Kyocera's latest mono laser printer is designed to support home workers and desktop office applications. The FS-920 bring Kyocera's trademark reliability, low running costs and environmental responsibility to the desktop and, together with a stylish beige-and-grey design from F.A Porsche, culminates in an attractive but basic product. However, print quality and paper handling is disappointing, so the FS-920 should only be considered for text-based documents. Having said that, there are still more capable units available if low running costs aren't paramount.

Pros: Compact design; low running costs; optional CF reader
Cons: Basic paper handling and features; no wireless print technology


Earlier this month, Kyocera added to its range of monochrome desktop laser printers with three new models. Priding themselves on low running costs, the FS-720 (£122 ex. VAT), FS-820 (£147 ex. VAT) and FS-920 (reviewed here) all share the same design and incorporate Kyocera's unique Ecosys cartridge-free technology.

The major benefit of Kyocera's Ecosys technology is that it helps to give the printers one of the lowest running costs in the field (around 0.9p per page), up to 1.7p less per page than some competing models. Ecosys (ECOonomy, ECOlogy and SYStem Printing) technology uses a patented amorphous silicon print drum and other long-life components, and as a result requires only one consumable - the toner cartridge itself, and no expensive cartridge system.

Aside from the relatively low running costs, the FS-920 (380x390x245mm, 9.5kg) is a fairly nondescript personal laser printer with basic paper handling and no built-in wireless technologies. The USB and parallel-connected unit offers a claimed print speed of 18ppm and supports native print resolutions up to 1200dpi (1800x600dpi maximum). It also comes with a fast speedy 266MHz RISC processor, 32MB of RAM (expandable up to 288MB) to help enable faster and more efficient processing, and a 250-sheet paper input tray.

There's no automatic duplexing options - either built-in or optional - or even a built-in Ethernet port (optional NIC coming in the next few months), but the FS-920 does support PCL 6 and PostScript 3 print languages, which guarantees good compatibility with Windows, Apple and Linux applications. The unit is also equipped with Prescribe IIe controller language for electronic forms, fonts and barcode printing. For permanent data storage, an optional CompactFlash card slot/reader can be installed as standard.

Paper handling is moderate. The 250-sheet paper input tray is a good size compared to other personal printers that tend to accommodate just 150 sheets, and the relatively primitive paper gauge provides feedback on paper levels. There's also a manual feed slot, but you have to pull the main paper tray out to access it. Paper sizes supported range from 60-160gsm (using the manual document feeder), which is rather restrictive, but the FS-920 supports most of the popular paper types.

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