KONICA MINOLTA COLOUR PRINTERS

A colour multifunctional printer combines four machines in one unit: colour and black and white printing, copying, scanning and, on most bizhub models, fax. Choosing well means matching the machine to your real volumes and your colour workload rather than to a brochure, because the wrong match costs money every month, not once.

Work through these factors in order before you compare models:

• Monthly volume. Count what you print and copy in a normal month, not your busiest week. Volume decides the speed class the machine needs to belong to.
• How much output genuinely needs colour. Sample a month of documents and mark what had to be colour. The answer drives both your hardware choice and your running costs.
• Users sharing the machine. One to five users queue politely; twenty users need a faster engine, larger paper capacity and finishing options.
• Print speed and paper capacity. Speed in pages per minute sets output pace; cassette capacity decides how often someone walks over to refill trays.
• Scanning workload. Scan speed, a document feeder that handles double-sided originals, and destinations such as email, folder and cloud services matter as much as printing in a paperless-leaning office.
• Finishing. Booklet making, stapling and hole punching save hand labour if you produce client packs; they are dead cost if you do not.
• Security and connectivity. User authentication, follow-me printing and integration with your network or cloud accounts are standard-fit on current generations and should be checked on refurbished units.

Also decide A3 versus A4. An A3 machine prints spreadsheets, plans and invoices at full size and copies A3 originals; an A4 colour device costs less to buy and run where everything is letterhead size. Most bizhub colour machines are A3, which is why they dominate offices that handle client documents.

For most South African offices, refurbished colour bizhubs are the strongest value in this category: proven engines, checked and serviced per unit, at an estimated market range of R15,000 to R35,000 (2026 SA dealer listings; final quote per unit) against new-generation prices that start far higher.

Colour print speed is quoted in pages per minute (ppm) and applies to colour and mono output alike on bizhub machines. As a guide by monthly volume: up to about 3,000 pages a month points to the 20 to 30 ppm class; 3,000 to 10,000 points to 36 to 45 ppm; sustained volumes beyond 10,000 belong in the 55 ppm and faster classes with extra paper capacity and finishing.

• 20-25 ppm: small offices and reception areas, one to five users, a few thousand colour pages a month. The bizhub C250i and C258 work here.
• 30-36 ppm: workgroups mixing colour documents with daily mono printing. The bizhub C300i at 30 ppm and the C360i and C368 at 36 ppm keep queues short.
• 45-55 ppm: departments with steady colour demand. The bizhub C458 at 45 ppm and C558 at 55 ppm add larger paper feeds and finishing options.
• 65-75 ppm: print rooms and corporate reproduction. The bizhub C650i and C658 at 65 ppm and the C750i at 75 ppm handle production-style volumes.

A practical rule: buy the speed class above your average month, not your busiest day. A machine running constantly at its ceiling wears faster and still queues. Also check first-copy time and duplex speed, not just the headline ppm, if your work is many short jobs rather than long runs.

A colour machine costs more to buy and more to run than a mono machine of the same speed. The hardware band is higher, an estimated R15,000 to R35,000 versus R9,000 to R25,000 refurbished (2026 SA dealer listings; final quote per unit), because a colour engine carries four toner systems and colour imaging units instead of one.

The pages tell the rest of the story. A colour device printing black-only documents still draws on its colour consumables for calibration and maintenance, so a mono page costs more on a colour machine than on a dedicated mono one. That is why offices that print mostly text with occasional colour often run two machines: a mono workhorse for the daily load and a colour machine reserved for client-facing work.

The honest test is your own output. Sample a month and count what genuinely needs colour. If it is under a tenth, a mono machine plus occasional outsourced colour usually wins on total cost. If colour is part of what you deliver to clients, quotes, proposals, marketing, school reports, a colour bizhub earns the difference every week. Our black and white multifunctional printers page covers the mono side of the comparison.

Grouped by the work they do, with estimated market ranges (2026 SA dealer listings; final quote per unit):

• Small office (20-30 ppm): bizhub C250i and C258 at 25 ppm, and the C300i at 30 ppm. Est. R15,000-R35,000. The C250i is the current i-series generation; the C258 is the earlier generation at the same speed and usually the lower price.
• Workgroup (36-45 ppm): bizhub C360i and C368 at 36 ppm (est. R18,000-R35,000), and the C450i and C458 at 45 ppm (est. R18,000-R32,000). Paper capacity and finishing options grow here.
• High-volume colour (55-75 ppm): bizhub C558 at 55 ppm (est. R20,000-R32,000), the C650i and C658 at 65 ppm (est. R22,000-R35,000), and the C750i and C759 at 75 ppm (est. R25,000-R35,000).

Every unit is checked and serviced before listing, with the meter reading confirmed on the quote. Colour stock moves quickly, so if a tier interests you, ask what is available this week.

Running cost is where colour ownership is won or lost. Four toners, cyan, magenta, yellow and black, each carry a rated page yield at standard coverage, and real yields move with how much colour your documents actually carry. A page with a logo and a coloured heading uses a fraction of the toner of a full-coverage marketing sheet, so two offices with the same page count can have very different toner bills.

The lever most offices never pull is defaults. Setting the print driver to mono and duplex by default, and reserving colour for the jobs that need it, routinely cuts colour consumption by half or more without changing a single document. User authentication adds accountability: colour printing drops again when jobs are named.

For budgeting, ask for a cost-per-page figure for both colour and mono with your quote, and check whether high-yield toner options exist for your model, since they lower the per-page cost for busy offices. A service or click arrangement converts the whole running cost, toner, parts and labour, into a single predictable per-page amount, which is how most South African businesses end up running colour machines they can afford.

Scanning is the forgotten saving. Colour multifunctionals scan at speed to email, folder and cloud destinations, and moving paper processes to scan-to-file cuts paper, toner and filing time at once. When you compare models, compare scan speed and document feeder capacity too, not only ppm.

Is a refurbished colour bizhub reliable?

A properly refurbished unit, one that has been inspected, had wear parts replaced and been tested before sale, is reliable by design. Ask for the meter reading and the refurbishment scope with your quote; that documentation is the difference between a refurbishment and a clean-up.

What speed colour printer does a small office need?

Twenty to thirty pages per minute covers most small offices comfortably. Faster classes pay for themselves only with sustained volumes or multiple users queuing through the day.

Can a colour bizhub print black and white only?

Yes, every bizhub colour machine prints mono as well. Set the driver default to mono to keep day-to-day costs down and print in colour per job when a document needs it.

What should I budget for a colour multifunctional in South Africa?

Refurbished A3 colour bizhubs carry an estimated market range of R15,000 to R35,000 (2026 SA dealer listings; final quote per unit). New current-generation machines cost far more. Request a quote for the specific model and condition you want, and we will confirm availability and the unit’s meter reading.

Still deciding? Tell us your monthly volume and how much of it needs colour, and we will recommend two or three suitable models with current availability.

For current model costs across the bizhub range, see the bizhub price list for South Africa, or request a quote on any of the models above.