The On Demand expo underway in Philadelphia (April 20-22, Philadelphia Convention Center) is serving as the North American public unveiling of the new Konica Minolta 80 page-per-minute bizhub PRESS C8000, the first colour product in the company’s new-generation bizhub PRESS production line-up.
This digital colour printer moves Konica Minolta further up in the production printer category. The company it promoting the new C8000 as a "replacement for full-colour offset systems."
The product was at the PRINT 09 show in Chicago last year, but it was kept under wraps with controlled previews offered to a select crowd.
"The bizhub PRESS production print line was designed with the end user in mind. It delivers market-leading innovation in the areas of productivity, reliability and workflow enhancement, and raises the bar in the production print industry," said Kevin Kern, senior vice president, marketing with Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. Inc. in a release.
Early details being released on the 80 ppm bizhub PRESS C8000 include its ability to operate at production speeds on a variety of stocks, plus its use of air suction belt feeding for handling of media up to 350g/m2. The printer can also duplex stocks up to 300 g/m2.
The system uses Konica Minolta’s new Simitri HD+ polymerized toner, printing at 1,200 x 1,200 dpi, and the system uses an IDC (Image Density Control) sensor for real-time colour density adjustment.
Konica Minolta is also previewing the Creo IC-307 print controller as the front end featuring variable data printing (VDP) functionality and built-in JDF capabilities, allowing integration with existing offset workflows like Kodak Prinergy and Agfa’s :Apogee among and others.
The printer also includes a mechanism to reduce paper curling, and it incorporates more user replaceable parts, what the company caslls O.R.U.M. (Operator Replaceable Unit Management) to cut down on service calls.
The new bizhub PRESS C8000 will also feature multiple in-line post-processing finishing options, including perfect binding, when it becomes available later this year. A video was posted by Konica Minolta here.
