Oki MB290

There is also a USB port located at the front for printing directly from USB storage devices, such as flash drives and hard disks, without needing to switch on your computer. It is not a PictBridge-labelled port but one that supports general media files such as common image formats and PDFs. Once you plug in a USB device, you use the MB290’s status window to navigate through the storage folders and select files to print. However, the meagre two-line status window does not make browsing easy. Thankfully, you are also given the option of printing out a file list.

Hidden under the right flap is a full Qwerty keypad to interact fully with the device without a computer

Alongside the status window, the MB290 is fitted with a panel of buttons for controlling its fax, copy and scanning functions independently of any computer or network you might have connected. This is boosted further by a full Qwerty miniature button keypad, hidden under a flap, which is actually quite useful during the product setup, for certain fax functions and for use with the MB290’s SMS capability. Note that sending and receiving individual and group SMS messages on the device requires a third-party service subscription.

The MB290 is a very well-featured fax machine, letting you store incoming and outgoing faxes in private, individually retrievable mailboxes. Faxes can be directed to selected recipients or broadcast to groups, and while there is a notable lack of quickdial buttons, the Qwerty keypad helps with locating names in the address book quickly.

If you need a hardcopy fax header, the MB290 can print one out for you, complete with big labels and boxes for all your header details, which you can then stack on top of your other hardcopy sheets in the ADF, ready to send. You can, of course, send faxes from your computer, accessing the MB290’s address book across the network and keeping the whole process paper-free at your end.

As a 600dpi mono printer, the MB290 is average for an entry-level device, in both quality and speed. Despite its 20ppm rating, the printer took 17 seconds to print one page of 12pt text from Microsoft Word, and 1 min 50 sec to print 10 copies – much of which time was wasted by a long and inexplicable pause between the ninth and tenth sheets.

A 250-sheet paper cassette slides in easily from the front with a single-sheet manual feed slot just above

Print quality is acceptable for general text documents but it struggles with graphics: fine detail fills in and vertical gradient tones are riddled with thread-like steps (horizontal gradients were OK). We achieved rough, if recognisable, results from photo images. Unfortunately, images were decidedly unrecognisable when using the MB290 as a digital copier. Whether making straight copies or faxing, the unit managed to turn any photo into an almost-solid black mess, even after fiddling with the contrast settings.