Brother MFC-7820N 5-in-1 Network Monochrome Laser Multifunction Center

I have owned HP, Epson and Brother multifunctional machines since 1998. This machine is the best I have ever used.
First of all, it is compact . Small foot print makes it easy to be placed anywhere in my home office.
It is networkable. Not only can you print through network. You can also scan and copy through network. I have 2 laptops, 1 desktop Windows XP and a Mac G5 at home and they all share the machine perfectly. HP has a full function print server that is designed for HP's MFC machines and it costs $299.
Print quality is good. When it comes to laser printing, I always prefer HP, but this machine prints a good as HP.

One other impressive feature is its web interface that allows you to view and change your configuartions using a browser. No configuration program to install or to take up your computer's memory.
I am very happy with this machine and highly recommend it to any small offices and home offices.


This multifunction center has been a wonderful tool for us so far. It replaced a fax machine, a scanner, and cheap printer that we used to have. We have less machinery crowding the desk.
I print a lot of things from the internet. With my old cheap printer, I bought a lot of ink cartriges. When you consider the cost of the ink, that cheap printer wasn't so cheap. True, this is only a monochrome machine, but I can live with that. I didn't need color ink for what I do. This is so much more economical to run. I don't have to worry about the cost of my copies as much.
My old printer was also SLOW. I was constantly frustrated by the time it took to print simple pages. Well, let me tell you, this baby can really crank out the copies. It is fantastic.
As for the old scanner, it was a really temperamental. This machine, so far, has been a breeze to use. Ease of use is important to me, since I am just a novice home user.
I really appreciate the faxing abilities of this machine. How I wish I had owned this machine when I used to fax my husband's paperwork every night. It doesn't need the supervision the old fax needed. I haven't had paper jamming problems that I used to have.
When we set up the machine, we also were adding a new modem for DSL and a telephone with answering machine to our new system. Since we are not computer whizzes, we had a little difficulty with figuring out the wires. My spouse called Brother for help. They worked with us until we found out what we had done wrong and had the machine up and working.
I am really pleased with this machine. It has really filled our needs beautifully. I hope the machine will work as well for you!

Bang for your buck. Everyone is looking for it and this little box has it. It is much smaller then I expected which makes it a wonderful fit for my dual monitor system. It was easy to setup and does everything it promises. I would recommend this little printer to anyone looking for a small business solution. The only drawback I have found is that even with 32 mb of memory it can't handle moderate sized pdf documents (it pauses between prints). If it could take memory upgrades I would of given it 5 stars.

I have a Canon inkjet that blows because it uses up a lot of color ink *even when I only print in B&W*. And it won't print at all without color ink carts that have ink in them.

So I started looking into lasers. I found little that looked very good under $200, but there were a few.

Then a friend of mine said he had the MFC-8840DN, and loved it. After reading reviews and looking around, I found the MFC-7820N was basically the same thing, but around a couple hundred less, for $300.

As the name implies, it's multifunction: print, fax, copy, and (color) scan. It's also networkable: it lives on its own on the network, and has a web server to configure it etc. Also, it does all of the functions over the network, including scanning. It has a paper feeder, so I can put in a whole bunch of papers into the feeder, then scan from my PowerBook wirelessly.

You can send faxes from the computer too, by selecting "fax" instead of "paper" in the print dialog. The one thing you can't do with the Mac software that you can do with the PC software is *receive* faxes. So I'd have to print them out and then scan them to the computer. Or, just receive them with my computer in the first place, like I've always done to now.

I was in charge of purchasing a printer, fax, and copier for our new office, and I decided on the Brother 7820N because of its versatility, and especially because of its built-in network interface. The product is flawless!

Within the hour I got the printer set up on our network, installed on every computer in the office. Setting up the printer is easy with the browser-based interface, where I was able to assign the printer a static IP. We now receive faxes, print, and make photo copies quickly and easily, on all one machine!

The major advantages of this multifunction include:
* Price (very affordable all-in-one, with laser printing)
* Speed
* Flexibility
* Network Interface
* Compact Design
* Auto-feeder for faxing and copying
* Fax directly from computer for added confidentiality

I have not experienced any dissapointments with this printer. It is perfect for us. We are a company of four now, and we expect it to last with us until next year at least, with eleven employees.

Be sure to buy a network cable -- it's not included.

I am returning this machine the day afer I purchased it. When printing/copying the paper starts to curl and jam up in the output tray after the 6th print. Eventually the majority of my copies end up on the floor. In addition, when printing legal size documents, paper gets jammed up in the machine. You have to open up the printer and correct it everytime.

I've purchased 80 of these printers and have been quite happy with them. They are a great business solution and provide better speeds, and much better reliability than the HP all-in-one printers. The use of laserjet tech. improves the problems with jamming and ink drips that you get with inkjet printers.
The biggest downfalls to these MFC's are short-life drums, and a drastically different result with how long toner lasts compared to Brother's claims. They claim up to 6,000 pages when we find that it is actually 2-3,000 at 5% coverage.
Great printer for the price and the best all-in-one we've used over the last few years.

Strengths: Versatility, small foot print, easy setup, network ready, decent software bundle, nice scanning, clean printing, Win & Mac CD's included

Weaknesses: Limited paper handling, Win98 install buggy, does not save incoming faxes to PC, somewhat limited documentation on CD

For economy & quality, I use (and recommend) lasers for most of my customers. This is one of the best packages I've seen. I installed in my home as a network printer. Flawless install on two XP machines. I needed to download newer drivers (large files) for Win98SE. Directions are better than most. Packaging is very nicely done. Easy to fax out, print from all my PC's. Works great as standalone fax, copy machine (no PC needed) 5 user license for PaperPort & Control Panels are included. Easy changeout of cartriges, clear access for paper jams.

Limited space for output sheets means you'll need to pickup/monitor large print jobs. I saw no more paper curling than with other inexpensive lasers. Very quick multipage scanning directly to Acrobat. OCR is fairly quick and capable. Nice copies, clear text, graphics are average. Many settings/features are available but you'll have to root a bit to find them.

Considering the price/capability, I haven't seen a better unit for the SOHO user.

After putzing with an inkjet multi-function for 5 mos after I started working from home, I finally got this thing. It works. No brainer. It's like a fancy office multi-function machine for a pretty good price. Could not be happier.

