Reviews for Brother MFC-7820N Multifunction Printer

Brother MFC-7820N Multifunction Printer

Strengths: Outstanding value, easy setup, network ready, full featured

Weakness: Minor problems - fan noise, build quality, etc.

We have several Canon and HP printers, scanners, and copiers. The Canon machines are excellent but very expensive to buy and maintain. The HP units have been going down in quality and the HP software has become less user friendly. Out of frustration we decided to try the "sewing" machine company. So far, the 7820N has been one of the best machines I have seen in 20+ years. The built-in ethernet support was incredibly easy to set up, print quality is excellent for text and avg for graphics, the scan to PDF works great, and the super G3 fax is flawless. For the price it is an amazing machine, 50% less expensive than comparable models from other companies, and 100% easier to use. We highly recommend it for home office and small business.

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Brother MFC-7820N Multifunction Printer

Strengths: Good print and copy quality; Enlarg and redcue size function; Easy set up software; network ready; fax auto distinct fax and voice calls; quite in sleep mode; short warm-up time;

Weakness: No paper folder to handle and store print output; old style LCD design

I was shopping MFC for a while. We have a wireless network and network ready is a must-have. By connecting it to the wireless route, run setup CD on each PC and laptop, all can share the printing and fax without wire connection, and no need for a PC open-up all day. Printing and copy quality is pretty good, even compared to high-end products. 2 in 1 and 4 in 1 copy function is very useful, and the reduced size print out is very clear and precisely fit 2 or 4 pages into one.
Machine in sleep mode is very quite, no noise at all. Warm-up time is very short, and could not feel time delay.
Fax set up is easy, and it automatically distincts fax and voice call. If you do not have many faxes coming in, no need for second phone line.
Price is very competitive to similar modes by other manufactures. Buying from Office Depot at price $349. After $40 gift card from Office Deport and $50 from brother, actual price goes down to $250. Very good deal! Hope Brother can handle rebates as quick as machine’s warm-up time.

Shortcoming: 1. No file folder to handle and store printout papers. Big volume printing (more than 50 pages?) may jam the paper out slot. 2. LCD design is too old fashion. I have a 15 years old Brother fax machine(still working), its LCD was almost identical to this MFC. The cost of chips is not so much today, why not make LCD update?

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Paper jam troubles

Strengths: Was a good printer while it lasted - a few months. Scanner is good and print quality was good.

Weakness: Unexplained paper jam. Often get errors on sending Faxes

After a few months of operation, the printer suddenly came up with an error message "Paper jam". No problems I thought, opening the covers - only there was no paper jam to be found or freed. After several frustrating hours I took it in to get services (still under warranty). Got is back - no fault could be found. First page I tried printing - paper jam.

Took it in to get serviced again, and talked to the technician. Apparently this is a regular problem with these printers - perhaps an issue with light sensitive switches, or maybe just some faulty boards.

Anyway, after servicing, it worked fine (again) for about two weeks. Tonight, for no apparent reason, it now says "Paper jam" and won't let me print anything.

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BIG PROBLEM--REQUIRES DEDICATED 20 AMP ELECTRICAL...

Strengths: Network connectivity Print quality

Weakness: Very high inrush current (in excess of 15 amps) no duplex scanning. Sheetfed scanning misses top of page.

Recently I finally took the time to figure out why my UPS on the same circuit with this printer kicked on every time the printer warmed up. Please note that this printer is NOT CONNECTED THROUGH the UPS--they just share the same 120 volt power circuit.

I measured the current draw of this device when it is warming up using a Fluke clamp meter. Even though this device is rated at only 8.6 amps peak, when printing it consistently exceeds 13 amps on startup and I have seen more than 15.5 amps on startup. This current draw drives my 122 Volt circuit down to 110 Volts, thus kicking on the UPS.

After it finishes printing, it draws in excess of 10 amps every 40 seconds until it goes back into sleep mode. Since I see that other people are complaining about this issue, I suspect there is some design flaw in the power filtering for the fuser. If you plan on plugging this device into an already heavily loaded circuit, you may end up blowing a circuit breaker every time it prints.

Another peeve I have with this from a scanning point of view is that it WILL NOT scan duplex documents. You have to scan one side, then scan the other side and then use another piece of software to merge the two scans. If I had known this, I wouldn’t have bought this as a replacement for the HP Digital Sender that blew up.

Otherwise this device has performed as expected.

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back cover open

Strengths: good price

Weakness: back cover open

After 5 weeks use, average 2-3pages fax only, the display shows "back cover open". No way you can fix by yourself. The only way to do is call customer service to replace a new one, maybe refurb one

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Brother MCF-7820N

Strengths: Fast to hook up and easy to use. Fast warm up time for printing

Weakness: Cheep and thin plastic afraid it might break. Other than that a great unit

I was looking for a stylish and easy to use printer and d I think I found it. I had looked at the zerox and hp but neither of them offered anywhere near the same features for the price. Would buy brother again

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Brother MFC-7820N Multifunction Printer

Strengths: Excellent value, networkable, great print quality, full features, easy to set up

Weakness: manual paper feed can skew paper

I have been looking for an economical all-in-one laser printer / copier for my home business network with a low per copy cost. We had a Xerox Workcentre printer copier, which was easy to refill with cheap toner, but it was necessary to leave a computer on at all times to share it - waste of electricity. When OfficeMax and Office Depot recently ran promotions where the price after rebate was ~$250, I could not resist, and so far so good.

