July 19, 2012 – Hackensack (NJ) – Buyers Laboratory LLC, the world’s leading independent tester of document imaging products, today awarded “Pick” recognition to the most outstanding monochrome models evaluated in the past six months, with honors going to models from Canon, HP, OKI and Ricoh.

After analyzing the results for the top performers in a range of printer and MFP categories, BLI awarded “Picks” to the following products:

OKI Wins for Economy and Efficiency
Awarded BLI “Pick” awards in the small and mid-size workgroup monochrome MFP categories, the OKI MB461/MB471 MFP Series and MB491 offer rated speeds of 35 ppm and 42 ppm and a compact design. “For users that need a fast and affordable monochrome MFP, the OKI MB461/MB471/MB491 series products are a great choice,” said BLI Senior Test Technician Tony Maceri. “Most print jobs are just a few pages long, so fast first-print times mean improved worker productivity and that is just one area where these OKI products excel. The low purchase price is an added bonus.”

"OKI is honored to receive the prestigious BLI 'Pick' awards for our new MB461, MB471 and MB491 mono multifunction printers," said Hiroyuki Fukushima, Director of Non-Impact Printer Product Marketing for OKI Data Americas. "OKI is committed to providing affordable printing solutions and optimizing performance for the SMB market. As BLI noted, the MB401 Series MFPs deliver exceptional value, superior media handling and low total cost of ownership backed by an outstanding warranty. Users can be confident purchasing MB401 Series mono MFPs from OKI."

Ricoh Delivers Open Architecture in a Single-Function Printer Winning a BLI “Pick” in the mid-size workgroup category, the Ricoh Aficio SP 4310N offers a robust feature set and demonstrated a winning performance in BLI tests. “The Ricoh Aficio SP 4310N gives business users exactly what they need in a monochrome printer: reliability, flexibility, security and affordability,” said BLI Associate Editor Carl Schell. Ricoh’s ESA (Embedded Software Architecture) can be enabled via an optional card to provide integration with various types of solutions—this technology is rarely seen on single-function printers. Security is another area where the Aficio SP 4310N excels; the unit allows for multiple forms of authentication, and administrators can restrict access via user codes and set and lock driver settings for individual users to enforce print policies.

“To be recognized by BLI as a top pick is an honor,” said Mike Dane, Vice President, Marketing, Ricoh Americas Corporation. “BLI’s “Pick” award for the SP 4310N is further recognition of Ricoh's continued achievements in providing the benefits and functionality that our customers’ demand, including reliability, affordability and superior business-class performance.”

Canon Wins for Productivity and Ease of Use
The award for Outstanding Personal A4 Monochrome MFP goes to the Canon imageCLASS MF5950dw/MF5960dn Series, whose compact design makes it ideal for SOHO environments. It’s simple to set up and use, and includes the versatile MF Toolbox scan utility and NewSoft Presto! Page Manager, which allows users to scan, share and organize photos and documents. BLI European Lab Manager Ian Latham said, “We were very impressed with its excellent overall simplex and duplex copy and print productivity, its faster than average first-page-out times and its first-copy-out times, which were the fastest in this class. In fact, its first-page-out time from overnight sleep is twice as fast as the average.” The imageCLASS MF5950dw/MF5960dn Series also proved to be impeccably reliable, with no misfeeds or service calls required over its two-month durability testing.

Anil Jagpal, marketing manager for Canon Europe’s laser and business imaging group, said, “With faster than average print times as well as helpful document management features, our i-SENSYS MF5940dn/MF5980dw printers have been designed with productivity and ease of use in mind. It’s great to see these benefits recognized with a BLI Summer ‘Pick’ award, and to know the inherent quality of Canon’s printers still sets them apart from the competition.”