Konica Minolta Rolls Out New Color Laser Printing Architecture

Konica Minolta on Monday unveiled color-laser printing technology designed to provide a consistent user interface and functionality across all of its next-generation printers and multifunction devices.

Called Emperon, the technology is being introduced in two new color laser printers, the magicolor 2450 and the magicolor 5450.

Emperon is a combination of hardware and software that aims to provide top-notch color matching and halftone screening, as well as easy printer management for users and administrators. The technology also supports multiple operating systems and is compatible with PostScript 3 and PCL 6 languages.

To get a closer look at the Emperon printing architecture, CRN Test Center engineers took a peek at the new magicolor 2450 and 5450 printers. Both products offer 9,600 x 600 dpi-class resolution and use a new polymerized toner called Simitri that produces astounding print quality. Pages look more like they came from a magazine rather than a laser printer.

The magicolor 2450, a four-pass color laser printer, offers exceptional print quality for such a compact unit. It has a monthly duty cycle of 35,000 pages, making it hearty enough for workgroup use. It includes a 10/100BaseTX Ethernet interface along with USB 2.0 and parallel ports, so it's easy to install anywhere. The unit prints up to 20 ppm in black-and-white and 5 ppm in color. It ships with 4,500-page toner cartridges preinstalled, so there's one less thing for the reseller to do.

Designed for more robust applications, the larger magicolor 5450 uses single-pass color laser technology to print up to 27 ppm in black-and-white or color. The network-ready magicolor 5450 DL model has a built-in Gigabit Ethernet interface, USB 2.0 and parallel ports, and a monthly duty cycle of 60,000 pages. An optional 40-Gbyte hard drive endows the magicolor 5450 with convenience features such as direct PDF, TIFF and JPEG printing; electronic collating; and proof-then-print and secured/stored job functions. Solution providers will like the ability to troubleshoot the printer via a Web browser.

The magicolor 2450 carries a street price of $599, if resellers take advantage of a $100 mail-in rebate, and the magicolor 5450 has a street price of $1,799. Both products are available now.