"What Konica Minolta has achieved with a third consecutive A3 MFP Line of the Year Award is nearly unprecedented," said BLI Managing Editor Daria Hoffman. "In the 26-year history of the award, Konica Minolta is one of only two vendors to earn the award three years in a row and it is the only vendor to do so in the past decade."

"All in all, Konica Minolta's current lineup of A3 MFPs includes 12 products that have earned Pick awards—more than any other vendor—and 14 products that have received Highly Recommended ratings," said George Mikolay, BLI's senior product editor of A3/Copier MFPs. "It has Picks in virtually every speed band up to 75 ppm in both colour and black, so regardless of the speed of product you're looking for, Konica Minolta is tough to beat."

In total, BLI has run more than 2 million impressions on these Pick-winning engines with impressive results. "When all currently available tested A3 models are considered from top to bottom, Konica Minolta has the best reliability record of all eligible vendors, proving that it offers the quality buyers consider more important than any other," said Hoffman. "And the fact that Konica Minolta submits the majority of its units for testing as soon as they are introduced shows that it believes in its products, and that belief is continually backed up by their performance in the lab," said Mikolay. In addition to providing outstanding reliability, Konica Minolta devices have user-replaceable colour drums across every speed band, which means more uptime because service never needs to come in to replace drums.

Top-Notch Performances in Colour and Black

Konica Minolta received five individual "Picks" for its business colour products, ranging in speed from 36 to 75 ppm, and seven "Picks" on the monochrome side ranging in speed from 22 ppm to 75 ppm. In addition to high productivity across the product line, colour print quality is a key differentiator of the colour models, with consistent output from start to finish and high marks for both business graphics and photographic images. In addition, tested scan speeds for all 12 "Pick" winners were the fastest or among the fastest for both single-sided and double-sided scans. Modular finishing options enable users to easily upgrade as their needs evolve. "Also, the 80-page capacity of the saddle-stitch finisher is higher than that of all of its competitors," Mikolay said.

Always Innovative

"Whether with its award-winning My Tab for print driver customisation, or by being the first manufacturer to offer biometric authentication, Konica Minolta continues to innovate, with the new control panel interface a shining example," said BLI Manager of Laboratory Testing Pete Emory. The 228-mm electrostatic display supports touch-and-swipe scrolling, and automatically wakes up from energy-save or sleep mode when it detects a user approaching the panel. "But what really sets this panel apart from the pack is the ease with which users can choose from three different control panel interfaces," Emory added. "Users can switch to any of the interfaces on the fly, providing unmatched flexibility in selecting the interface that best fits their needs. Users even have the option of choosing between a touch-sensitive or hard-key numeric keypad."

Further enhancing this outstanding line is bizhub Extended Solution Technology (bEST), which enables integration of Konica Minolta devices with a range of software applications to help automate and streamline workflow and control costs. "Another plus for Konica Minolta is that it offers its customers a complete line of software solutions that was named last year's Document Imaging Solutions Line of the Year, as well as production devices such as the BLI PRO award-winning bizhub PRESS C7000," said Mikolay.

Current Lineup

Konica Minolta's currently available A3 business colour "Pick" winners include the bizhub C364; bizhub C454; bizhub C554; bizhub C654; and bizhub C754. Its currently available A3 monochrome "Pick" winners include the bizhub 223; bizhub 283; bizhub 363; bizhub 423; bizhub 552; bizhub 652; and bizhub 751. Additional models in Konica Minolta's A3 lineup include the Recommended bizhub 215, and the Highly Recommended bizhub C224 and bizhub C284.

"The fact that BLI awarded us 'A3 MFP Line of the Year' for the third year in a row as well as individual 'Picks' for the bizhub C364, bizhub C454 and bizhub C554 not only makes us very proud and happy, it also certifies that we are on the right track with our constant pursuit of excellence as a global leader in the highly competitive MFP and printer marketplace," said Olaf Lorenz, general manager of the International Marketing Division of Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe GmbH. "And, most important for us, the prestigious awards stand as a confirmation for our customers that they are using the best of the best in terms of criteria such as reliability, productivity, quality, ease of use and value."

BLI congratulates Konica Minolta on once again winning MFP Line of the Year for 2013.