A combined printer and scanner at £46 is not quite an impulse purchase, but the price is well below the average.

So what do you get for this kind of money? Being from Canon, the device features a lot of grey and black plastic, and can look something like a lacquer-work jewellery box.

Lift the lid and there’s a full-size flatbed scanner, or lift the paper support at the back and pull out the paper tray at the front to get to the printer's paper tray (which can hold 100 sheets). The paper runs straight through the printer without bending, so it can deal with thicker paper.

The control panel is to the right of the scanner section and doesn't have a screen, something that's to be expected on more expensive devices. Instead, it uses a single green LED digit (a on a digital alarm clock) to show the status, as well as to count up to nine for copying. Figuring out what the various combinations on the display mean will necessitate referring to the manual. There are half a dozen other well-labelled buttons to control the machine.

Print speeds from the Pixma MP210 are as exaggerated as usual (printer makers always quote larger-than-life speeds). Under test, a five-page text document printed in just under a minute, giving a print speed of nearly six pages per minute (ppm), which compares with the claimed speed of 14ppm. Five pages of colour text and graphics took a second under two minutes – equivalent to 2.5ppm – when the claimed speed is 9ppm.

Printed output is good, with text coming through crisp and black with very little spatter, and colours printing dense and lifelike. Copy quality is also good, without too much of the loss of colour than is common from inkjet copies on plain paper.

The device uses a pair of cartridges, one black and the other containing three colours. Going from current internet prices for cartridges, we reckon print costs at a slightly high 3p a page for text and a more impressive 6p for colour.

Vista compatible: Yes