' R A P H I C # O M M U N I C A T I O N ) N S T I T U T E Lab Testing Report prepared for Konica Minolta, Inc.
GrCI Laboratory Testing Report Between October 17 - 27, 2007, a series of quality tests on the magicolor 7450 color laser printer were completed by and under the immediate supervision of Professor Michael Blum of the Graphic Communication Institute at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. This testing was conducted on behalf of Konica Minolta, Inc. The tests were designed to determine the suitability of this particular printer for the Macintosh-based graphic design, production, and creative marketplaces.
Testing was completed by faculty, staff, and students in the Graphic Communication Department at Cal Poly State University (www.calpoly.edu) under the supervision of Professor Michael Blum. The Department is one of the leading institutions of its kind in the nation, and offers a BS degree in Graphic Communication with concentrations in Printing and Imaging Management, Design Reproduction Technology, Electronic Publishing and Imaging, Graphics for Packaging, and Individual Study.
A test suite was developed to determine the font-handling capability of the 7450 printer, including TypeOne PostScript, TrueType, and OpenType fonts — all font formats commonly used in the Macintosh environment.
There were very few problems in setting up and using the printer, but we decided to contact the technical support hotline listed on both the web page and the printed documentation to test how well the product is supported by Konica Minolta. During the first call, we were immediately handled by a technical support representative without going through any answering phone tree. We were not quizzed about our product serial number, customer support contract, warranty, etc.
Summary by Application percent clicks Acrobat 38.1% 2,415 Adobe Reader 18.0% 1,138 Camera Direct 1.9% 120 Excel 04 0.4% 27 FileMaker 8.5 0.7% 45 Firefox 2 0.3% 19 Illustrator CS2 0.2% 15 Illustrator CS3 0.9% 56 InDesign CS2 0.4% 27 InDesign CS3 20.7% Keynote 4 0.8% 50 Mac Mail 0.2% 10 Photoshop CS2 0.9% 60 Photoshop CS3 2.1% 134 PowerPoint 04 0.5% 34 Preview 3 3.4% 213 QuarkXPress 6.5 3.6% 227 QuarkXPress 7.2 2.4% 150 Safari 2 0.4% 27 Word 04 4.
Summary by Paper Type percent clicks Futura Laser 100# Dull Text 29.0% 1,835 Futura Laser 100# Gloss Text 1.7% 106 Futura Laser 80# Gloss Cover 2.3% 145 Future Laser 80# Dull Cover 1.8% 112 Kromekote 12 pt Cover 1.8% 113 Technisource 10 pt Super Gloss Cover 2.8% 177 Technisource 28# Copy Writing 39.1% Technisource 80# Copy Cover 6.9% 437 Technisource 80# Gloss Cover 5.7% 364 Technisource 80# Matte Cover 9.
Color Test Results To test the color capability of the printer we used the internal web page to vary the default PostScript color settings to the native color space of the printer. A color test target was printed using this native color space in order to create an ICC Profile using a Gretag Macbeth Spectroscan scanning spectrophotometer and associated color profiling software.
Conclusions This study tested the capabilities of the Konica Minolta magicolor 7450 color laser printer for its suitability in the design, creative, and production market in an Apple Macintosh environment.
