The Kyocera Ecosys P3155DN is an upper mid-range laser printer aimed at businesses, with a focus on raw throughput and print quality over advanced features or value. Despite its high price tag, its laser focus on business oriented tasks makes it a very strong contender for the best printer for small business; its mixture of speed and quality can’t be underestimated
Related: If you want a printer that you can use on-the-go, check our Kodak Mini 2 HD Wireless Portable Mobile Instant Photo Printer review
Why We Like It – Kyocera Ecosys P3155DN
The Kyocera Ecosys P3155DN is a solid printer with very quick print speed, high capacity, and solid print quality. Its price is a bit questionable, but it’s overall a very solid product that stands out thanks to its sheer output capabilities.
- High capacity
- Quick printing speed
- Good text clarity
- Expensive
Related: Have a look at the Laserjet Pro MFP M227fdw review
Speed
Speed is the main selling point of the Kyocera Ecosys P3155DN. Saying Kyocera had a need for speed here would be an understatement; the printer comes very close to hitting Kyocera’s official 57 pages per minute benchmark when printing single-sided text-based documents, blowing past nearly all of its immediate competition. The Epson WorkForce ET-4750 limps along at a measly 15 pages per minute, failing to even begin to hold a candle to Kyocera’s offering. The similarly text-focused Brother MFCL2750 coasts at a nice 35 pages per minute, which still falls remarkably short of Kyocera’s figure. The only immediate contemporary to even come close is, strangely, a budget printer in the form of the Canon imageCLASS MF445DW; its figure of 45 pages per minute isn’t far off from Kyocera’s 57, though it of course has a lower page capacity.
Print Quality
As expected of a business-oriented monochrome laser printer, print quality is excellent on the Kyocera Ecosys P3155DN. Text is crisp, scanned colors are translated to grayscale and printed accurately with minimal smudging. Considering its high speed, this performance is all the more impressive; it prints quickly, quietly, and with very high quality even independent of its speed.
Efficiency
Efficiency is another win for the Kyocera Ecosys P3155DN, and arguably its most important win at that. Its high toner capacity (good for 10,000 pages, according to Kyocera) and low running/maintenance costs help justify its very high price; it’s a classic example of spending money to save money in the long run. Its upfront cost looks high, but maintenance costs are very low comparatively speaking.
Advanced Features
Unsurprisingly, Kyocera had to cheap out somewhere; great print speed, print quality, and low maintenance costs for $700 are close to being too good to be true, but when you evaluate where the printer cheaps out things start to make far more sense. There’s no touchscreen present on the Kyocera Ecosys P3155DN (which admittedly isn’t a big deal), but Kyocera pulls a fast one by making the printer ship without Wi-Fi by default. You have to spend around $100 for the Wi-Fi module, meaning Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct (and in turn, mobile printing in most forms) are wholly unavailable without spending extra money on an already pricey printer; for a device that’s already $700 coupled with how cheap wireless adapters really are, that’s not cool Kyocera.
Value
Value is the Kyocera Ecosys P3155DN’s other weak point. Its upfront value proposition is quite poor; unless you spend even more on an already somewhat pricey option there’s no Wi-Fi, no touch screen, and it’s a monochrome device. You can get similar print quality or similar print speed from cheaper alternatives, but Kyocera justifies its price for two reasons: it gives both print speed and print quality, and it has very low maintenance costs comparative to many of its contemporaries.
Kyocera Ecosys P3155DN Wrap-up
If you can stomach its high price, the Kyocera Ecosys P315DN is a great product. The monetization of its Wi-Fi capabilities is very unfortunate, but you’re still getting a high quality printer that spits out pages about as quickly as you can send them all without skimping on print quality. If you can afford its high upfront cost, it’s a very easy product to recommend in spite of its questionable aftermarket monetization.
