December 5, 2005 - Hackensack (NJ) - Buyers Laboratory (BLI) is pleased to announce that it has given accolades to Lexmark for its Outstanding Achievement in Control Panel Design and to Ricoh for its Innovative Ink Technology.
For its newly redesigned printer control panels, Lexmark has been chosen to receive an Outstanding Achievement Award for Control Panel Design. The new operator panel features a 4-line text and graphical back-lit display, which allows users to view context-sensitive help messages with full grayscale images that walk them through tasks; intuitive navigation buttons; and a 10-digit numeric keypad. In contrast, the printer control panels from most other vendors display only text and require users to use arrow keys to scroll up or down through numbers when entering PIN numbers for confidential printing. Marlene Orr, BLI's senior printer analyst, said "Lexmark's new design for its printer control panels greatly simplifies entering PIN numbers and provides interactive help messages that instruct users how to change consumables and remove misfeeds." The new operator panel also has a convenient USB port that allows walk-up users to print files directly from a USB flash drive. And the job cancel button allows user to scroll through all active jobs and select a specific job for deletion without affecting other jobs in the queue. In addition, with the optional Lexmark Document Solutions Suite, the user can customize the operator panel to allow for options such as automated filling-in of forms saved on the printer memory and/or hard drive.
Ricoh has been chosen to receive an Outstanding Achievement Award for its Innovative GelSprinter Inkjet Technology. GelSprinter technology employs durable, permanent 1.27-inch-wide print heads. The driving force behind the G7500, G700 and G500 printers, these wider print heads distribute Ricoh's viscous gel ink to a larger area with more speed than typical inkjet technologies-meaning users can achieve both high-speed and high-quality prints on plain paper. With these unique print heads and Ricoh's Modulation-Dot (M-Dot) technology, a single nozzle can eject up to four droplets of ink in rapid succession, which combine into a single larger dot, producing better fill and higher resolution. In addition, GelSprinter viscous ink dries faster than traditional liquid ink, reducing blurring and bleeding. BLI Senior Test Technician, Tony Maceri said, "With its wide printheads and gel ink, the G700 offers very good print quality and is the most productive business-class inkjet we've seen in the lab."
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