We weren’t overly impressed by Brother’s budget DCP-150C, but the MFC-465CN is a totally different proposition. Its higher price and office focus at least make it more interesting – but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any more appealing.

The basic design is the same as the DCP-150C, with the front-loading cartridges, the paper output tray deep inside the belly, and the internal ports – this time with added ethernet for network printing. But on top sits an automatic document feeder for copying multiple sheets easily, and the office credentials are further boosted by the inclusion of fax capability.

The 2in LCD makes it a lot easier to use than the DCP-150C, and the menus are relatively simple to navigate. There’s a card reader on the front, and the fax inputs sit on the left side, next to the oddly positioned power socket.

But improvements in features are not matched when it comes to speed or quality. With a few minor variations, both Brother printers performed similarly in our speed tests – that is, bottom of the pack, with mono text produced at a painful 3.1ppm. And the MFC-465CN actually scored lower than its budget sibling in our quality tests, thanks to mono text that came out with noticeable spidering and a lack of boldness.

The scanner produced images that were far too dark, with murky areas where detail should have been visible, and it failed to capture sharp edges on even the clearest of objects in the images. In fact, the one success this printer had was in copying our four-page colour document via its ADF in 2mins 25secs, more than a minute faster than any others here. This won’t be much consolation, though, as the ADF only holds ten sheets.

As a small-business all-in-one, the Brother doesn’t really do much to stand out. It fares even worse when you consider the Canon MP610, which costs almost exactly the same amount. And, although you lose the ethernet port, the MP610 matches the Brother for all other features, and – more importantly – does so while producing prints of significantly higher quality than the mediocre MFC-465CN.