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Happy owner..

Strengths: fast printing, professional grade quality, all in one features, saves space..

Weakness: Cheap plastic

I bought this to replace my old photo printer which was slow and not that convenient for my purposes. Bought this at office depot and I am very happy I did. A little pricy but I feel it's worth it. Good printing quality..very very good.. Im thrilled.. the fax works great as I can fax via the network now, and the scanning works good too.. Copy machine function is also great and handy..

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MFC 7820N

Strengths: Smaller than other Brother MFC printers

Weakness: The noise of the fan is loud.

The printer is wonderful. I have used some other brands of printers, but I like this one better. It's smaller than MFC6800, the one I used to use, and it scans better than MFC 4200C. If you have more than 2 computers in your house, this printer is a perfect choice, too. You only have to set up the LAN, and the printer is ready for all computers in the same house network.

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Very good machine and an excellent value to boot.

Strengths: Price vs. features, Linux Support, USB OR Ethernet connection. Fast. Separate drum and toner cartridges (less expensive to replace).

Weakness: Noisier than most Laser printers I've been around. Initial start-up results in a huge power drain (nearby light dims). Documents are produced with slight page curl (not fully flat).

About the best bang for the buck out there for an "All-in-one device (sans color printing)".

It prints very fast. It has a document feeder for use with faxing and copying.

It has a separate drum and toner cartridge, which means you pay less for refills.

The faxes work nicely. It has all the functions of a standard $300+ fax machine. That alone with the copying and printing make this an outstanding value.

It does seem unusually noisy for a laser printer though. It also eats a lot of electricity. My computer with it's 500W power supply is connected to the same surge protector as this printer and a lamp. The lamp flickers when the printer starts up and starts printing. That only happens with the printer. The lamp doesn't flinch I start the computer.

I'm also not thrilled with the "page curl" you get with pages it prints, but I can live with it. It's not that much of a curl to be a bother.

The scans aren't too great. They aren't awful but I've seen better from an inexpensive stand-alone HP scanner from a number of years ago.

Fortunately I rarely scan, so it won't be a big deal.

In fact that's the best reason to buy a machine like this. If you need it's capabilities, but not very often, then it makes much more sense to get an All-in-one unit.

Overall I'd highly recommend this to anyone who fits the "All-in-one Profile".

What does that mean? It means you need a color scanner and a monochrome fax machine, laser printer and copier. However you don't need any of them that much.

You do get better quality when you buy separates hardware, but for the price this can't be beat.

If you're going to do a lot of two more of these functions, then go with separates hardware.

For all-in-ones though, Brother has very good stuff. I was eyeing an HP with identical features, but it cost $150.00 more and the reviews weren't as good as for this Brother model.

Oh and much to my surprise, Brother writes Open Source Linux drivers for this! What more could I ask for? :-)

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So far so good

Strengths: Fairly fast printing, easy installation, relatively good text recognizing software, customizable scanning features

Weakness: cheap palstic, paper tray for printouts is inconvenient, when scanning software saves even the image of empty surface and I haven't figured out yet if one can crop an image without using another software

overall, I believe you get what you paid for. cost/benefit balance is ok. I'm not very sure that toner cartrige is big enough - I heard other people complain about that. i bought it for home use, which means more scanning then copying or printing. When I scan vertically positioned text, software recognizes it well. however, when it comes to horizontal page with couple of pics, it fails miserably

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MFC-7820N All in one printer

Strengths: Small Footprint, works with answering machine

Weakness: Toner Cartridege replacement costs, The starter toner cartridge is only rated for 1500 copies the full replacement toner cartridge 2500 Scanner is not as fast as a firewire scanner.

My wife and I ordered this to replace an old personal Xerox copier. This unit takes up far less space than the old copier plus we can use it as an additional network printer! We were also able to replace the seperate fax machine giving us more space. After a quick set-up there was no problem attaching the answering machine to the MFC all the phone calls go through and the listening mode for the fax does not interupt even when a caller is put on hold. The new technology is worth the price of replacement...

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Back Cover Issue

Strengths: Easy to Use

Weakness: Back-Cover broken no way to fix Cheaply made

I have a more expensive MFC 9700 better product, can't seem to kill it.

This one is a bit cheap. the plastic etc.

I was printing my tax return when the paper jammed up. I went to pull the paper out of the unit and the next thing I know an error message, Back cover needs to be closed. Called tech support and there sending a "new" printer should be here within 5 days. ARG! cant they tell us techs
how to fix it?????

Now I'm scared to own this printer!!! what happens when I have the same problems after the warranty expires :(

By the way I had the printer 3 months before it broke!!!

