Kyocera FS-9000DN review

If it wasn't for one company the world of high-speed laser printing would be a much duller place. Just 18 months ago most manufacturers were content to offer no more than 24ppm print speeds, then Xerox broke the mould with its 32ppm DocuPrint N32 (reviewed issue 40, p165) which achieved a Recommended award. Not satisfied with that, Xerox announced the amazing 40ppm DocuPrint N40 (reviewed issue 50, p169) less than a year later, which subsequently collected a rare Excellence award for its superb specification, low price and brilliant performance. Rivals, however, have been slow to appear, with only HP's 32ppm LaserJet 8100N (reviewed issue 51, p176), and now the Kyocera with its FS-9000DN mounting a challenge.

The 36ppm FS-9000DN can't quite boast as fast a print engine as the N40, but the rest of its specification comes pretty close: 32Mb of memory, an internal duplex unit for double-sided printing and a network print server card boasting 10Base2 and 10BaseT Ethernet ports. Optional dual-speed 10/100BaseTX and Token Ring cards are also available.

The printer's solidly built main chassis is identical to Kyocera's 28ppm FS-7000 (reviewed issue 51, p163) in dimensions, styling and specification. On the main printer housing you'll find a pull-down, 100-sheet multipurpose tray, but no other paper handling. A separate base tray that fits underneath deals with all the hard work and features twin 500-sheet capacity drawers, each capable of holding up to A3 paper sizes. This capacity can be boosted by adding up to two more trays (£475 each) for a total of 3,100 sheets, or by adding more interesting paper-handling options such as an envelope feeder, 3,000-sheet stacker or even a document finisher that will sort and staple individual jobs.

A 2Gb internal hard disk is also available for storing jobs and fonts locally, and this brings into play one of the more bizarre optional extras: the bar-code reader. This connects to the printer's serial port and allows users to select reprints directly from the hard disk. A list of all stored jobs can be printed out with a bar code next to each one. Just scan the bar code with the hand-held scanner and the FS-9000DN will produce the selected print.

At the heart of the FS-9000DN lies an impressive 233MHz PowerPC740 chip, which made a distinct impact during performance testing. A 40-page Word text document was whisked through in 67 seconds for a near-perfect 36ppm. A more demanding job, including plenty of large graphics and different fonts, took its toll, but its 23 pages were still delivered in a mere 50 seconds for a respectable 28ppm. Duplex performance was also impressive, achieving a rate of 30ppm with the plain text document, as was A3 performance which maintained an average of 20ppm while printing a 30-page text document. In fact, the FS-9000DN coped admirably with everything we threw at it. It even managed to print an A3-sized, high-resolution photographic image without running out of memory.

As you'd expect of a 600dpi-class laser, text quality is as sharp as it gets. Graphics and photographs are produced with just as much clarity, shaking off the banding and graininess exhibited by previous Kyocera printers. It's not quite as good as the DocuPrint N40's output, but it beats the HP 8100N hands down.

One area in which Kyocera's printers trounce the competition with monotonous regularity is running costs, and the FS-9000DN upholds that tradition. The toner cartridge lasts for 33,000 pages, the maintenance kit - drum, developer unit and fuser - for 350,000 pages, and this brings printing costs to a mere 0.47p per page.