Kyocera Ecosys M6635cidn review: Powerfully good value

Sitting at the top of Kyocera’s Ecosys family of A4 colour MFPs, the M6635cidn combines a wealth of features with exceptionally low printing costs. Its high-capacity toner cartridges deliver mono and colour pages for only 1p and 5.1p, so while the initial purchase price may seem high, it’s an investment that will pay off handsomely over time.

The M6635cidn also supports Kyocera’s HyPAS app platform, opening up a wide library of apps providing features such as colour control and cloud printing. To use it you simply need to install a standard SD card into the slot at the rear of the printer: a 4GB card supports up to five apps, while the 32GB card we used for testing upped this to 16.

The catch is that the apps themselves aren’t free. We tried out the Cloud Connect app to scan and print from our Google and Evernote accounts, and the Cloud Direct app for Dropbox, which allowed us to send scans to our account, browse cloud storage and print files. Both worked well, but then for £100 each they should. Another app you might want to invest in is Colour Control, which permits mono printing and copying but blocks access to colour until users have logged in at the control panel. That’s a feature many businesses will find useful, but it costs a steep £125.

Still, whatever functions you’re using, the 7in colour touchscreen makes HyPAS operations a pleasure. It’s one of the best-designed panels we’ve seen, with plenty of room for tapping in your login details or cloud account information, and it can be customised from the web interface.

The Ecosys M6635cidn also distinguishes itself with a true 1,200dpi print engine – not something we often see at this price point. Using the top resolution impacts on speed, however: at 600dpi, our 24-page colour DTP document was delivered at 35ppm, but in high-quality mode that fell to 11.5ppm.

Still, even at 600dpi the M6635cidn produced pin-sharp text at sizes down to 6pt fonts, and mono photos had plenty of crisp detail and very little murk. Colour reports were just as good, and although our colour photos initially looked a bit drab, we were able to improve them markedly with a quick tweak to the driver’s contrast and saturation settings.

Nor does the flatbed scanner let the side down. Scans look great and the 100-page ADF performs well, working through our ten single-sided pages at an average of 27ppm. Double-sided scans completed at just 8ppm, however, even though the scanner is a true duplex model and scans both sides of a page in one pass.

Print security is another strength. Jobs can be assigned a PIN from the driver, and will then only be released from the control panel, while a Print and Hold option allows you to check one copy before releasing the rest. You can optionally dedicate 64MB of RAM to store frequently used jobs, and expand the available storage with an SD card. Integrated job accounting, meanwhile, can be enabled in the driver to manage print, scan and copy operations. When it’s active, users must log in order to print in colour, exceed set page counts and access other functions.

There’s no denying that the upfront cost of the M6635cidn might be off-putting to smaller businesses, especially once you factor in the cost of any extra HyPAS apps you might need. There’s a range of optional add-ons to consider too, including 500-sheet feeder trays (up to three can be fitted), an internal SSD for secure document storage and an 802.11n adapter for wireless connections – which, at £250, is decidedly on the pricey side.

In terms of functionality, though, there’s very little to fault the Ecosys M6635cidn on. It’s crammed with features and delivers good performance – and despite the initial outlay, its low running costs mean that this MFP can end up saving you a lot of money in the long term.

Kyocera Ecosys M6635cidn specifications