Kyocera FS-600

The FS-600 represents the entry-level end of Kyocera's mono laser range but still maintains the same environmentally-friendly attitude as its big brother, the FS-3700+. The image drum and developer unit aren't replaceable but, with a guaranteed lifespan of 100,000 pages, will provide around three years of use. Printing costs are higher as the toner cartridge is only good for 3,000 pages at five per cent coverage. However, this still gives a low price per page of 1p.

With an engine speed of 6ppm, the FS-600 is aimed at personal users or small workgroups with modest printing demands. It's a neatly designed cube with a few more curves than most printers. The control panel has no display and only four buttons to play with. Three of the buttons are dual function but they're clearly labelled. The basic printer comes with 2Mb of memory as standard and costs £299, but our price ceiling was sufficiently high that Kyocera decided to add a few extra optional extras. The quoted price of £559 includes an extra 8Mb of security-coded memory and a second 250-sheet lower tray, bringing the total capacity up to 400 sheets of A4. The standard tray has a small pull-out manual feeder for heavier media but is fairly flimsy and should be used with care. Two output paths are available, with the top bin deep enough for 100 sheets and a flip-down panel at the rear providing a straight path through the printer.

The FS-600 comes with a standard parallel interface but there's no real-time status monitor provided. This only becomes available if the optional EcoLINK network print server card is fitted, although it's unlikely the target market will be interested as the internal version will add a further £249 to their outlay. This applies equally to the optional PostScript Level 2 upgrade, which also costs extra and requires a minimum of 6Mb of printer memory.

For overall speed, the FS-600 kept close company with the other 6ppm printers in the lower portion of the charts. Quality was another story, however, as text suffered from the same problems as the FS-3700+, showing an obvious dusting of toner around each character. Again, graphics quality showed a marked improvement, with virtually no banding and good levels of detail evident in the photographic image.

At £299, the FS-600 is the same price as the Panasonic KX-P6500, but Panasonic's Value winner beats it hands down for print quality.