4 bit of a brute, but cheap as chips
to run
Kyocera Mila’s FS-C5150DN is a compact
colour laser that’s designed to handle the high page yields required by small to
medium businesses. Unlike many of its rivals, Kyocera doesn’t quote one-time
maximum monthly duty cycle figures, and instead recommends a maximum monthly
average of no more than 9,000 pages if you want to keep your printer running
smoothly for as long as possible. It’s worth noting that the printer has a
100,000-page OPC drum that isn’t designed to be replaced, which means it’ll
probably be more cost-effective to replace the printer when the drum runs out.
Kyocera
Mita FS-C5150DN
Because of the savings made by the fixed
drum, the FS-C5150DN’s print costs and total cost of ownership are remarkably
low. It represents good value for money if your printing requirements are
slight, costing just $500 over three years, but the more you print, the more
you’ll benefit. For example, if you print 500 mono and 250 colour pages every
month for three years, you’ll spend just $1,770. That’s significantly less than
you’d spend with most of this printer’s rivals, particularly the Konica
Minolta Magicolor 3730DN (opposite).
The FS-C5150DN is a big, heavy workhorse,
and it looks the part - it certainly won’t win any awards for aesthetics. It’s
also a bit more complicated to assemble than more compact colour lasers, having
a waste toner bottle to fit in addition to four toner cartridges.
Nevertheless, it’s clear operating instructions
meant we had no major problems physically setting it up, despite the slightly
fiddly cartridge locking system.
Out of the box, the C5150DN starts with an
input and output capacity of 250 pages. However, it’s massively upgradable,
taking up to four additional paper trays for a maximum paper capacity of 1,250
pages.
Driver installation is incredibly fast and
hassle free, thanks to an auto-detection system that scans your network for the
printer and quickly installs the relevant drivers. The Kyocera emulates
PostScript 3 using the KPDL 3 page description language and also supports PCL
5c and 6.
You navigate its built-in menu system using
a handful of buttons and a mono LCD screen. You can easily access its network
settings, paper configuration and print files directly from a USB stick, which
is an unusual feature for a single-function printer. Its onboard menu options
are also available via the printer’s HTML-based command centre, which makes it
easy to remotely manage and monitor the device.
The FS-C5150DN is a particularly fast mono
printer, at 18.8ppm. Its7.4ppm colour speeds were slower than those of most colour
lasers, but we duplex-printed ten colour pages in a rather quick time of one
minute and 28 seconds.
Colour prints weren’t as bright and
glossy as those produced by the Magicolor 3730DN and many of the Kyocera’s
other rivals, but they were accurately coloured and solidly shaded. Mono text
was sharp, but it lacked the glossiness that we’ve come to expect from most
laser printers. While the lack of sheen was notable, it didn’t make the prints
look cheap or faded.
We’ve already touched on how cost-
effective the FS -C5150DN is to run, but costs of just 1.3p per mono page and
9.2p per page of mixed black and colour prints really are very reasonable.
If you’re after fast print speeds and
glossy colour, but don’t intend to print a lot, then the Konica Minolta
Magicolor 3730DN is a belter option - and it’ll look nicer on your desk. But
if you want a fairly high-yield printer that costs peanuts to run, the
FS-C5150DN could be the laser with your name on it.
Toner
Cartridge Set for Kyocera Mita FS-C5150DN Color
Pages per minute
24pp plain text: 1:20 mins 18ppm
24pp colour: 3:14 wins
7.4ppm
Six 6 x 4in photos: 45 secs 8ppm
600 x 600dpi
USB
Ethernet
Duplex
250-sheet tray
Conclusion
Price: $430
From: www.printerbase.co.uk
Needs: OS
X 10.2 or later
Pro: Reasonably
priced, Inexpensive to run, Speedy mono prints
Con: Slow
colour, No glossy sheen
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