There are 3 computers in our office and it was easy to hook up all three to this MFC via USB cables (ethernet & wireless wasn't an option for us). To capture the MFC from any computer, you just double-click the scroll lock key on the keyboard - it works flawlessly for printing and faxing, the functions we use the most from the computers. Since the computers were each a little more than 16 feet away, and the maximum distance for a usb cable is about 15 feet, the following items were used for hookingup:
3 ea. USB 2.0 Active Extention Cable, 16 ft (one for each 16 ft of distance)
```` 3 ea. USB 2.0 Cable (A to B), 1 foot (runs from the extension cable to the switch)
1 ea. USB 2.0 Manual Share Switch, 4PCs to 1 Device (you also need an A to B cable from the switch to the MFC). We got the above from SewellDirect, great customer service!
Hope this helps someone looking to using the USB hookup! The MFC output is great and there's no trouble connecting through our answering machine for incoming faxes.

Update 6/30/06: The rebate did finally show up, but it took a month longer than promised!

The printer still works and I've applied patches that probably fix the setup bug below. Brother's web site and patch software distribution is very hard to figure out, but this really has been a great purchase over time. I regularly fax from it, copy from it, scan from it, and even print from it. My wife, who was quite skeptical about the value of this complex beast (she's usually right to be skeptical) is a huge fan.

An OS X update broke the abiity to send a scan to OS X. I didn't fuss with this as it ended up being just as easy for me to launch the scan from OS X. I'm not sure this works that well with XP either -- today's firewalls make this hard.

I gave this a 3 star rating originally, but now I'd say 5 stars.

-------- Original review ----------------------
I have both XP and OS X Tiger (10.4.2) machines on my home LAN. I installed the brother to both machines. In both cases I downloaded the very latest software patches from Brother's site.

The XP install went rather well, but I realized too late the downloaded drivers didn't include the OCR shttp://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/communities/reviews/preview-your-review.gifoftware. Annoying. I'd recommend doing the CD install first then downloading and updating from the downloads.

The OS X install was another story. Actually, this is pretty outrageous. Bonjour (was Rendezvous) install didn't work at all. The printer didn't appear in my network display.

It took about a half hour of late night hacking and googling and amazon review reading to figure out that Brother misconfigured the printer. They didn't define something called a 'mDNS' name. Without this name Bonjour/Rendezvous doesn't work.

How do you define this? Well, to make a long story short, dig through the CD and find the help file called ALL_EngNet.pdf. Chapter 7 describes the browser interface. Use your browser and the IP address of the brother to get the web UI. You need the admin un of 'admin' and pw of 'access'. (This is publicly downloadable, not secret, you can chang pw.) Then from the home page click Network Configuration then click on configuremDNS, then name the machine (BrotherMFC works). Now you can add it as a printer.

It's astounding that Brother doesn't even mention this on their web site help files. It's a pretty darned serious bug.

I'll add the rest of my experience later. The Mac is definitely a poor cousin for this device. It does appear, however, that (contrary to the Brother specs) it is possible to fax to a Mac.

Update: I've definitely warmed to this device. I've an evolving review with comments on both XP and OS X experiences in my blog. Amazon does not permit URL inclusion in reviews, but for more information go to Google's blog search and search Gordon and 7820N.

The XP support is better than the Mac support, but a geek armed with my review will have no trouble getting this machine working well with OS X -- including push button scanning directly to disk! (I suspect there may be some nasty security implications here ...) It's not, however, a device for the average user. It really needs a geek to install and configure it.

We purchased this unit from Office Depot on 9/10/2005 for our start-up home-based business. Initially we were pleased, although navigating the menus to configure the unit was difficult and it was almost impossible to get paper into the manual feed unit straight. After 17 days, the unit stopped functioning. It has been very lightly used only 90 pages were printed. It suddenly began power cycling, and wouldn't print. The display showed a paper jam, but when we opened the unit to clear the jam, there was no paper stuck. The display wouldn't clear the paper jam message. Unfortunately, Brother service was closed by this time, and Office Depot only accepts returns on electronics for 14 days. We turned the printer off and left it off.

It was several days until we could call Brother because of our work schedule. Right before contacting Brother, we turned the printer back on and it was working fine. A couple of days went by and the printer started to malfunction again. This time we could call Brother immediately and went through troubleshooting with them. When Brother couldn't resolve the problem, we were told that a refurbished unit would be sent out and that we would receive it in four business days.

I called on the expected arrival date to get a tracking number for the shipment and was told that no replacement unit was being sent. The customer service rep stated that Brother had tried to contact us for additional troubleshooting earlier in the week. However, we had not received either a phone call or an e-mail from Brother. The customer service rep did not beleive me, simply stating over and over again that they record showed they had tried to contact us. I asked to speak to a supervisor. He asked for the details of the trouble shooting, and stated that he would upgrade shipping to overnight and that we would receive the replacement in three business days. The replacement didn't arrive. I again called Brother. This customer service rep stated that the printer would not have shipped yet since there was a 48 hour waiting period. She assured me that the replacement would arrive tomorrow, probably. Yes, she waffled.

Each call required that I was on hold for about 20 minutes. My business has been without a fax machine/printer/copier/scanner for this time. Given that we are starting up while still working at our regular jobs part-time the lack of a fax has been awkward since we are trying to establish ourselves as a legitimate concern. When I've explained my issue to the customer service reps, they've been sorry, but have not been able to do anything to get us a working machine quickly. I wouldn't buy another Brother product after this experience.

From my experiences so far (owned it 3 months) all the positive reviews here are true.

Just two caveats.

1. If you scan legal sized documents like contracts and such, the native Brother software is buggy. Although it has an 11x14 scan setting, it does not work: the scans come in at 11x8.5! The only way around this is to use a separate program (i.e., Adobe Acrobat) to scan in documents. It's a bit of a hassle.

2. The automatic scan feeder tray isn't calibrated well. More than 50% of the time, it pulls in sheets at a slight angle which can cut off portions of the document. Thinking this was a part defect, I contacted Brother and had them send me another feeder hood which I installed, however the problem continued which leads me to believe that it is a design problem. The workaround for this (if you really need straight scans) is to scan using the flatbed, but if your document has many pages, then this becomes a great hassle.

Despite these problems, the printer is still such a superb machine that, in the end, I am still recommending it.

I have it wired to my wireless network router which makes printing and scanning wirelessly from my laptop a breeze.

I bought this machine from Staples around the middle of July. By the first week of August the machine said it was out of toner. I went and bought a new "brother" replacment cartridge and put it in the machine. I kept getting a toner out message, please replace cartridge. I called Brother and after about 15 to 20 minutes wait time, I finally got to talk to someone who put me through about 35 to 40 minutes worth of trouble shooting, only to tell me that the new cartridge was bad. They said they would overnight me a new one free of charge. Lucky me, I'm going to get a "free" toner cartridge to replace the brand new non working one for "free" Hmmmmm, doesn't quite sound right does it. Anyways, I went out and bought another brand new cartridge that day, because when you run a buisness, you can't afford down time. Guess what? That one didn't work either. Lucky for me I bought the 2yr extended warranty from Staples. I packed it up, took it back, wala new machine in about an hour. It's worked great now for about the last 3 months, more than twice the amount of time the first one had worked. Come to think of it, It's still running off the free toner cartridge that came with the machine, which leads me to believe the first machine I had bought still had toner left in it. Anyways, here we are at the beggining of November and I keep getting a paper jam error, "paper jam, open front cover, remove drum, remove jammed paper" Did that, no paper jam, opened the back cover, no paper jam, looked in the paper eject no paper, opened the tray, removed the paper, fanned it reinserted it, same error, took the paper out and put in fresh paper, same error. Removed the tray, and manually fed into the machine and it worked fine. Called Brother and after about 20 minutes got through and spent the next hour on the phone doing everything I had allready done. O.K sir we'll replace your machine, all we need is a credit card and your new machine will be there in 3 to 5 days. HA HA HA, thanks but that's not good enough, I need one now. Sorry sir, yada yada yada...
Thank god I bought that 2yr extended warranty, anything goes wrong just bring it back. Hmmm, how do I put this, it seems my warranty changed after the first exchange, I have to go through Brother first and any expenses they don't cover my warranty will. Hmmm, that's not what your store manager told me when he sold it to me. So, now I am the proud owner of a non functional MFC7820N. Brother is going to send me a new unit, it should be here by next wednesday, I assume. In the mean time I'm left with no other choice than to go out and buy a real all in one machine made by a real company, unfortunatley I bleieve I have to rule out HP because I think they own Brother. So in short, I will not purchase another Brother product or will I shop at Staples ever again. Caveat Emptor .By the way, anyone want to buy a refurb MFC new in the box?

This machine sounds like it is crumpling paper as it prints. In addition for such a full featured all in one to only have 5 direct memory buttons is pretty silly. My old MFC 4100 has 16 presets and is muc smoother in comparison.

We have several PC and laptops, all connected wired/wireless to a small network.

Good:
1. Easy installation
2. Everything works, fax, scan, print, copy. Like the fax from PC feature.
3. Built in network works great, most printer servers dont work with MFC.

Bad:
3 months in light use (ony dwon about 1000 sheets), got a "toner low" warning and stopped printing. No error message from PC. Took the toner out and shake it, put it back in now working.




I have been using this printer heavily for about three months. We are both teachers so we use it a lot to print mostly text documents. We use it on a network using the ethernet connection, and do not use the USB connection.

Install/instructions:
The installation of this printer will be easy if you're used to adding network printers. I was able to assign it an IP address easily and get it working without even looking at the instructions. The printer has a web page where you can adjust settings and so on, very easy to use. HOWEVER, to install the scanning functions was a totally different matter. That required the instruction book, which refers you to the electronic manual if you're doing a network install. The instructions are incomplete and leave out some XP settings you need to adjust in order to use it. I had to call tech support to resolve the issue, but it was relatively quick and painless. They really need to make the instructions for this process more complete.

