Printers Manuals

Kyocera Mita FS 1030D

The Kyocera Mita FS-1030D is the epitome of good. It retails at a good price, the design is good, speed is good and print quality is, well, good. It does offer quite a bit for its good price including duplexing, 23 pages per minute print speed and a decent duty cycle of 25000 pages per month.

Kyocera’s design philosophy is to make all their office equipment durable, cost effective and cheap to run. The drum units are lifetime components meaning they don’t need changing, which is why they can claim less than 1 cent per sheet print cost. That is one of the cheapest per pages costs of any printer.

The FS-1030D has a 250 paper tray and a 50 sheet multi-purpose tray, making its total capacity 300 sheets. There is the option to add a second 250 sheet tray as well as a printer stand. The multi-purpose tray is behind a fold down flap at the front. Duplex printing halves the print speed at 11 pages per minute, which is average as the paper has to make two passes to print the other side.

The print quality is good, single or double sided. It prints clear, sharp text with good edging, fill and detail. Images and photos are equally good, with accurate monochrome shading, no visible banding and decent halftones.

Consumables for the FS-1030D cost around $25 for a 7200 page toner cartridge which confirms Kyocera’s assertion of a less than 1 cent page. These are replaced through a flap at the front and just drop into place, making them one of the easier cartridges to change. When you have added new toner, the printer will initialize it which will take around 10-15 minutes. This is just a one off so it doesn’t happen every day.

There is no control panel to speak of, just four LEDs, two green and two orange for power, data, paper level and toner levels. That is about all you need though so it doesn’t sell you short.

Connection is made via USB or parallel, although there is the option to add a network interface. The driver CD contains all Kyocera’s drivers, not just the one for the FS-1030D. You have to connect the printer first, then select the most appropriate, rather than the usual auto detect or double clicking the .exe.

The FS-1030D is a well designed printer that is well suited to the small office or workgroup. The option to scale up will suit many smaller businesses. Overall, a good printer.