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Kyocera FS-C1020MFP
Fast, efficient and well-built all-rounder for small offices
Our modulation transfer frequency (MTF) lab tests on the scanner produced an average score of 0.59 on a scale of 0 to 1. This indicates the FS-C1020MFP houses a pretty decent but not outstanding scanner when evaluating sensor quality against signal noise.
Skip the incomprehensible on-printer menus and use the browser-based Command Centre controls
As a fax machine, the FS-C1020MFP works very well and is not too fussy to use. You can store 10 fax presets before having to resort to a Shift key to store more numbers, which is helpful for people like use who regularly have trouble with doubling-up Shift functions.
However, our one major issue with the machine is its dreadful on-printer menu interface. It might be intuitive to Kyocera, but it seemed completely inconsistent and confusing to us.
The scanner apparatus slides backwards allowing better access to the output tray
Since there is no printed documentation, we had to resort to looking up the menus in the HTML-based Help files on CD, and these were delivered in tiny piecemeal snippets; in other words, virtually useless. In the end, we fired up Kyocera's KMNet Viewer utility and the device's own web-accessed configuration interface, both of which are really easy to use.
Our advice is to ignore the menu buttons on the FS-C1020MFP itself and just access everything you need using a web browser, assuming that you have connected by Ethernet, of course. Wi-Fi connectivity would have been welcome too – please note, Kyocera.
Verdict
Good-looking and well-designed, the FS-C1020MFP performs impressively at printing, faxing and copying, even if the manual scanning can be slow. Scan and print quality is good, too, and you have automatic duplex options for both. Despite our dislike of the control panel menus, the device feels solid and we enjoyed testing it. The FS-C1020MFP is a sound office machine. ®
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