Kyocera Mita FS-C5016N

With the FS-1020D mono laser currently residing on our A List, we were expecting good things from Kyocera's FS-C5016N. However, as the most expensive machine in this test, it was going to have to impress us across the board.

A good start is that print quality was the best of the group. Our Excel document printed with no bleeding, had vibrant colours, and grey areas had some of the best dithering we've seen. Even tiny black text on grey was completely legible. Our colour montage printed breathtakingly well for a laser printer. We were pleased by the lack of grain and faithful colour reproduction, while black and white areas of the image were printed using composite black to good effect.

The FS-C5016N's quality is matched by its expansion options. The 96MB of RAM can be upgraded to 608MB, while you can add a 500-sheet input tray for £188 and a 250-sheet output tray for £222. A duplex unit isn't included - it costs £215.

There's built-in 10/100 Ethernet, although 802.11b Wi-Fi costs a significant £299, and the network hardware is backed up by excellent KM-Net software. This displays printer status over a network and can also send instructions to the printer for tasks such as locking the front-panel buttons or controlling who gets access to colour printing. It's also possible to set up the system to send emails about faults and problems.

Speed was the only real disappointment. Despite being a one-pass laser, the 12-page Excel document printed in 1 minute, 32 seconds - just 9.7ppm. Our 23-page DTP was slightly slower, and printed at 7.8ppm. As with the other files, quality was flawless. The 50-page mono document printed at 12.5ppm, while the colour version printed at 11.5ppm.

But, the FS-C5016N's running costs easily make up for this shortfall. Instead of selling consumables separately, Kyocera sells a maintenance kit for £439, which includes a fuser, image drum, transfer belt and other items that last for 200,000 pages. Colour toner costs £66 per cartridge, while mono cartridges cost £43 and each one will last for an impressive 8,000 pages. With all of these costs factored in, colour pages cost a humble 3.2p per page, while mono prints costs 0.8p per page. Even the TallyGenicom, which offers free black toner, can't match the economical running of the FS-C5016N. If the speed doesn't bother you, there's little to beat it. If it does, consider the TallyGenicom.