Kyocera in 2025

[Hart]

Hello,

A former colleague is considering Kyocera as a laser brand for his business.
To be exact, he's in contact with Olivetti and Triumph-Adler.
What are your thoughts on the Kyocera range in 2025 ?
Are there any Kyocera advantages in Europe (I'm thinking of Kyocera Fleet Services) that would be a big advantage over other brand (Sharp, for example) ?
The other brand he's considering would be Fujifilm (through the Katun Arivia range), he's put aside Canon for some reason I don't know.

[Ropariva]

With 35 years in the industry id say the current range of Task Alpha machines are exceptional in both quality and reliability
There are some of the smaller P and M range devices that aren’t in that same basket, but only the very low end of the range devices. The mid range M and P devices are fine.

[Hart]

Where would you place them in relation to other brands ?
Is there a range to prefer and one to avoid (like Ecosys vs TASKalfa) ?

[Hart]

Small bump, if anyone else has an opinion to share about Kyocera.

[Larhal]

One thing to remember about Kyocera, They don't like compatible toners. Factor in only original Kyocera toner cost.

[Hart]

Our policy is to use only official consumables, except on older models that are no longer supported by the manufacturer.

I'm rather surprised by the lack of feedback I've found on this brand (in general, not just on this forum), although it seems to me that it's a well-known and well-established brand, isn't it?

[Ropariva]

Our policy is to use only official consumables, except on older models that are no longer supported by the manufacturer.

I'm rather surprised by the lack of feedback I've found on this brand (in general, not just on this forum), although it seems to me that it's a well-known and well-established brand, isn't it?

Having worked on several brands, Kyocera is my favourite for a number of reasons. Ease of service, cost of consumables, back up support, customer satisfaction and general reliability and robustness are just a few.

[dalewb74]

i have worked on kyocera, lexmark, ricoh, brother, and HP. the easiest one to deal with for whatever reason is lexmark.

[Hart]

The easiest to repair, maybe, but in terms of reliability and so on ?

[ihatefinishers13]

Since you've serviced both, I'll make it relatable: The color output as nice as a Sharp, with the user interface similar to an Epson.

We've been servicing Kyocera regular size MFP's since 2016(also had desktops since 2011), and while their warranty was great, the amount of times we had to use the warranty for the same parts on the same machines was quite annoying. The drums on the 306/307/308, M5526, and 6635 models were awful, they never made them better, just kept warrantying them. The inner finishers had connection problems and never seemed to get resolved just like the drum issues.

The regular size MFP's from the 52 and 53 series were great though. The maintenance like was 600k for drums, dv, fuser, transfers, and 300k on feed tires, which usually lasted close to that. Fusers had some quirky issues, and you can't rebuild them, and they were costly. Transfers aren't serviceable and they have weird issues. The waste units are garbage(pun intended), making noise from binding up for no reason.

The color output was nice, and could be adjusted to mimic other manufacturers which was nice. The user interface was a little much at times, they didn't sort things out well, and adding in file names/subject line isn't easy.

All in all, if they could simplify their UI and not add so many features on the screen at one time, and add the ones people need, the UI would be fine. If they figured out some of their maintenance items and actually improved them so the problems didn't return, that would be nice. But, did I like the machines? Sure. They were pretty reliable overall, but our users didn't love the UI.

The Epson AM-C4000's utilize the same finishers as the 52 and 53 series Kyocera machines, which includes their multipage folding finisher option where you can fold up to 3 pages at one time, rather than Sharp's one at a time on similar models.

[Tonerkiller]

I have worked on Konica minolta, toshiba and sharp. Kyocera has the most reliable product. They have a 3 year bumper to bumper warranty. Low cost of parts and are easy to use and service. KFS is a great tool also.

[ihatefinishers13]

I have worked on Konica minolta, toshiba and sharp. Kyocera has the most reliable product. They have a 3 year bumper to bumper warranty. Low cost of parts and are easy to use and service. KFS is a great tool also.

Definitely wouldn't say low cost of parts.. For the 52/53 series', the primary transfer is almost $500 USD, fuser is 300, drum is 215, DV units are a little over 200.... and None of them can be rebuilt cheaper. The warranty helps for sure, and KFS is the best fleet management tool out there!

[Hart]

How does the warranty works for Kyocera ?
We have a meeting soon with Katun (Fujifilm) to show us the warranty etc. and I would like to compare what's comparable.
Sharp : a mediocre warranty the 1st year, that's it
Epson : a full warranty for 5 years (maintenance + broken parts + user fault unless it's the printhead for the Enterprise models).

[ihatefinishers13]

How does the warranty works for Kyocera ?
We have a meeting soon with Katun (Fujifilm) to show us the warranty etc. and I would like to compare what's comparable.
Sharp : a mediocre warranty the 1st year, that's it
Epson : a full warranty for 5 years (maintenance + broken parts + user fault unless it's the printhead for the Enterprise models).

3 year warranty for all serialized parts, so main boards, drums, DV units, 1st transfer, fuser, laser at least. There may have been more items, we just never had to deal with them. They will reject stuff from time to time, but it's due to actually forgetting important info, or someone had swapped parts around and the machine knows what serialized parts it had in it.

Getting Sharp to approve a warranty is like pulling teeth. Epson warranties just about everything and doesn't care that you do it, they more so encourage it. Their normal warranty is 3 years for the print head, and 1 year for everything else I think, but our GM purchases full 5 year warranties for every Epson machine we purchase, so as long as they're activated, most of the machine is covered which is really nice.

[Hart]

So I can compare Kyocera warranty to Epson ? Can I assume that I won't have any "hidden" costs like Sharp ?
Can I expand the 3 years to 5 ? Or more ?
Is there a limit to the number of pages ?
Why did you stop servicing them ?