Print quality:
Print quality is excellent. The one problem, one that you've probably heard about, is that it curls the output paper. For small jobs this doesn't tend to create issues other than the annoyance of your paper curling up at the ends. When printing ten pages or more though, they tend to fold over while outputting, thus jamming up the output tray and/or spilling papers on the floor. Sometimes this is just annoying, and sometimes it creates an internal paper jam. This gets to be a hassle when printing 30 copies of a 5-page test and the pages get all scrambled by the jam. This effect is always there, though certain kinds of paper seem to curl more than others.

Toner:
On my first toner cartridge I got 2215 pages. Exactly 2215, and no more. Why does that matter? Because with most printers, when the toner gets low you can pull it out, rotate it a few times, put it back in and keep printing as long as you can tolerate the results. Not with this printer. Once it senses that the toner is low, it will never print another page from that cartridge. It displays a "toner low" message and refuses to print. This is especiallly irritating for a couple reasons. First, the pages still look perfect so I know there's more toner in there and I'd like to use it until the pages look bad. Second, if it's not a convenient time to run out of toner and you don't have the replacement standing by, you're not going to print a single page. You get NO warning, the printer just quits. This is unacceptable design in my opinion. When the pages start to look bad, I know the toner's low. I should be able to keep printing as long as I can tolerate the results. Unacceptable.

Telephone Answering Devcice (TAD):
This multifunction printer will allow you to connect to a telephone answering machine. It automatically detects if an unanswered call is a fax or voice call. It will route the call accordingly, either to the fax or to the TAD. The one thing about this that they bury in the fine print is that in order for this to work the TAD has to be plugged into the jack on the printer itself, thus meaning the printer and answering machine must be located together. I find this to be a significant drawback because I would rather have the TAD in the kitchen where we've always kept it. Now instead we have to keep it way back in my office wiht the printer where we don't spend a lot of time, and especially not convenient when returning home to check for messages.

That's my roundup of the important issues you might not know by reading the specs. Other than these I am very happy with the printer and would reccommend it as long as you can live with these few shortcomings.

UPDATE:
After using this printer for 6 months, the curling problem has gotten worse. The printer jams much more easily in the output tray than it did originally. Also the pickup mechanism often jams when pulling fresh paper from the tray. It is working OK, but it seems that it's not going to last too much longer without crippling problems.

My previous multifunction laser (a Brother MFC-4800) finally gave me a hardware error code after nearly four years of good service. After reviewing the market for multifunction flatbed scanning laser printers, I found my choices were the Brother 7820N, the Canon MF5750, and the HP Laserjet 3030 (I also considered the Samsung SCX4720F but could not find it locally). I was never keen on Brother's approach of using separate toner and drum cartridges because of the slightly greater expense, so I decided to try a different manufacturer. I bought the Canon since it got better reviews than the HP. Got it home, set it up, and found out the paper tray feed mechanism did not work correctly; likely because of the flimsy way in which it was designed and constructed. Rather than exchange it, I returned it and came home with the Brother 7820N instead. After one week, I am extremely pleased I decided to go with the Brother instead of the Canon. The Brother seems better built and sturdier. It works like a charm (I don't use the network interface, bought this model to get the bigger memory). The driver and "tools" included are very nice and allow me to do everything I could ever want. Faxing capabilities are superb and way overkill for what I need, but still very easy to operate. I don't want to knock the Canon too much, since the brief time I used it, it seemed to have nice features. It just seemed like it would be easier to damage (especially the paper tray). The Brother is a slicker machine; smaller, better built, and less expensive. I think I'll just order my supplies online, where they can be had for much less than my local office supply store.

When my Sharp AL-800 copier broke down after 5 years, I decided to try upgrading to an MFC, which would also replace my fax and printer. My fax is a Brother Intellifax 1820c, and it had difficulty after about 1 year with the ink jets. So I researched MFC's and decided to try the Brother MFC-7820N since it is laser (not ink jet) and reasonably priced. (The customer service received from Brother for my fax machine was very good; the repair service was covered by Brother, and they repaired the problem quickly and properly.) I received my Brother MFC a few days ago and have been quite impressed. It is very easy to install, with excellent, well-written instructions. And, everything works as it is supposed to. The copier is fast (even faster than my prior copier). The print quality is excellent. Controls are easy to use. Also, the machine is relatively compact and fits conveniently on my file cabinet. I'm using USB to connect it to my PC with Windows XP. The software included is easy to install and works well with Windows. In conclusion, this is an excellent all-in-one machine that comes from a solid company.


I have had this all in one and have really really liked it, however it uses 460w when starting up or copying or doing just about anything and that is too much for my house wiring. We got constant light flickering and if it was printing and you ran another power hog then it would trip the breaker. Brother would not help.....it is really a shame since this unit really does everything it says and fast (the fuser takes all that power to heat up). If you have a new house then you should have no problem, I am afraid I had to return mine.

This is a great printer. Excellent text quality and speed. The copy machine function also works great for an inexpensive machine. I use this machine in home-based business and I would highly recommend it, especially with the network functionality.

I have just two slight probems. 1) the paper comes out curled 2) the scanner button does not work with Windows XP. To scan, you must use the Control Center software that comes with the machine. This is a known issue (check the Brother web site). Hopefully, this will be fixed in future updates.

I've had this all-in-one for about 3 months and I, for the most part, like it. It is compact for an all-in-one, print quality is good, and it is simple to operate.

There are problems. It takes a lot of energy when waking up (whenever you are printing). I had to plug the printer into another outlet to keep my battery backups from clicking on every time I printed. The manual sheet feeding slot has no paper support and, even following the instructions, the paper feeds crooked. This is a problem if you print checks. You must keep your hand on the paper guide to prevent the crook feeding (not in the manual).

When operated as a network printer, you can send FAXs from your computer (as long as you have installed the PCFAX program supplied) however, you cannot receive FAXs on your PC. You can receive Faxs IF you connect the printer via USB (but you can't connect with USB and network at the same time).

The quality of the scanner is not as good as my old HP scanner but is adequate for scanning documents.

Some have criticized the low number of pages that the supplied toner cartridge produced. This cartridge is referred to as a "start cartridge" in the manual. The normal cartridge should produce more pages. I'm sure that Brother shaved a few dollars off the price by doing this, but it was probably unwise.

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

It's got an Ethernet port. I've got it connected to my home network. Awesome!

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 noise 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 eying 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? :-)

We have had this unit for about a month now and have been very impressed with it. It was very easy to set up and is easy to use. The unit did develop a streak on the copy, but I was able to get through quickly to support who did a great job diagnosing the problem and explaining what needed to be cleaned to take care of the streak. I will be getting another unit for my other office.

I had the printer set up and working on my network in a few minutes. I downloaded the latest software from Brother's website and had no trouble getting my Mac OS X 10.4.4 machines printing and scanning.

My major gripe is that while the Mac OS X software works, it is terrible. I've now used scanners from Epson, HP, Canon, and Brother. And while it all has been pretty bad, Brother's is the worst.

There is the TWAIN software from Brother, which is very limited in functionality. For example, there is no way to change the scale of your scan. The only way around it is to enlarge the DPI resolution, then in photoshop adjust the DPI. It also doesn't allow you to scan from the Automatic Document Feeder, which appears to be possible under Windows.

Then Presto! PageManager 4 from NewSoft Inc. is included for performing tasks like OCR and scanning without using Photoshop. This appears to be ancient software that doesn't follow normal Mac OS X conventions. The interface uses old Mac OS 9 icons along with really cheesy custom icons. Images are saved to the PageManager application folder (along with a zillion other random files). The interface is completely bizarre. For example, for no particular reason a clock is included. The software crashes on a regular basis. I've yet to get the OCR functionality to actualy work. It doesn't support scanning to PDF.

Version 7 of PageManager is now available from NewSoft Inc, but it is 80 dollars. It really should be included with the printer.

So while it technically supports Mac OS X, it is not a enjoyable experience.


I did a lot of shopping and chose this machine since it was networked and was a great price. I am able to print from my wireless laptops with no problems. Setup was a breeze, just follow the instructions and it completes just fine. My linksys router gave it an ip address and i was printing to it in minutes.

It could use a better tray for the printouts to fall into but not that big of a deal.



I've owned this machine for about 2 months and so far it is performing very well. The only issue so far is that when copying/faxing the feeder seems to send documents at a slight angle rather than straight on. But print quality is great and quick, and scanning is better than other prior Brother machines.

I tried a lot of different printers, all-in-ones and separate. This printer performs everything perfectly. It is very easy to figure out how to use it. It took me 5 minutes to connect it to the network and make my computer recognize it (you just have to run a CD).
Copying is a breeze. Also the fact that you can send faxes from the scanned and from the feeder is extremely useful, so if I have to send a small format paper I do not have to copy it first and only then send it.
The 32 MB of memory is very useful. It allows the printer to store several jobs, and for the network printer it is a must.
One fact I know from experience about brother printers that unfortunately you can not use aftermarket ink. I used aftermarket on different brother printer and it clogged the drum. However on the bright note, brother ink is one of the cheapest.
Output bay is very small so I do not think I can print a lot of paper in the same sitting (I would estimate not more then 100 pages)
I am extremely impressed with this printer and the price (and it is also networked). The comparable Dell (in the same price category but more expensive) is made my Lexmark and do not perform at all as good.

