The Panasonic KX-FLB80CX is in a class of its own: it is the only copier- based MFD we tested. Being copier- based, it comes with separate drum and toner cartridges. The advantage of such a device over printer based MFDs is this: the toner and drum have different duty cycles, and the drum’s duty cycle is always more then twice that of the toner. In the case of printer based laser MFDs, the toner and drum are integrated, and the duty cycle of the single unit is that of the toner- so you have to replace the whole thing even when the drum’s duty cycle hasn’t been expended. With copier- based laser MFDs, you need to change either the toner or drum as and when its duty cycle is over. This proves to be cost-effective. However, copier based units have traditionally been more expensive to manufacture. This one breaks the mould, and costs just Rs $400.
At 44 x 44.5 cm, this MFD occupies a comparatively large area, but can just about fit beside a PC on a regular desktop. Installing the drum is very easy, but installing the cartridge is not. Input tray capacity is 250 sheets, and there is also a multipurpose tray for additional paper storage.
The printer supports 600 x 600 dpi. The initialization time of this MFD is just under 20 seconds. For the text document, it took 14.7 seconds to print the first copy and thereafter printed at16 ppm. It takes a couple of seconds longer to print the first copy of the combi-document, but thereafter prints at just about the same speed as the text print. Text is quite sharp, and inverse text was pretty good, too.
The scanner supports 600 x 1200 dpi, but the driver doesn’t support the newer WIA interface – which many modern scanners do, because it is more standardized. The scanner is good at capturing colors and fine details, but is extremely slow, especially at resolution lower then 600 dpi. Since these are the resolutions at which people most often scan documents and even photographs, the scanner loses out on performance points. It took 27.2 seconds to scan a monochrome document at 200 dpi, while a color document at 600 dpi took just over 2 minutes – pretty good. The scanner did not fare well in the OCR test, committing 25 mistakes, which is bad.
The first copy took 18.3 seconds. We found the copies rather dark, and as a result, the inverse text was not very legible. Fine print didn’t turn out legible, either.
This is the only contender that comes with a handset, which doubles up as a phone if you are using your phone line for fax (as is the case with most SoHo users. It can store up to 170 pages of incoming fax in case it runs out of toner. The hardware junk fax prohibiter filters out faxes faxes from unwanted numbers, using caller ID.
The interface is USB; thought there is the option to upgrade to an Ethernet port interface. The MFD comes with Readiris 7 OCR, Remote Control PCFAX to send fax via the PC, and a network Scan Module, which helps deploy the machine over a network. The duty cycle of the printer is 10,000, which is the same as that of its drum, while the toner cartridge has a duty cycle of 2,500. cost per page comes out to be Rs 1.20- a bit on the higher side for a laser MFD. Stile, like we said, it’s cheap for a copier-based MFD.
