Ricoh Europe, 23 November 2015 – Ricoh Europe is delighted to announce that both its Pro™ C7110X Series and Pro™ C9110 Series digital colour production presses have been awarded 2016 Buyers Laboratory LLC (BLI) PRO awards.
The news follows the release of the latest infoSource figures that show Ricoh has retained the number one spot for units of digital colour sheet fed production presses sold in Western Europe. Its market share of 37.7% for the first half of 2015 puts it 15 percentage points ahead of its nearest rival.
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Graham Moore, Director, Business Development, Ricoh Europe commented, “These awards for the Ricoh Pro C7110X and Pro C9110 series from BLI, along with the infoSource data, vindicate the decisions made by many hundreds of progressive print service providers from right across Europe. They chose to be among the first to invest in these Ricoh systems to help them reach new levels of creativity, quality and productivity, both to delight their clients and to strengthen their businesses.”
BLI’s challenging production tests reveal the attributes that distinguish the most outstanding performers, and the Ricoh systems were the only models to earn BLI’s 5 star rating for media handling since the production test programme began.
The Ricoh Pro C9110 has won BLI’s 2016 PRO Award as “Outstanding Mid- to High-Volume Colour Production Device” for its:
- Significant speed advantages across the entire media range versus its competitors.
- Support for media weights up to 400gsm, including for duplexing, from all sources.
- Exceptional media handling, including more than double the maximum paper capacity of most rival units, allowing for longer unattended runs.
- Class leading offering of inline finishing options which include a perfect binder, high capacity stacker, full bleed square-edge booklet maker and inline ring bindery.
- Impressive colour consistency, with no colours shifting by more than Delta E 3.3 over the course of a 1,000 page print run on both coated and uncoated media.
- Excellent fine detail reproduction in full colour output, especially in light contrast areas, and very good depth of field.
Noting that the Ricoh Pro C9110 Series is the company’s fastest sheet-fed production device to date, David Sweetnam, BLI’s director of research and lab services EMEA/Asia, said that its ability to maintain its 130 ppm rated speed up to its impressive maximum media weight of 400gsm “leaves clear blue sky between this model and its closest rivals and brings it into new territory where it can now compete in some workflows against significantly higher priced production devices.”
“With its exceptional productivity and media handling, the Ricoh Pro C9110 Series has established several new benchmarks for other vendors to aim for and is certainly going to be a very attractive proposition for many commercial print and CRD environments,” adds BLI Senior Analyst Ian Latham.
The Ricoh Pro C7110X Series won BLI’s 2016 PRO Award as Outstanding Light- to Mid-Volume Colour Production Device for its:
- Fifth imaging station (available on the X and SX configurations), offering a range of creative output not possible with four colour alternatives.
- Excellent productivity especially with heavyweight media, maintaining its full 90 ppm engine speed with media up to 300gsm, surpassing the results of rival devices.
- Long, uninterrupted print runs thanks to a maximum paper capacity that’s more than double the capacity of most rival units.
- Class leading array of inline finishing options including a perfect binder, full bleed square-edge booklet maker and inline ring bindery.
- Impressive colour consistency, with no colours shifting by more than Delta E 3.9 over the course of a 1,000 page print run on either coated or uncoated media.
- Best-in-class black solid density that also showed less variance on both coated and uncoated media than that of competitors in BLI’s 100 page high-coverage test.
“The Ricoh Pro C7110X gave a very strong performance in BLI’s production field test”, adds Sweetnam. “The fifth imaging station is a real game changer, clearly differentiating it from other cut sheet devices in its class, allowing for a range of creative options (such as spot coating on covers) not possible with four colour press alternatives.”
BLI Senior Analyst Ian Latham added, “The Ricoh Pro C7110X certainly deserves its 5 star rating not just for productivity but for media handling, with its support for media up to 350gsm in duplex, with full engine speed maintained up to 300gsm, not to mention support for printing banners up to 700 mm in length, and a media catalogue with a high degree of customisability and tight integration with the EFI controller.”
| About Buyers Laboratory’s Pro Awards LLC | In the highly complex world of production print, choosing the most suitable device is a tough task for buyers. Buyers Laboratory LLC (BLI), the world's leading independent provider of analytical information and services to the document imaging industry, makes the task easier with its unmatched expertise in evaluating devices, gained over the past 50-plus years. The PRO awards go to the best performers in BLI’s production field tests, which shed light on how these devices perform in the real world.
BLI’s field evaluations entail three days of intensive testing during which tens of thousands of impressions are printed—as many as more than 150,000 depending on the model. Devices are tested for productivity with coated and uncoated media in a wide range of weights and sizes and using various finishing options to simulate a wide variety of job scenarios. BLI technicians also evaluate image quality, including production of halftones, text and fine lines; density levels and variations; and color drift over the course of a 1,000-page print run. In addition, BLI assesses media-handling capabilities and ease of use for setting up, submitting and managing jobs; loading paper and toner; switching out operator-replaceable components; and removing misfeeds.
| 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 more than 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. The services, also available via mobile devices, include a comprehensive library of BLI’s test reports, an image gallery, hard to find manufacturers’ literature and valuable tools for configuring products and calculating total cost of ownership (TCO) and annual power usage. BLI also offers consulting and private, for-hire testing services that help manufacturers develop and market better products and consumables.
For more information on Buyers Laboratory LLC, please call +44 (0) 118-977-2000, visit www.buyerslab.com, or email david.sweetnam@buyerslab.com.
|Ricoh at drupa 2016| Ricoh will bring a range of products and services to drupa 2016 that will enable print service providers to accelerate their business transformation. Solutions on display will open new opportunities and routes to greater productivity and profitability for forward-thinking print professionals. Ricoh will also be bringing the Pro VC60000 to the show. The world’s largest printing trade fair is scheduled for 31 May to 10 June at the Messe Duesseldorf, Germany, and Ricoh will again be located in Hall 8a.
| About Ricoh | Ricoh is a global technology company specializing in office imaging equipment, production print solutions, document management systems and IT services. Headquartered in Tokyo, Ricoh Group operates in about 200 countries and regions. In the financial year ending March 2015, Ricoh Group had worldwide sales of 2,231 billion yen (approx. 18.5 billion USD).
The majority of the company's revenue comes from products, solutions and services that improve the interaction between people and information. Ricoh also produces award-winning digital cameras and specialized industrial products. It is known for the quality of its technology, the exceptional standard of its customer service and sustainability initiatives.
Under its corporate tagline, imagine. change. Ricoh helps companies transform the way they work and harness the collective imagination of their employees.
For further information, please visit www.ricoh-europe.com
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