I did alot of research looking for the best multifunction printer for my home office. This printer has all the options I can possibly want, and then some. Setting it up on the network was a snap, the web-based interface is great to manage settings, and the scanner/fax functions are simple yet powerful enough for all my office needs. In my opinion, better then then any HP I ever used and the sofware isn't a resource hog like HP. Toner consumption and price is also very reasonable compared to others. Amazon had the best price and super fast shipping...thank you!

I was looking for an affordable, small footprint, all in one home office laser printer. And the MFC-7820N has so far excelled in all areas... from price (clearly winner against comparable HPs), ease of set up (hard to beat the built-in RJ-45 network port), and functionality (laser jet, scanner, copier and fax).

Installation was straightforward, and paired with Adobe Acrobat software (sold separately), it's a snap to scan paper bills, invoices, etc. to PDF.

I like this printer. It does what it is supposed to do with minimal fuss. It is MUCH better than the Dell product, which I started with and sent back. I have not had any problems with the document tray or paper curl and the unit was very easy to set up and use. The network connectivity is great if you have more than one computer.

My two issues: (1) while printing and while the fan is running, it draws so much power that it causes some lights to flicker a little bit. This was a problem with our old laser, too, so maybe it is just a wiring issue in our house. (2) the document feeder can be a little quirky. It jams a little more than it should.

I was skeptical, but trusted the reviews. An amazing technology. The network connection was flawless - worked the first time (XP)

All functions work - the scanner is slow, but does a nice job. The OCR software is weak - have switched to Omnipage Pro and no problems.

Copy and print are excellent.

Highly recommend the Brother.

Set up was simple using the software. I have two laptops on a wireless network and they work great with the laser printer. My primary use is as a fax that is used daily. I fax multiple legal size documents without a problem.

My only let down was with the PC fax. The unit needs to be connected directly to a PC for it to work. My unit is only plugged into my wireless router so I am unable to take advantage of PC fax.

This is the best value multi-function printer I have ever bought. I use this one for a year and buy another one for my brother. The printing and copying is very fast. I had MFC-6800 before, and I need to wait for a few minute to have lamp warm up when I want to fax and copy a document. With this one, I don't need to wait for the copy or fax. I am every happy to have this great product. The only complain is a bit noisy. However, with this price and functionality, I am very satisfied.



I want to share my experiences using a new printer today.

I know, I know. it sounds dull. But I was so impressed with this unit that I thought you all would like to know about it.

The unit is a Brother MFC-7820N B&W multi-function laser printer/copier/fax/scanner and is $[...] at Staples & Office Depot, with a $[...] rebate until Saturday.

I picked up the unit for the following reasons:

* I needed a new printer and a new fax machine and have been in need of a copier for the studio.

* I hate inkjets and will only purchase a laser printer for B&W usage.

* I should not have to replace ink/toner for less than 1000 pages.

* It reportedly has decent Mac support (10.2.4 and up through Tiger).

* It has built-in network support.

* It's inexpensive.

I brought the printer back to my studio and set it up. It's all one piece, so physical setup is easy. Pull it from the box, put it on a table, remove the clear tape, plastic coverings, and paper spacers, install the toner cartridge, plug it in & blow it up!

Configuration on the Mac was a little less easy. I rarely use CDs that come with peripherals, since they tend to be 1.0 versions that have likely been updated since. I went to the Brother website and looked for the drivers. After about 10 minutes of searching and not understanding what I was missing, I realized that Safari wasn't displaying the "Download" button, but switching over to Firefox solved that issue. I D/Led the four DMGs from the support site and installed them on my laptop (under 10.3.9).

Once I rebooted, I wasted about 30 sheets trying to get the printer to print out my taxes. It kept having problems which looked like driver issues. It turns out that I had selected the BRScript driver, but the CUPS driver was better and more reliable.

Here's how I config'd the printer:

* I first went through the menus on the unit's front panel and set it up for DHCP on the network. I also named it and set a few other minor settings.

* I went to Print Center and added a new printer. I used the Internet Printing Protocol and chose the printer via Rendezvous (Bonjour)! It came up with some bizarrely-named print queue, but it has printed flawlessly from then on.

So, the printer prints. That's cool. And I tried the copier function and that works, too.

One of today's tasks was to print contracts and W-9s that had been sent to me by clients and fax them back. Now that I have a printer, I can do that! But I started playing a bit with the ControlCenter software that Brother provides and discovered that I could setup my machine to be named as a recipient for scanning! (Scanning over the network!? Who would have guessed?)

Unfortunately, I did run into a snag using the network scanning from my laptop. I have two other TWAIN drivers installed on the laptop (Epson & Canon) and the ControlCenter software kept trying to use the Epson TWAIN driver instead of its own. Instead, I installed the Brother software on an iMac G4 that resides in the studio, which is available for client use and configured the ControlCenter. When I went back to the MFC and selected Scan-to-file, the iMac came right up in the list and I successfully scanned the document (to a PDF, as I configured it)!

To make this even cooler, the MFC's scanner can make use of the 35-page Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) that is present for the fax machine and will auto-scan all those documents into a single PDF for you. Can this get _any_ cooler!?

Actually, it can. The fax machine can also collect faxes to memory rather than to paper and send them to your computer! I haven't tried this functionality, as I didn't use the fax at all, nor do I need that feature (since I have an eFax).

One more killer thing: the unit supports Rendezvous (Bonjour) and can even be addressed directly from a web browser. Nearly all the configuration can be done in that window, although I found that setting the time & date from the browser still didn't set the front panel's time & date (which defaulted to the year 2084!). The web browser config center _does_ show exactly what the front panel's display is showing, though, which is way cool for me, since the unit lives in my machine room, with 3 doors between the unit and any computers.

Overall, I'm extremely impressed with this unit. Years ago I probably wouldn't have considered a Brother printer, as they didn't support the Mac and were making pretty cheap crap. But my dad got a similar MFC from Brother and has loved it.

I figured it was worthwhile to pass along just how killer this unit is.

This product performs as advertised right out of the box. Support is excellent. A must have for your home office.

One of the easiest networking installation out there. I set it up to work with 5 other PCs in just minutes! Just take the printer out of the shipping box, install the toner cartridge, load paper, plug in AC, plug in the network cable to exsiting office router or switch. Then just put the driver CD in the PC, let the auto installation run, then just reboot the PC. Afterwards, just click print in the application and the printer works like magic without any physical wire connection to the printer. Repeat the same steps for each additional PC installation. It's so easy, you hardly need to read the manual. This is a must have all in one office printer. It's a terrific bargain.

'Old Reliable' -- aka my Samsung ML 1210 -- was wheezing more than a climber at the top of Everest. My Panasonic fax was as feisty as ever, grabbing 4 pages at a time while sending/receiving faxes Jackson Pollack-style. It was time for an upgrade. Wow; what a step up.

Of all the companies to offer 'true' OS X, Mac-compatibility, surprising to see it from a traditionally fax machine/label maker one. Brother's MFC 7820N software functionality is flawless for my wife and I's iBook's, running 10.3 and 10.4, respectively. True 'touch controls' power this unit, the Control Center software allows seamless and intelligent faxing, copying and scanning to customizable folders, email locations, etc. I did a double-take when spotting PC Fax capability LIMITED TO MAC's(!). Control Center is so Mac-friendly, it even comes with software for folks running OS 9.

Moreover, setting up this unit to print wirelessly from a network was a snap. It quickly linked up with my Belkin Wireless Access Point, finally allowing affordable printing AND faxing (from local files) without being tethered to a desk. The Remote Setup function is likewise very clean; a nice break from endless scrolling across the sharp LCD. I still, however, face the occasional (once every month, on average) software glitch in print jobs not communicating wirelessly with the printer. Turning the system off/on again solves the problem pronto.

Hardware-wise, the MFC 7820N is standard quality for multifunction units...hardened plastic with decent give...although with a much smaller footprint than competitors (including several from Brother). To put size into perspective, the MFC 7820N is approximately 1/3rd wider than standalone, monochrome laser printers, same height. Dig the large slide out paper try + print output at the center of the unit. No paper mess spewing from this one. Related, the paper feed (at early review) is outstanding. Take that, Panasonic fax.

Cost-wise, the MFC 7820N is a steal, a couple hundred bucks less than similarly featured units. Toner can be had at 1/2 the price of most conventional laser units -- $40 or lower.

Nearly 8 months in, I am left wondering why I stomached the high pitched squeal of my ML 1210 for this long. This Mac user finds the MFC 7820N a winner.

Wow. A colleague recommended Brother for a quick set-up, inexpensive, B&W all in one. Am I glad he did.

From the scanned faxing from your computer to the straight print jobs, this thing works seamlessly over our networks for both Mac OS X and Windows XP computers. While I expected the machine to work and do its job, I just didn't expect it to work so well, considering the price was so much less than competition.

We have high end printers and high volume printers but were looking for something inexpensive to handle faxing, scanning, and general B&W print jobs. But amazingly enough, the print jobs are actually better than expected and the other features are really too numerous to mention in the review.

Anyway, I just took the recommender to lunch at a really nice restaurant to thank him for the suggestion. I am really impressed with Brother.

A great B&W laser printer with a flat bed scanner, fax, copy, and all over your LAN. I have a new MacBook Pro (Intel) and also run Parallels. I can print from the Mac or from Windows inside Parallels. Scan over the network directly into a number of applications. It's a really nice printer and a great bargain.

I'm using the 7820N plugged into a Linksys router. Absolutely painless installation-I downloaded the latest drivers,run them and am happy. For faxing, I'm using Vonage VoIP. I was getting some line errors, went to Vonage's help, reset the default fax speed as directed and it seems fine.

I'm happy with this device so far and would buy it again. Having said that, things I would change ;-)

1) The computer interface is fairly primitive. It works fine, just not what I've come to expect. One neat function-it'll scan directly into a .pdf file. That has proven useful.

2) It's fairly noisy when printing. There are 3 noise levels,none of whic are really objectionable, but noticeable. The loudest level is only when it's actually printing.

3) The machine control panel display is fairly primitive. Small and narrow viewing angle.

