Panasonic KX-MB1520 Review

Design and build quality

The entire shell of the printer has a matte finish, except for the control panel, which is glossy. If you’re meticulous about cleanliness, you’ll need to keep a piece of cloth near the printer because the control panel will get blemished with fingerprint each time someone uses it. However, we liked the design and layout of the control panel. It is very convenient to access because it is angled. Also, the buttons are large, labeled and have a good tactile feel.

Affordable printing solution from Panasonic

The paper tray accepts paper sizes only up to A4 size. So if you wish to use Legal paper, you have no choice, but to use the manual feed, which takes one sheet at a time. A good thing about the paper tray is that when it has run out of sheets, it automatically gets pushed out notifying the user to reload.

The overall build quality of the KX-MB1520 is good, except that the quality of the paper tray could have been better. It feels a bit flimsy. The scanner lid and hinges are also sturdy.

Performance

In order to verify the manufacturers claim that this printer can churn out 18 pages in a minute, we noted how many copies of a 5 percent document it could print in a minute. We printed using Normal mode and it printed exactly 18 copies. No matter what the volume of text is in a document or whether it includes graphics, you’ll get 18 ppm. The copying speed, too is 18 ppm, except that the first document takes 17 seconds because the scanner has to first scan the document.

Printer, scanner, copier and fax, all in a compact form

The overall print quality isn’t exceptional, because we’ve seen models by other brands perform better. The quality of the printed text is very good, but we weren’t too satisfied with the print quality of gradients. The transition from black to white wasn’t smooth in some cases. It goes unnoticed when you print small graphics, but it’s slightly perceivable in certain cases where too many gradients are used.

Verdict

The Panasonic KX-MB1520 is good option for homes and small offices if the fax function is necessary. A price tag of Rs.10,900 for this mono-laser MFD is justified for the feature set and the kind of performance it offers. However, it would have been a greater bang for the buck, if it had an Ethernet port and provision for legal size documents in the paper tray.

If you’re open towards considering a colour inkjet MFD, then we strongly recommend the Brother MFC-J625DW which offers fax, Wi-Fi for wireless printing, memory card reader, PictBridge, ADF, automatic duplexer, and an intuitive touchscreen interface. It costs Rs.10,390 and we feel it’s better value for money.