ppm to 75 ppm. Common to the majority of these “Pick” winners are fast scan speeds and exceptional paper-handling capabilities, including modular finishing options that allow users to upgrade easily as their needs evolve. Above average performances by most in BLI’s real-world job stream test means there won’t be unproductive wait times in environments in which multiple users send jobs to the device at once during busy times of the day. A leader among document imaging companies in offering security features such as hard drive overwrite as standard rather than optional, Konica Minolta provides a comprehensive offering of standard security measures for its A3 products, as well as a biometric access control option that recognizes vein patterns in users’ fingertips to enable quick, hassle-free authentication. And the company’s excellent print drivers feature the award-winning My Tab, which allows the first tab of Konica Minolta’s print drivers to be customized for each user. “Comparably equipped, most of the models BLI tested also offer suggested retail prices that are competitive to lower than average for their respective groups and typically offer strong features sets to boot, making them exceptional values for buyers,” said Mikolay. Further enhancing the value of this outstanding line is bizhub Extended Solution Technology (bEST), which enables integration of Konica Minolta devices with a range of applications to help automate and streamline workflow. A big bonus for Konica Minolta MFP buyers is that between the company’s self-developed solutions and offerings from third parties evaluated by Buyers Lab, Konica Minolta sells the best, most well-rounded offering of document imaging solutions of any other hardware vendor in the document imaging industry, winning it BLI’s inaugural award for “Document Imaging Solutions Line of the Year.” Konica Minolta’s A3 business color winners include the bizhub C220; bizhub C280; bizhub C360; bizhub C452; bizhub C552/C552DS; and bizhub C652/C652DS. Konica Minolta’s current A3 monochrome winners include the bizhub 652; bizhub 552; bizhub 423; bizhub 363; bizhub 283; bizhub 223; bizhub 601; and bizhub 751. “Continuing the momentum of our ‘Pick’ awards announced earlier in 2011, we are honored that BLI has again chosen Konica Minolta to receive ‘Line of the Year’ for our complete line of A3 bizhub MFPs,” said Kevin Kern, senior vice president of marketing for Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. “Customers of all sizes can count on Konica Minolta for award-winning technology and document management solutions. Moving into 2012, we look forward to introducing more exceptional products, solutions and services to the industry that address the evolving needs of our customers.” 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. 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