The C301i sits in the middle of the bizhub C361i, C301i and C251i trio at 30 pages per minute. Processor, 8 GB of memory, 256 GB SSD, the 10.1-inch panel, the one-pass dual scan feeder with skew correction, the 6,650-sheet paper ceiling and the finishing options are identical across all three.

Set against the older bizhub C300i, which matches it at 30 pages per minute on the same memory and storage, the C301i doubles maximum paper capacity from 3,300 to 6,650 sheets, adds digital skew correction to the scanner and carries the refreshed tablet-style interface. Since the speed is the same, the question is whether those improvements justify the price difference in your office. For a machine that scans archives daily, skew correction alone usually does. For light use, the C300i does the same job.

Against the entry bizhub C287i at 28 ppm, the headline speed gap is only two pages a minute, but the underlying machines differ substantially: 8 GB of memory against 6, and dual scanning at 200 originals per minute against 55 images per minute from a reversing feeder. Judging these two on ppm alone would be a mistake.

The C301i fits offices of roughly 20 to 40 people producing colour through the working day and scanning heavily alongside it: corporate departments, professional services firms, colleges and universities, hospitals, and marketing functions producing short-run material in-house.

It is the balanced choice in its range, quick enough that a shared machine does not queue without paying for the C361i's headroom. If you already run bizhub machines, the Remote Monitoring and Management platform is worth raising with us, because managing firmware and security centrally across a mixed fleet saves more administrative time than most buyers expect.