Brother MFC-250C Printer Review
Make/Model: Brother MFC-250C
Type: Home/home office, inkjet all-in-one
Web site: www.brother.co.uk
Typical online price: £49 (£43 ex VAT)
Most all-in-one makers have a background in printer manufacture, but Brother approaches its range from a long history of making fax machines. The MFC-250C, an entry level all-in-one, looks like a fax, with its sloping top panel and low-profile styling. It’s aimed at a home or home office customer and for a light workload.
The control panel is simple, but includes all the required functions. The machine’s asking price dictates the LCD display, which is 2-line by 16-character and has no back-light. In front of the display are four illuminated mode buttons and to the right are a cross of navigation controls and mono and colour copy buttons.
To the left of the display is a fax number pad and fax, phone and mains plugs are down the left-hand side. They would be less noticeable at the rear, but this way you can back the device right up against a wall. The USB socket is inside the machine, so you have to raise the scanner section to reach it, which is awkward.
The single paper tray slides into the front and this can hold A4 paper or 15×10cm photo blanks, but not both at the same time. A pull-down flap to the right of the tray hides the four ink cartridges, all of which slide in conveniently from the front.
The A4 flatbed scanner does a fair job and colours don’t fade as much as with some inexpensive all-in-ones; the scan resolution of 1,200 by 2,400dpi is higher than on many all-in-one scanners. Photocopies are fair and take just under 45 seconds. Print speeds, which you would expect to be faster, are disappointing, with a top real-world, normal-mode black text print hitting only 3ppm and a colour one being even slower at 2.4ppm.
Photo print is a bit quicker, with a 15×10cm print taking just under 1:40. There are no memory card slots in this machine, but the front-panel USB/Pictbridge socket enables you to print from a camera or USB drive. Both these sources were much slower than from a PC, at just over three minutes.
Print quality on plain paper is only average and black text over colour is poor, but photo prints are reasonable, if not up to the Canons and HPs of this world.
Verdict
This is a neat all-in-one and good value if you want it primarily as a fax machine. It’s OK as a scanner too and its Nuance software bundle is unusual in an inexpensive machine. Print speeds are unimpressive, though and page costs are high, even for a machine costing under £50.
Running Costs: 6/10
Speed: 3.0ppm black, 2.4ppm colour, measured 5/10
Print quality
Text print: 7/10
Text/Graphics: 7/10
Photo 8/10
Features: 8/10
Overall: 6/10