4) It would be nice if the various fax settings e.g. resolution, retry interval etc. were settable via PC rather than numbered menus on (did I mention) a fairly primitive screen

5) The single sheet/envelope feed could use some sort of paper support. This hasn't proven a problem-paper has fed straight but having a sheet hanging out of an unsupported feed mechanism doesn't inspire confidence.

In fact, the user interface could do with an update. Don't screw up what works well but update a few facets. Having groused above, A device that simply installs and works without calls to tech support, editing windows registry entries etc. causes me to overlook minor items.

On the strength of the many admittedly fine reviews of this machine here and elsewhere, I purchased a Brother MFC 7820N for home office use. My machine was dead out of the box - when called upon to copy a test page, it pulled paper from the paper tray and made all the proper noises, only to spit out a blank sheet of paper. Brother service concluded that the problem was in the toner cartridge or drum, and sent me a replacement for each by Fed Ex. No luck, as the problem persisted. Frustrating, but I liked the product specs, and asked that the unit be replaced. So days later, printer no. 2 arrives. This one does print, and print well, but only at about 3.5 pages per minute for simple text with lots of white space. Brother tech support insisted that the printer cable I was using might be at fault (although it had just recently worked fine on an older Brother unit) and that I buy a new one to try, which I did. No improvement. More calls to brother have not improved matters any, so now I'm looking at a machine that does it all - at about 3.5 pages per minute.

Something is wrong with their quality control. I can only assume that I have tapped into a bad batch of machines that likely are going to give problems to others as well.

The print quality on this printer is excellent. Copy and scanning quality are great. However, the paper gets jammed consistently, even when using the exact paper recommended by the manufacturer with all the correct settings. Frustrating, to say the least.

The manual feed usually pulls the paper crooked.

But the print looks great.

In general, this is a very good produce with bargain price. It does everything that it claims. It's very easy to setup without manual. It works immediately after plug into network. I use web interface to configure. It only takes a couple of minutes. This thing comes with web server, ftp server(I still don't know what to do with ftp server. Transfer stored fax?), telnet console, DHCP, WINS etc.... this is more like a router! It can copy, scan, fax without any problem. And it is worth the price.

A few things you need to know before you purchase. I am a little disappointed that they can make a print as a router, but they cannot do some basic funtionalities.

1) Limited support on windows 2003. ONLY printting is supported! (Well, make more room for a high end product?) Too bad, I cannot use terminal server to send fax or scan.

2) You cannot receive fax from PC if you connect 7820N over network. You have to connect USB or LPT port in order to receive a fax. (Well, this is not too hard to do, right? You made send fax working over network, why not receive?) Manual and online support don't mention that at all. Until I read someone's comment online and reinstall with local USB driver. Then fax receive appears. That means you can only receive fax from only one PC.

3) Online support doesn't provide any useful information regarding software update. You don't know the software/driver they put on their web site are the same as they shipped on CD. No changes log for any Firmware update. This stopped me upgrading firmware. For example, latest firmware on support is v2.1.0. And my 7820N says current firmware is version G. (Are they talking about same product firmware update?)

Well, in summary, it's a nice product with nice price.

Brother says that one cartridge will print 2500 copies. Well after we set up the machine and noticed how quickly we had to replace the cartridge that came with the printer, I decided to get 5 reams of 500 sheets and use only these to print off the MFC. After going a little more than halfway through this paper supply, it REFUSED to print because, as the display said, the toner life ended. I was forced to replace the cartridge with a new one, even though it seemed apparent to me that the old one was still working just fine.

Mind you, we do not use the printer to print things that take up a lot of ink. Just regular typing. But regardless of how much toner I used, I object to the fact that the machine simply refused to print, but instead displayed a sign saying "toner life end"

I think the folks at Brothers have discovered a way to make money by selling lots of cartridges to those who have the misfortune of buying this product. Buyer Beware!!!

The printer/scanner/functions are fine. But I think that there was a lack of honesty in the claim that the cartridge life was 2500. Think 1400 tops.

I am editing this post after having had the machine a while longer. If I could change the evaluation to one star, I would do so, because of the problem described above.

Now into the second month of operations, the Brother MFC 7820N is working flawlessly. Print jobs come out quickly. Scanning typed documents into Microsoft Word works well. Faxing operations go smoothly.

Because my upstairs light duty HP inkjet printers handle any color printing needs, the downstairs office Brother black & white laser cost effectively handles the larger document print jobs sent by my two high school student children.

All these stations and printers are through a Linksys router. So long as each station has the Brother drivers, an operator must only choose the printer required from within their station's MS Word/Windows software. Printer setup and driver installation is easy.

Some other great operating features include: smooth running document feeder for copying and faxing, small footprint, low operating noise and non jamming single sheet feeder.

HP is OK. Brother is great.

Used this unit for a few weeks and returned.

Annoyances:

Sofware: With ADF scanning, you have to enter scan parameters (paper size etc) again for every scan and it does not have an option to let you to continue scanning more pages then ADF can hold. You will have to use "add to file" function and select all scan parameters again. There is no option to scan double-sided pages as well with using 2 pass scanning. So 3rd party software is definitively needed to get a real value out of ADF scanning.

Color Scanning: While B/W scans are fast, color scanning speed is very poor to me. Scanning stack of color pages could take ages. Slow color scanning speed was observed in both USB and network modes.

FAX: Number of rings before FAX answers is limited to 4 and I found no way to increase that. No good for SOHO.

This is a really nice MFC, but with a single 15-amp circuit in my basement/office and a 42" LCD & my P4-based PC hooked up, even with the TV off, when this baby fires up it trips my PC's APC, it basically requires a dedicated 15-amp circuit or anything hooked up to your circuit will probably have a shorter life due to constant power fluctuations (most people won't realize this because they don't run an APC with monitoring software on the same circuit). I ordered an HP 3055 to replace this since it uses 1/3 of the power (300 watts at peak, brother uses 1032 watts at peak). Do a search on google for '7820N amp' (or any brother MFC model with 'amp' or 'watts') and you'll see what I mean, others have the same issue. I think all Brother MFC's suffer from this, it's a shame because it's otherwise a nice MFC for a good price.

This printer replaced a Canon PIXMA 780 that failed to print black after 13 months. Although it doesn't print color it works as advertised, all functions have been used, and it's much easier to install then the Canon. Also nice not to have to replace ink tanks every week. We'll see if it holds up, it's been installed for almost 3 months.

I run a small investment business from my home. I purchased this unit after MUCH research on price vs. function.

The unit works great - just followed the instructions and a snap to network and have up in no time. My home network consists of 3 units over a wireless router to a printer server/multiport hub with a Vonage phone. yet no conflicts or issues with installing the unit - much to my surprise!

I understand from other postings that there may be issues with the auto document feeder, etc. The overall build quality is very good, but I can see potential issues with this area - but only if it is heavily used.

Still the unit is very good and has probably the greatest cost/benefit ratio of anything out there.

Works fine. We only use it for printing and copying. Installation was difficult for this amatuer when trying to get our network PCs to hit it. Our IT guy had no problems.

I have a home-based business and does a lot of faxing (both incoming and outgoing). I have no complains about this bad boy. I also used it as a network printer. Had a little problem installing the network drivers but with some help from Brother customer support I was able to get it up and running in no time. One of the best customer services I've ever dealt with. Distinctive ring feature works very well too. I have a single phone line that receives both fax and voice. The only issue I have with this unit is it cannot receive incoming faxes over the network. You have to attach the USB or parallel cable to be able to receive incoming faxes to your computer. I think the reason for this is that the machine does not know which computer on the network to send the incoming fax to. Maybe in future upgrades they can add a configuration to enter destination IP address(es) for incoming faxes if you want to receive them directly to a computer in your network.

Other than that the machine is a work horse, plus its sleek and sexy. Good bang for your moolah. So if you are in the market for a multifunction fax unit consider the MFC-7820N.




After doing a lot of research, I purchased the Brother MFC-7820N. As soon as I plugged it in, my lights started flickering and continued to do so every time I printed. A surge protector did not help, nor did plugging it into its own outlet. I called Brother's customer service and they told me to take the machine to a service center and also told me that they thought it was probably caused by a problem in my electrical wiring. It is definitely not a problem with my electrical wiring; the fact is that this machine uses so much electrical power that it needs its own dedicated circuit, which will cost at least $150 for an electrician to install. The machine makes a lot of noise when it powers up and when it functions. It also does not have automatic duplex printing. I ended up returning the machine and getting the Canon MF4150, which has duplex printing, is less of a power hog (although it still uses 680W at peak---Brother uses 1032W!), and costs about the same as the Brother.

I think that the Canon MR 4150 or the HP 3055 are better options (the HP does not have duplex printing and costs a lot more though).

I bought this to replace a venerable Apple LaserWriter in hopes that I would get good quality printing, faxing, scanning, and perhaps some OCR. It does some of these things OK, and others not at all, despite the promises. Photocopies come out OK - as long as you don't require much subtllty in shadings, and as long as you're not trying to copy originals with light colors. It does fax OK, although sometimes it's hard to figure out if a fax went through OK. I mostly fax from my desktop, and only occasionally from hard copy. When I fax from my desktop, I have to turn this machine off, or else it intercepts my OUTGOING fax as if it were an INCOMING fax, even though I've firmly instructed it not to answer incoming faxes.

As for printing, it does an OK job, but it's neither a TrueType nor a PostScript machine. It is, instead, an emulator, and sometimes you get something close to what you want, and sometimes you get something that looks suspiciously like Courier.

Scanning is very hit-or-miss. Sometimes you get an acceptable scan, sometimes the scan doesn't come out worth a damn, and sometimes the software just balks at doing anything and says "There's a problem. Please restart your machine." Since this fixes nothing, you wind up swearing at the machine instead of getting any work done.

