Kyocera Mita FS-1030D Workgroup Duplex Laser Printer

At prices in the $300-$375 range, the Kyocera Mita FS-1030D offers lots of capabilities for a not-so-extravagant price. The D at the end of the product name lets you know it's got a built-in duplexer, so it can handle double-sided printing. It also delivers up to a respectable 23 ppm output speed, with an equally-respectable duty cycle of 25,000 pages per month.

This printer's predecessor was designed by Ferdinand Porsche, and it has some snazzy lines.

Kyocera works hard to engineer its laser printers to be durable, and cheap to operate. The drum unit is supposed to last for the lifetime of the printer, and explains why Kyocera claims the cost-per-page for printing is less than one cent. The printer includes a 250 sheet paper tray, and a 50 sheet multi-purpose tray for total capacity of 300 sheets. A second 250 sheet tray is available as an accessory, as is a printer stand as well. Duplex printing tops out at 10 ppm, which is a pretty normal reduction of about 50% as compared to single-sided printing. Print quality is good, with sharp clear text, good graphics and clean halftones.

Consumables for the FS-1030D cost about $90 for new toner cartridges, and $85 for remanufactured ones, both with yields of up to 7,200 pages. According to our calculations, that puts the cost-per-page at about 1.25 cents per page, but it's still the cheapest of any of the printers in this buyer's guide.