Buyer be ware

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This thing is crap DO NOT BUY. THE PINTO OF PRINTERS

Strengths: Good print quality. All in one functunality

Weakness: No tray for legal paper. VERY POORLY MADE. Unreliable. Not user friedly software is shotty. CRAP

I really like the printer when I first bought it, after two months it gave me the back cover open error which would not go away no matter what I tried. I call customer service they told me that there was nothing they could do. So I went to office max bought a new one and returned the old one in the new box with the new reciept. (Do not try I am sure it is illegal one way or the other) So I have a brand new printer not a re-manufactured one but brand spanking new right outta the box. It happened again this time it lasted four months. This is the biggest piece of crap electronic equipment which I have ever purchased in my life and I buy a lot of electronics.

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Back Door Open Problem!

I had a paper jam after replaceing the expensive toner (yields 2500) into the drum unit. I am a tax preparer anfd this has brought my office to a standsr=till.TODAY is April 15th and I am needing to print out copies of 5 tax returns and there is nothing I can do about this problem right now.

This will be the last time that I purchase a Brother product.

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All In One Efficient Space Saver

Strengths: Fast document scan. Plug and play net work

Weakness: Slightly big for the office desk

I trashed the thermal fax machine and got this all in one and what a space saving: no printer, no fax, no separate scanner. Fax from the PC is a wonderful tool to save printing it out. Printing from other computers is also a blessing with this networkable printer.

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Nice and affordable multi-function laser printer

Strengths: Compact and nice design for multi-function laser printer. Affordable price.

Weakness: It takes a little bit time for warming up. Noisy during the printing operation.

If you do not mind very much about the printer weaknesses listed above, this is a nice and affordable multi-function laser printer. I had been looking for a multi-function laser printer for a while. When I saw this printer displayed in a retail store, I decided to buy it.

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Excellent machine

Strengths: Excellent value. Scans quickly.

Weakness: Minor issues in the software.

This machine is a terrific value. It does a good job with all of its functions (print/scan/fax/copy) and can be shared among multiple machines through its three ports (USB, parallel, and Ethernet).

Printing generally works well. I have not experienced any problems with paper getting curled, as others have noted. Also, the machine can be operated with the scanner and console portion lifted up, to permit easier access to the paper as it comes out of the machine. I did encounter a couple small issues: first, the lights dim sporadically when it is printing, and for a few minutes afterwards. Second, print scaling (e.g. to reducing to 45%) doesn't work properly, even with the latest drivers. Other features like 4-on-1 printing and copying work fine, though.

Scanning is fairly fast - it can scan a stack of papers into a 300dpi black-and-white or grayscale pdf at about 9 ppm. You can control the scan from a computer, or if the machine is on a network down the hall from the computer, you can "push" a scan from the machine over the network (after choosing which computer you want to send it to). One small gripe about the scanning - when scanning a document into a pure black and white PDF, the Brother Control Center insists on compressing it as a grayscale image, leading to a larger image size. However, you do the same thing with the included PaperPort software, generating a PDF with the appropriate size.

Overall, despite the small issues that I've encountered, this machine is a great buy, given its features and performance.

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NOT the best, but pretty good

Strengths: Fast, Compact...

Weakness: uses a LOT of power. Scanning shows the scanned pic as well as all the edges being white...

Got the printer refurbished. NO complaint about that. Great compact printer. Prints fast and reasonable. However, when printing starts, all the lights in the house dims. also when you scan a pic, it also shows the areas where there was nothing there as white. I dont know if thats the prob with this printer or thats how it is. my previous scanner didnt show anything if there was nothing there. in this one you have to scan it, then crop the pic to get rid of all the white space. Also the copier isnt that detailed. If hand written, very hard to read even if you copy as a photo. but for what i paid for it, i got no right to complain......

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7420 is bad news

Strengths: Looks good.

Weakness: They always break down. You get the "close back door" message and the machine becomes unusable.

You receive no help and no-one can repair it. The message, after removing a paper jam, reads "close back cover". The back cover is not open and the machine becomes unusable. Why? The answer appears to be unavailable. I would not buy again. Sorry Brother.

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Do not buy this machine!!!!

Strengths: None

Weakness: Look at the printer that is the weakness!

I have purchased 10 of these printers for my various pizza stores and out of 10 6 have gone bad in less than 3 months!!! Unexplained paper jams,pieces just falling off and so on! The only thing worse than the printer is the service department at Brother usa which if you have ever called there is clearly not staffed by people in the U.S.A.!
Just save yourself some time and money and by a better and little more expensive machine!

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Best Priced All-in-One Laser, Network Ready Machine

Strengths: Copy, fax, scan, print, network ready and Automatic Sheet Feeder.

Weakness: None

You can't go wrong with this machine. I use it for scanning multiple pages, copy, fax (even PC-to-Fax) and of course printing. Sharing it to all my machines at home allows me to use my laptop with it.

The software is pretty straight forward. Once it is installed you can scan, print and fax over the network.

I see some users have had issues with this and other all-in-one Brother machines. I wonder what triggers their returns, maybe they did not understand the software? I took advantage of a "Re-certified" one for under $200 and came with a 1 year warranty, and even looked brand new to me.

Nothing else can beat the price of this all-in-one machine. The automatic sheet feeder is a nice feature. I scan all my bills in one shot.

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Brother MFC-7820N

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