OCR is a complete waste of time. To put it bluntly, the software for Macs that is bundled with the machine isn't even an honest attempt, and it seems clear that Brother really doesn't care because it's so clunky, and incompetent. I suspect that they just bought any old piece of software that had "Mac" and "OCR" in the product description, purely so they could say they had it. Don't even think of trying to use it.

I will continue to use this machine for a while for copying, faxing, and printing, but it's a compromise machine that does nothing very well. Not Recommended.

This all in one machine from Brother is very easy to set up and use. I have a mixed WinXP / Linux network and all of my machines can access the printer through the network. All of the Windows machines can also scan over the network which is very nice. I don't think network scanning works with the Linux driver but this is no more than a minor inconvenience. Overall the machine performs well and produces nice prints. It is easy to use for copying, scanning and faxing. I have had the machine for about 3 months now and with moderate use have not had to replace the toner cartridge that was shipped with it. Overall I highly recommend Brother because of their easy to use affordable machines. Also, the Linux support is nice to see.

I bought this as an upgrade for my 1 person office. I went from an HP that did a great job with printing and scanning, but lacked a flatbed copy function to this. Generally, I'm pleased with the product, but the scanning function is a bit cumbersome and the sheetfeeder for the bypass tray does not always do a good job with envelopes.

I should have given heed to a previous review that stated the Bother MMC-7820N was a power hog. When this beast powers-up lights flicker. This is a huge distraction when you are working on a computer. Also, it is potentially damaging to other electronic devices on the circuit. Lights flicker not only on the 15 amp service to my home office but other circuits as well--not good. For all the other fine attributes of this device the power hog issue is over shadowing--too much of a distraction. If you can look beyond this fault, it is easy to setup (the networking software worked flawlessly) and the print qualtity is very good (it curls the paper a bit more than I would like). I don't normally return items (perhaps a guy thing), but the power hog issue has me annoyed.

This machine has worked so well for me I can't even say. I've recommended it to everyone I help. I work at a genius bar. Works flawlessly with Windows and Macintosh for every function. Highly recommend.

Product came on time. Everything works except for the top feeder which does not aceept the paper due to a broken spring.

After years of use from a HP LaserJet4m, I needed to consolidate my equipment with an all in one unit. After allot of research, I decided on the this Brother unit. It is faster and better than any of the older seperate scanners, copiers, etc, except in one catagory. Check printing is problematic. I use the old HP, in anther office, for printing single checks because the Brother simply cannot run them straight through. The factory customer service rep acknowledged this problem. If you need to perform this task allot, look elsewhere. Other than that, this is a dream machine.

After replacing two HPs in 4 years, I went with the high ratings and bought the Brother. Wow...what a difference! It performs EXCELLENT in every way! Fast, high quality, and intuitive. As a bonus, the cost of replacement toner makes the cost per page MUCH cheaper and the text quality is MUCH better than others. I've had no problems with paper curl mentioned in other comments and it has had heavy use for over 3 months now. Does an awesome job with copies and scans as well. As mentioned in others, the fan does kick on high speed when printing and is a slight bit louder than HP, but nothing that is annoying or disturbing. I've had absolutely zero issues with drawing too much power or tripping breakers...does not even dim the lights. (those that mentioned this might need to have their wiring checked). 110% happy and will buy again, even if it winds up with the same life span as the HPs (I doubt it though, it looks and feels like it's built to last).

Based on the reviews here, I recently purchased a Brother MFC-7820N all-in-one multifunction machine. It was a breeze to set up on my PC. Setting it up on the Mac was ALMOST as easy, but not quite. I also have a previously installed Epson Scanner, and the Brother Control Center kept trying to use (unsuccessfully, of course) the Epson scan software.

Curses! But it had an easy fix. I uninstalled all of the Epson software, restarted my Mac, and the Brother worked flawlessly. I then reinstalled the Epson software, restarted again, and both the Epson scanner and the Brother work well.

One of the features I like about this product is the flexible "scan to" capability (scan to email, scan to file, scan to OCR, scan to image), which can be initiated either at the Brother or at a computer. Works perfectly with both the Mac and PC. (This feature would be great in an office setting where the Brother wouldn't necessarily be right next to the computer.)

Unlike the experience of a previous user, I had no trouble with the OCR software for the Mac (Presto Page Manager). It worked fine with a good quality original.

I do agree with those who say this is a "power hog". I have it on the same circuit as my other computer equipment, and occasionally when the fuser "lights up" the UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) will kick in for a second because of the undervoltage situation created by the high power draw. I'm intending to put a new circuit into the room so the printer is isolated from the rest of the equipment. Of course, NEVER plug a laser printer directly into a UPS!

Other than the high power requirement, the machine is just perfect!

Great system, is holding up to the amount of work I have to put it through

This MFC replaced an inkjet MFC and the speed difference is incredible. With simple text pages, it is spitting out a page every 2 seconds or so. The scanning is nice and fast (which I've always experienced with Brother scanners in the past); makes scanning my printed photos easy.

Only downside that I've found is that when powering up it will suck a LOT of power from my UPS and make the lights dim briefly. I have NOT tripped a breaker nor have there have been any blown devices but this is just a heads up if you are in an old building.

Like many here, I spent a lot of time on Amazon and other sites doing research while shopping for a new all in one printer. And I must admit that even though this Brother machine seemed to be the no-brainer choice if you were looking for a b/w laser printer- I got hung up (as I often do) on the minority of negative comments instead of the majority of positive ones. So I'll address the issues that were concerning me most...

Power Hog- Yes, I suppose it is. But my old HP-5L laser made the lights flicker a little too, but it never even came close to blowing a circuit and actually became a reliable way to tell that the machine was printing from a distance. (my glass half full view there...) But since I was really replacing a recently deceased Brother FAX-2600 (fax only) I figured I'd check the power specs on that. They are identical. And that machine never created a problem in the house either. So do I wish it ran on air? Yes. Is there a better alternative overall? In my opinion, no.

Paper curling- In my unit, not a problem at all. It is so minor I wouldn't even think to mention it if I hadn't been so worried about it based on previous comments.

Output tray- Again, a non-issue to me. I haven't done a run of 250 sheets, but the 30-40 I have done was neatly stacked in place without even fully using the extension gizmo provided.

Paper feed- The automatic feed on top works great. No problems with crooked copies here. The manual feeder is in fact pretty bogus. Crooked copies do seem to be the norm. For me this isn't a big problem, but it should have been better designed.

Noise- Guilty as charged. The machine resides 5 feet from my bed, and night faxes are a nuisance. But it's not much louder than the Brother Fax-2600 I replaced. So if you want a laser machine, it probably goes with the territory. If it gets to be in issue (freakin junk faxes!) I'll set it to receive to memory at night. In practically any other setting, the noise would not be an issue.

Scanner- Haven't tried it. But for the 2 times a year I will use it, if it's that bad I'll get out the Epson scanner I just shoved in the closet... The rest of the time I'll enjoy the liberated desk space and the ability to make copies on the flat glass when needed.

Now the positives. Set up was simple. It is fast at printing and responds to network commands 10 times faster than my old HP did. (It had an Ethernet print server attached to the parallel port. It used to spend a lot of time deciding whether or not it was going to print my documents. Whether it printed the whole document or not never seemed to be up to me...) Print quality is excellent. Not quite up to the old HP-5L, but better than I expected. Fax works well and is more than adequate for most SOHO needs. In fact, the only other machine I was seriously considering, because a fax is essential to my business, was the Brother FAX 2820. The 2820 is essentially the way ugly dedicated fax version of the MFC-7820. For a few dollars more I got a new network laser printer, a far faster modem, more memory, a sleeker looking unit and a lot of free space in my office/bedroom where the other machines used to be.

So yeah, I love it. If it holds up, I'll be a happy camper...




Installation was quick and painless. It is on a local network and is the printer for a Mac Book Pro 17 and Mac Book Pro 15. The print output is clear and professional in appearance The scanner works well. I have not tested the fax yet.
The only negative comment is the roller for the document sheet feeder on the scanner arrived broken. We will take it to the local service center for replacement. If there are any issues there, I will update this review.

First thing you notice when unpacking it is that it's very light - which tells me it's all plastic and other inexpensive materials.

Then you plug it in and realize that all the lights on the same circuit will dim a few times each time the printer warms up. Potentially damaging to other sensitive electronics that may share the circuit.

The software programs are helpful, but not required for basic printing. I was able to use the same drivers and network port settings as with my previous HP LaserJet.

However the software is required for network scanning. I was able to setup the software on one workstation, then could access thes scanned files via the network. If you would like to save scanned files to multiple machines, the software needs to be installed on each destination PC.

The best feature is that you can initiate a scan job, select job settings and choose the destination PC all from the MFC's keypad.

The last short coming I found was when I went to pay the bill for the MFC. I use the printer to print all my checks, and found that the manual feed only allows single sheet feed - and not well at that. Inserting that single page is pretty clumsey, often getting caught under the sliding paper aligners. Also the aligners slide so easily that they are ineffectual at keeping manually fed paper straight.

Message I sent to amazon.
The toner cartridge tn460 was ordered with the brother mfc-7820n printer as recommended on your site. The toner cartridge does not fit in, nor was it made for this printer. I bought this for resale and i now have one pissed off customer and a worthless cartridge that had to be opened in order to find out it isn't made for this printer.

