Kyocera FS-1120D review

Kyocera’s FS-1120D isn’t exactly pretty. With chunky dimensions of 375x393x250mm and an off-white design reminiscent of retro computers, it can’t compete with the likes of Canon or Samsung when it comes to style.

Thankfully, then, it excels in other areas. For starters, it’s very quick: its draft speed of 32.7ppm drops to a still-impressive 26.6ppm when we upped the quality to normal mode, and that’s significantly faster than both of our favourite Samsung models. The Kyocera struggled slightly in our mono graphics test, where it paused while handling information, although its speed of 14ppm is still perfectly acceptable.

Print quality disappointed when compared to the impressive speed. Draft mode was even paler and more washed out than we expected and, while normal-quality documents were better, we’d still prefer deeper, richer blacks and sharper, more consistent text. Graphical prints, meanwhile, suffered from the same washed-out look, and we found clear banding across gradients. The FS-1120D is fine for everyday document printing, but it’ll struggle with anything more complex.

Kyocera hasn’t exactly loaded its machine with features, either. The casing has just two buttons and a ring of six LEDs to indicate paper jams, activity and power. There’s no LCD interface, and so you can only check its status and change its configuration from your PC. The 600x600dpi print resolution is merely average, too, and we weren’t too keen on the loud noises emitted by the FS-1120D as it rumbled through our tests.

Nevertheless, the monthly duty cycle of 20,000 pages should be enough for small businesses, and the 250-page input and output trays should be ample, too. The input tray also houses a small mechanical meter that’s used to measure how much paper’s left in the tray.

It’s relatively cheap to run, too, as long as you’re not too demanding. The initial price of £123 is very reasonable and, at £48 inc VAT, so is the cost of the 2,500-page cartridge. The starter cartridge lasts for 1,000 pages, and you won’t have to buy any other consumables. A medium print load of 750 pages a month will result in a total cost of ownership (TCO) of £603 over three years at a cost of just 1.9 pence per page.

As usual, a range of accessories are available if you’d like to widen the FS-1120D’s capabilities. Kyocera offers RAM upgrades, 802.11b/g wireless and Gigabit Ethernet connections, but they’re ludicrously expensive: an extra 256MB of RAM costs £280, and the wireless module only £30 less.

As a basic machine, though, the FS-1120D is both fast and affordable. It’s well-suited to life in a busy office thanks to its high monthly duty cycle. While quality isn’t the best, it’s fine for basic jobs – but you may wish to look towards Samsung’s SCX-4600 if you need a machine capable of scanning and copying, as well as printing.