News Article Country Wide

Langenhagen, Germany, February 2009

Continuous improvement of highly successful devices has made Konica Minolta a leading player in the full colour multifunctional product (MFP) segment. The latest demonstration of perpetual device enhancement is the new bizhubs C552 and C652. They replace the successful bizhubs C550 and C650, the first devices to feature the popular and innovative InfoLine design. Their brand new successors offer major developments in terms of hardware facilities, security, media capabilities, quality and eco-friendliness. The new high volume colour MFPs are once more targeted at high volume office environments, central reproduction departments (CRDs) and Print for Pay.

 

"Our new bizhubs C552 and C652 once again prove Konica Minolta’s leadership not only in colour hardware itself but also in innovative features," says Lars Moderow, Product Manager of Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe. "These MFPs underline our objectives for development: quality, innovation and implementation of customer and market requirements. They are further enhancements of our winning products."

And winning products they are indeed. Their predecessors bizhub C550 and C650 were highly successful in the office and colour market. They received not only the coveted Buyers Laboratory Inc. (BLI) Pick awards for Outstanding Segment 4 Business Colour MFPs but also the 2007 BERTL Readers’ Choice awards for Colour Range and Colour Reliability and two BERTL Innovation awards – one for biometric authentication, another for its user box features. While the BLI awards are based on extensive laboratory tests the BERTL Readers’ Choice awards are the result of thousands of surveys reflecting customer satisfaction of resellers and end users.

While customers can definitely discover many resemblances in the exterior, there are noticeable differences in the bizhubs’ C552 and C652 performance, which benefited greatly from the major boost of their hardware capabilities. They include a 1 GHz CPU, a 250 GB hard disk and 2 GB of memory. A 1 GB Ethernet as well as the integrated PCI Express system deliver a high data transfer rate. Taken together, these hardware features make sure that the bizhub C552 and C652 are suitably equipped to fully meet demands of CRDs and Print for Pay suppliers.

A special feature of the bizhubs C552 and C652 increases the systems’ ease of operation. MyTab is a fully customisable tab in the printer driver that allows users to freely set all functions for their own needs and frequent usage in a single screen. At the same time, the print controller offers numerous quality enhancements while scan functionality meets all user requirements including scan-to-Me and scan-to-Home. Additionally, up to 1,000 user boxes for storing and managing information with flexible access can be set on the system’s internal hard disk.

"Information and knowledge are of the highest value to any company. Therefore every effort to protect them is necessary and appropriate," says Lars Moderow. "Konica Minolta already has one of the highest security standards for MFPs, maybe the highest in the market. With our new models we have lifted this standard to an unprecedented level."

The two new bizhubs meet Europe’s most important security standard ISO 15408, also known as Common Criteria. They are validated to Common Criteria EAL3 security standards. Among others, standard hard disk encryption, 802.1x network access protocol and NDS authentication have worked towards bizhub C552 and C652 compliance with this title. Optional improved biometric or non-contact ID card authentication gives access to authorised staff only.

While the two devices’ print speeds have remained unchanged – 65 monochrome and 50 colour pages per minute for the bizhub C652 and 55 and 45 pages respectively for the bizhub C552 – Konica Minolta has equipped its latest bizhubs with enhanced media capabilities. One of these is a new side deck with a capacity of 2,500 A3+ sheets. In total, both bizhubs take a maximum of 6,650 sheets to make large print runs a truly convenient matter. The devices allow users to produce booklets and trifold letters almost endlessly thanks to the output tray being equipped with a transport belt.

Apart from these prominent advancements, the bizhub C552 and bizhub C652 feature "eco printing" – a smart way to work not only ecologically but also economically while still producing high quality colour output. Konica Minolta’s proprietary Simitri HD polymerised toner paired with induction heating and fast power save recovery leads to very low power consumption that falls approximately 70% below the Energy Star limit. In turn, saving power makes a noticeable impact on users’ costs.

 

Terms and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and are hereby acknowledged.

 

Product images are available at www.konicaminolta-images.com

 

Contact:

 

Lars Moderow

Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe GmbH

Phone: +49 (0)511 7404-366

Lars.Moderow(at)konicaminolta.eu

 

Claudia Bitzer

Pleon GmbH

Phone: +49 (0)711 210 99-416

KonicaMinoltaTeam(at)pleon.com