I purchase this machine about a month ago. I have a printer and a scanner already, so this is used primarily as a fax machine and a backup printer. Physically this is a nice, compact machine that fits well on a small desk. Though primarily plastic, it does have a robust feel to it. Setting up under windows xp could not be any easier. I have mine in a network and all my computers found the machine without any problem. Once a computer is registered, this machine can scan to any computer on the network. I had difficulty using the control panel to scan to a computer at first, but once I turned off the firewall, the scan to computer function works flawlessly. As a fax machine, it is awesome. There is so much flexibility with sending and receiving that I'll never go back to a lesser machine. Faxes are fast and the come through with good quality. The document feeder is excellent...I've not had a jam yet. As a printer, text quality is excellent, graphics is so-so. It warms up quickly and is impressively fast. It does make light flicker as other reviewers noted, but it has not triggered my 15a circuit breaker yet. All my laser printers cause lights to flicker. The scanner is slightly slow and the quality is noticeably worse compared to my epson scanner. But overall scan quality is certainly acceptable. I find the software suite useless. The only function I'm interested in is the pc fax. Unfortunately, it does not let you send a file (such as a word document) directly as a fax. You have to print it, then fax it. Overall, this is an excellent, flexible machine that is also an excellent value. I'm real pleased with my decision.

Edit: actually, I found that I can fax documents using the software. Totally awesome!

I like this product, it works well for me. I found the installation to be very easy. I use it only as a copier and fax machine. I saw where others had difficulty. I think it depends on the user and the use.

I run a small business and I was compelled this morning to sign on to Amazon and write my review. I'll make it very short. This printer does what it's supposed to do. I'm very happy with it in all respects. I highly recommend it!

This machine is easy to installation. Good quality of printing and fax receving. I have not used network functionality but rest of all are very nice.

I followed the directions for setting up with a USB connection and all functions worked flawlessly.

There seems to be some confusion on how to use an external telephone answering machine. I connected the external answering machine as described in the drawing. Then I set the FAX mode to manual as described on page 4-1 of the manual. The machine is set by default to answer the phone when it receives the FAX beeping sound from the other end. With this combination, if the incoming call is a voice type, the answering machine answers in the usual way and the FAX machine does not disturb it. If the incoming call is a FAX type, the answering machine answers but the FAX beeping signals activate the FAX machine to receive and it cuts off the telephone answering machine.

All in all a satisfactory situation for myself who receives very few FAX transmissions.

The unit goes into hibernate when nothing is happening and draws 10 W of power from the line. If you want to save even more energy you can turn the power switch off but the date and time are lost after a few days.

I especially like the way all functions are run by keys on the unit. On the scan you have several choices for storage of the results. The OCR mode has some problems. When scanning the printout of an email, it missed several strings of asterisks used as separators between text sections. When scanning a legal document with signatures it got confused around the signatures and reformatted the text and made spelling errors. However correcting them was faster than retyping the whole document.

We purchased this machine primarily for network scanning capabilities. We have an extensive home network setup and were very excited about this machine after reading all of the reviews and researching products. The printing works fine but not as well as our other network printers. The machine is incapable of network scanning... we've spent hours and hours on the phone with incompetent technical support or on hold for more incompetent technical support and have been unable to get an acceptable response. The last response we received was to wait for XP SP3 - ridiculous!! If you are looking for a network scanner, steer clear of this nonsense.

Easy installation, relatively small footprint, fast print & copy, excellent scan images, very economical.

This replaced by HP 3015, which lacked Vista drivers and I've been impressed so far. It's drivers, footprint and speed all seem superior to the HP. No issues after about 2 weeks of use including no issue with power consumption.

I searched for an all-in-one for several months and debated buying a high-end (by price) HP, but the user reviews were pretty bad. The Brother MFC-7820N had pretty good reviews online (cnet, amazon, pricegrabber, etc...), but the kicker was a review that came from someone I knew. She loves hers.

I was a little worried about the comments that this machine is an energy hog, but we haven't noticed any spike in electrical consumption, and haven't noticed any of the other issues (lights flickering) that some have reported...

I only rate it 4 stars, because I've only used the printer and fax so far, but they've both been great.

If you're looking for an all-in-one, this should be your choice.

I am using this MF device with Suse 10.2. Printing and scanning both work flawlessly using drivers (and following instructions) from the Brother website. Footprint is remarkably small; in fact, seems more compact than my old HL-1440 laser printer. I have not tested the fax capability.

I purchased a Brother MFC-7820 printer about 2 years ago, and have been so pleased that I just got another, the MFC-7820N, for my daughter. I love these printers for their print quality, print speed, reliability and copy/scan/fax features. The consumables are also on the less-expensive side, compared to other brands. The MFC-7820 or MFC-7820N would also be quite suitable for a small business. For Linux and UNIX users, CUPS drivers for these printers can be downloaded from a Brother website.

After major pain with HP (vivera inks are not water resistant!?!?) I ordered this Brother. Wow, what a difference.

They claim 30 pages a minute, I get 30 pages a minute (unlike my HP's which crawl along at whatever my computer's spare cycles allow.

The output is beautiful, the scans and copies are perfect.

All in all the best laserjet I have ever owned.

I am a small business owner and have been very pleased with this product. I purchased one for my main office and one for home. Good quality print. Power hungry, so there can be some light flickering on standard household circuits. This problem can be greatly reduced by setting the Sleep Time on the Ecology menu to only a few minutes; that way the printer's heating element doesn't kick on continually.

We've had this printer for a little over a month now - this is our first Brother purchase. There's absolutely nothing negative that can be said about this printer.

Quick summary:
- Print quality (even though only black and white) is outstanding
- Printing speed is outstanding
- Ease of use is outstanding
- Functionality (i.e. print, scan, copy, fax) makes it that much more of a deal
- Lastly, the fact that it can be hooked up to your network is also a HUGE plus. All of the PCs on your network can print, copy, scan with the click of a button - AWESOME!!!

Would I recommend this printer to people??? A HUGE 'YES'! You can't get much more bang for your buck than the purchase of this printer. Buy with confidence.

I had a Canon multifunction unit that I was very pleased with, but it was not compatible with my Macs. So I bought this Brother and it works very well with both my PCs and my Macs. I have it hooked up to my network via the ethernet port and computers can easily use it if they have the drivers installed (all of the Macs worked fine with Bonjour, a few of my Windows machines did once I installed the Windows version of Bonjour, some of them also needed the full software install from Brother).

The only negative things I have to say about it are:
1) no matter what I do when I scan, it seems to be impossible to get a straight image. I'm beginning to wonder if it tilts the image in the post processing - normally this doesn't matter since it is just a duplication process - but it is very annoying if you are using something for graphics post-processing - if you are, don't use this unit.

2) the unit has a power save mode, during which it is dead silent - but when you print to it, it wakes up out of that mode and it is very noisy. That only lasts long enough for it to finish the print job, cool down, and timeout until it goes back to sleep - so at least it isn't all of the time.
But I would love it if they could make one of these that has everything this does, but runs silently.

I have worked with many brands of multifunction units and this one is fantastic for the compatibility and money.

First off, I can only say that if you would like a Multi-Function printer (MFC), where it is possible to be able to print, fax, scan and copy, this should be a very good option.

I have been using Brother since 2004, when I purchased the DCP-100 sans fax. I never had any problems with that machine, but I needed an upgrade fo networking possibities at my home office.

Let me just say that of the machines I looked at out there, this one had the most features for the money.

Installation is very easy. Just hook up the ethernet cable (for a LAN printer) and install the software. That was it! No muss, no fuss. This is the way good technological products are supposed to work! I installed the software package on each computer and it is installed to be able to use. In fact, the software makes the printer the default printer automatically. Again, ease of use is key here.

Some have mentioned a noticeable power draw. That is true, but it is noticeably less that my older DCP-1000. I noticed a very slight power draw. Also, I don't believe this machine is any nosier than any other printer out there. All printers make noise, this is no more remarkable in that aspect. Also, the physical footprint of this machine is also smaller than my older printer, and with the fax contained inside, I freed up much more deskspace.

The fax aspect is terrific. Can easily do broadcast faxes (faxes to more than one number at a time), and the fax is extremly quick. So much so , I had to get a transmission report to ensure faxes were sent (of course they were). And the menu is very straightforward to navigate! Again, another ease of use issue in favor of this machine.

The scan option is also good (not great) with the included Paperport software. Works well, but not the main reason I purchased the machine so no real basis on which to compare. It seems better than my older DCP-1000 machine.

Since 1993, I have owned an HP, a Canon and now two Brothers. In my opinion, the Brother MFC is a superior product. I would also say that I tried a print server with my DCP-1000. Getting a networked printer (with LAN ethernet access) is much easier and less cumbersome. I had to do nothing to use the printer, AND instead of reserving the printer as the Print Server requests, this thing just spools the jobs.

One last thing that impresses me. This machine, is much more basic looking (read slick looking) that my older machine, and holds 250 sheets inside the printer. Also, the print jobs comes out of a slot and can sit there. No more sheets overflowing onto the floor.

All in all, I cannot say enough about this first-class machine. For a home-office or small business it is really a bargain considering the options and it is indeed a superior product.

I'm still having problems to get the fax manually. It does not make sense all the thinks I have to do just to receive a fax manually.

Very reasonable price, has all the features you probably want, the Vista drivers really work - unlike the competitive HP product, less bulky then the HP, easy to configure ....
cons. only comes with a starter cartridge.

I bought this for a job hunt figuring I could print out some nice resumes and envelopes and use the fax for communication. I haven't used the fax yet (and never will because I'm returning it).

With 24lb bond paper you can only put 20 or so sheets in the tray or it jams and creases the edge of the paper. It curls the pages, not a show-stopper but just another item on the list of things I hate about this printer. The worst part and the straw that broke the camel's back for me is that 24lb bond #10 envelopes fed one at a time through the manual feed slot come out curled, creased and with ghost images of the addresses all across the envelope, totally useless.

I purchased this recently.

I was quite delighted to see how compact it was. The installation was very easy.

