Why You Can Trust CNET Kyocera FS-1325MFP review: Kyocera FS-1325MFP
Kyocera's entry-level MFP provides good quality, rapid output, although we do wish that the print output tray had been designed a little better.
Design
Printers pitched at the small to medium business space have a tendency towards plain design, and Kyocera's FS-1325MFP is absolutely no exception. There's good reason for that, however, as a more complex design introduces training variables if there are complex onscreen menus or button selections to deal with. By keeping things simple and plain, so the theory goes, workflow should improve.
Kyocera FS-1325MFP
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
The FS-1325MFP is therefore presented in a relatively small 390x361x362mm casing with dual black and white tones. The front control panel features a small, two-line LCD window with physical buttons to cover all of the FS-1325MFP's functions. All else being right, you should be able to drop anyone in front of the FS-1325MFP and they'd be able to operate it with no guidance at all.
Features
The FS-1325MFP covers the fundamentals of the multifunction small office/home office (SOHO) space well. It's a combined monochrome laser printer, copier, scanner and fax device. Kyocera rates the FS-1325MFP as being capable of up to 25 A4 output pages per minute, with a claimed time to first page of 8.5 seconds. The paper tray is a 250 sheet standard feeder, along with a multipurpose tray. In terms of connectivity, it supports USB 2.0 and 10/100 Ethernet. The print drum is rated for 100,000 pages over its life, and the small toner cartridges have a stated yield of 2100 pages.
The scanner is a 1200dpi model, and duplexing is built in. The FS-1325MFP isn't quite the entry level of Kyocera's SOHO range — the FS-1320MFP is essentially the same device sans networking and duplexing capabilities — but compared to the printers Kyocera sells to the big end of town, this is still a small and compact unit.
Performance
Installation of the FS-1325MFP is a matter of dealing with the predictable orange packing tape — and there's plenty of it — installing the relatively small toner cartridge and selecting either wired network or USB connectivity. One note here is that on initial set-up, the toner cartridge takes quite a long while to activate, but thankfully, that's a process you'll only have to undertake once.
The FS-1325MFP's toner cartridges sell online for anywhere between AU$60 to AU$80, at the time of writing. With an expected yield of 2100 pages, that suggests a running cost of 2.85 cents to3.8c per page, not including power costs.
In terms of single page output, the FS-1325MFP managed a single page from an absolute cold start in 18 seconds, well above Kyocera's claimed 8.5 second figure. It's likely that they're working off an already warmed up printer, though, as once started, single pages emerged at an average of nine seconds each. Lining up a longer print job, we were prepared for a little disappointment, because print vendor page speed estimations are often a little rubbery, to put it as kindly as possible.
Kyocera's estimates for the FS-1325MFP suggest that it's capable of up to 25 pages per minute, and we were ready for it to get close to, but not meet that target. We were wrong mdash; the FS-1325MFP managed a very neat and acceptable 25 pages per minute on normal coverage. Print quality was sharp, but we did notice that the very small paper tray at the top of the feed mechanism fills very quickly. It's reasonable to expect that a small group printer might not be all that busy, but it's a potential concern for a moderately busy office, as any excess paper will simply fall off the printer body itself, which could get messy very quickly.
Conclusion
The FS-1325MFP prints well and quickly. It's certainly feasible to save a few bucks and get cheaper brand monochrome MFPs, however, and that's something of a strike against the FS-1325MFP and its $429 price tag. It's fast and well constructed, however, which could conceivably save repair money in the long run.