Xerox Phaser 3250D review

Most Xerox printers are aimed at medium-to large-sized businesses, but the 3250D - which resides at the very bottom of the range - is definitely one for the smaller organisation.

That's not to say it's a low-capacity printer; far from it. This little Xerox is, in fact, capable of dealing with a large volume of output from even medium-sized workgroups. Its maximum duty cycle is an impressive 30,000 pages per month, and its speed of 28ppm is more than most small offices will need.

In our tests it nailed those claims, producing our 50-page text document in 1min 51secs after a two-second warm-up for a rate of 28ppm. The rate dropped to 23ppm for the more complex Excel spreadsheet, but the 400MHz processor was more than capable of coping with even the most demanding of tasks. It's quite cheap to run too, costing £279 exc VAT after 10,000 pages.

But it isn't quite good enough to live with the leaders this month. First, it isn't that well specified for the money. Where the Brother HL-2035 offers a duplexer and the Samsung ML-1630W wireless and wired networking for less, this Xerox has neither. Paper input capacity is low for a printer this fast at 250 pages, and it's disappointing to have only a single sheet feeder.

Output quality is also an issue. Text and black quality is fine, and among the best on test, but photos and graphics were produced with heavy banding.

All of which contribute to a printer with a split personality. It's good for high-volume printing with low running costs and a decent turn of speed, but quality isn't great and it can't quite offer the value of the award winners.

Author: Jonathan Bray