The features I really like are: the feeder on top for scanning sheets. My 5-year old loves it since she can scan her 'drawings' and see them on the computer and save in her old 'folder'.

I have received and sent faxes (over Vonage) and was happy to see it work.

The print-outs are sharp and very fast.

I am light-duty home user - about 10-20 pages/week, 5-10 scans/week and an occassional fax.

I have had it for a month now and very happy.

I was very excited to purchase this product to replace my 6-year-old Brother MFC-8300. I wanted networking capabilities that the other one did not offer, but since I was otherwise pleased with how the 8300 performed, I didn't hesitate to look at another Brother. I found I had used the single-slot manual feed on the front of the machine extensively before (especially for envelopes but also for half-sheet printouts) and didn't have much luck finding a good, reasonably-priced printer with this capability in a different brand.

The 7820 was easy to set up and quite customizable. It has a pretty small footprint considering all it can do, and I like that the front areas are black. It's a bit louder than the MFC-8300 was when it's working, but it prints sooo much quicker, quiets down promptly, and finally goes into a sleep mode (silent) soon thereafter.

All that said, there are a few disappointments. The main problem is the paper curling. It seems hit or miss from the reviews I've read, and I seem to be one of the unlucky ones for once. All paper was getting curled: half sheets, full sheets, 20#, 24#, plain, premium.

After a 75-minute call (on hold and back-and-forth customer service and software support transfers), they opted to replace my machine. I thought, great, despite all this work, that's what should be done and they're doing it. However, they waited until the end of the call to tell me they'd be sending a remanufactured unit. Now, I purchased a brand new unit. I opted to spend about $50 more to specifically avoid a remanufactured unit. So, why am I being penalized with a potentially used product? (They could offer no answer but assured me that "not ALL of their remanufactured units are used...some are, but some aren't.")

I received it within about 3 days and just spent over an hour replacing my old unit. End result: MOST of the paper curling is gone. Definitely not all. And half-sheets still curl like crazy. I never had a problem with the MFC-8300. In fact, I've never even heard of this type of problem in other brands that use many roller mechanisms like this does.

(By the way, this remanufactured replacement unit has a much looser auto-document feeder top than my original new one did, and the lower single-slot manual feeder is ridiculously loose--to where any paper inserted into it now prints very crooked. I'm not happy with either of these NEW issues. My original unit was from January 2007, and this replacement is from June 2006. You'd think they'd have figured out the paper curling problem within a 6-month period to update their new machines in time.)

Another issue I don't care for in the 7820N is how the paper is read. Perhaps I'm missing a setting, but single-sheet insertions are read from the right side to the left, rather than typical left to right. Since I print Classic planner pages and I have a print utility that formats a letter-size printout into a half-page printout, I need to be able to insert a half-page into the printer so I don't waste a full letter-size page. I was told by tech support after a lengthy discussion that this printer doesn't support that feature, and I couldn't get him to understand that a software enhancement (to Brother's included software CD) could fix this issue. Instead, he kept referring me to my third-party software company (which incidentally has nothing to do with the problem, as the print utility is specifically made to format "typical" printer capabilities).

These are major issues for me, but if you're in need of an affordable all-in-one for personal use, it's a great little unit. The text is clear for both printouts and copies, and the fax is easy to both send and receive. I haven't tried copying photos or scanning yet. The software interface could be more comprehensive and clearer to use. The quick setup manual is helpful (the layout could be much clearer though than it is), but the main manual is disappointing, as it continually refers to the software manual from the CD for the answers. Tech support left a lot to be desired. Even the exchange instructions are vague and can be easily misinterpreted. Hopefully the pickup and processing of the return will be smoother than support conversations have been so far.

In the end, I have a remanufactured unit that I paid full price for one month earlier:
+ a unit that prints and copies text well
+ faxes flawlessly
+ network-connects flawlessly
- won't easily print onto half sheets of paper without manual configuration before every single printout
- prints crooked from the single-sheet feeder without two ultra-steady hands
- curls paper more than other units

Good overall printer, especially for the price. The manual feed design is poor when compared to HP. You basically need to hold and feed sheets one at a time.

jams all the time, always grabs 2 or 3 pages when it's feeding. you have to watch it like a hawk. Absolute waste of time and money unless you want to audit every fax and copy job page by page to make sure it didn't fee doubles. Horrible machine.

I bought this multi-functional printer to replace my old array of HP LaserJet 6L + AcerScan A640 + Sharp U-100 Fax + D-Link DP300U Print Server. It takes only 1/3 of the space and provides a convenient built-in network capability.

We have three PCs and 1 laptops at home, plus the laptops my wife and I brought home from the offices. We need to be able to print anytime and anywhere at home.

Other than the printing, the most useful function is the copy machine. We used to use the Sharp U-100 plain paper fax as the copy machine. The difference in qualities are so huge that I wonder how we could endure the old fax machine for so long.

The scanner function, although less frequently used, is fast and can produce crispy documents. We do not care about the graphics much so it's definitely good enough.

We only sent and received faxes a couple of times so I cannot say too much. But again, we are satisfied with the document qualities.

We did not have any power-drain problems reported by some reviewers. Maybe it's because of our relatively new purchase that the problems got fixed in the later manufactured batches.

The only short-coming for this compact and convenient machine is that it only comes with black-grey double tones. That does not match too well with my home-office. I wish Brother can provide more choices in color.


Super quality printer; faxes and copies very nicely. Home use for one year now and still doing a great job.

i am not using the fax. but i was a bit disappointed in the scanner software.
I couldn't scan and create pdfs from the software, which i s what i wanted to do.

I was very disappointed with this printer. It worked fine for about a year and a half and then it started to click and paper jam. We took it in the have it serviced and the Brother repair center said it was the drum. We spent $150.00 on a new drum and got it home, plugged it back in and it still clicked and paper jammed all the time. We sent it back to the repair center and they had it for two weeks. They finally found the real problem, one of the paper tray gears malfunctioned, they fixed it and we used it for about 2 months and now it clicks and winds and it paper jams. I would not spend my hard earned money on this product. It was not very reliable and it was frustrating to have spent ~300.00 and have it work for a year. I will probably never buy another Brother product again.

This machine scanned and copied fine, but when we tried to print envelopes there were ghost images everywhere and it kept jamming. When printing regular sheets, it pulls the paper in a way that leaves it with a curl at the edges. Not good if you're trying to print something that is supposed to look professional. The only plus I can give it is its Vista compatible.
I would not recommend this if you're going to use it as a printer.

I primarily bought this 5-in-1 for its printing capabilities. My prints are clean and are processed very quickly when the document hits the print que. The only downside is that while the printer is working, it does make more noise than I expected. Plus, when printing is complete, that background humming noise persists for a few minutes still. I have wireless in my home, so I have taken advantage of using its Ethernet capabilities with my router to print from another laptop. There's just a little lag time between sending the job for print and when the printing actually happens. This is nothing to quibble over. Wireless printouts are just a crisp and clean as when the printer is connected via the USB connection. I have faxed several copies with no problems--even received a few faxes with no problems. I haven't tried the PC fax option yet (no time to read instructions to anything lately). Everything I've done so far has been pretty straightforward--and works very, very well.

I am very much impressed by this machine. The set up was simple and the instructions are good. It has become a real work horse for my home office. Scanning is in color. printing is in B/W only.

Purchased this in February after reading reviews at various places and being assured by Brother that its software was Vista compatible. Needless to say the OCR portion of the software is not compatible. I have tried to get the machine to recognize my own Vista compatible OCR software and it refuses. Sent an email to Brother three weeks ago and still have not received a response. Have tried numerous times since then to send an email to tech support and each time it times out before connecting me to that page to send the email. Scanning to file is extremely slow. It took me over 30 minutes to scan a 18 page letter document to a PDF file. I also emailed Brother about this and no response. My original plans had been to test this machine at home and if satisfactory to begin purchasing them for my company. This will never happen. I had had product problems before, but have always received quick responses from the manufacturer. None have been as lousy as Brother at this. It looks like I will be investing in another multi-function device, but it will not be a Brother.

My office has been very happy with this purchase. It is quick, relatively quiet and absolutely dependable. We used a cheaper. less full featured product from HP before this (an HP All-in-one). Stepping up to the Brother has been a true pleasure, The Brother is a great small office full-time fax solution.

Purchased this in February after reading reviews at various places and being assured by Brother that its software was Vista compatible. Needless to say the OCR portion of the software is not compatible. I have tried to get the machine to recognize my own Vista compatible OCR software and it refuses. Sent an email to Brother three weeks ago and still have not received a response. Have tried numerous times since then to send an email to tech support and each time it times out before connecting me to that page to send the email. Scanning to file is extremely slow. It took me over 30 minutes to scan a 18 page letter document to a PDF file. I also emailed Brother about this and no response. My original plans had been to test this machine at home and if satisfactory to begin purchasing them for my company. This will never happen. I had had product problems before, but have always received quick responses from the manufacturer. None have been as lousy as Brother at this. It looks like I will be investing in another multi-function device, but it will not be a Brother.

My office has been very happy with this purchase. It is quick, relatively quiet and absolutely dependable. We used a cheaper. less full featured product from HP before this (an HP All-in-one). Stepping up to the Brother has been a true pleasure, The Brother is a great small office full-time fax solution.

I am very much impressed by this machine. The set up was simple and the instructions are good. It has become a real work horse for my home office. Scanning is in color. printing is in B/W only.

This machine scanned and copied fine, but when we tried to print envelopes there were ghost images everywhere and it kept jamming. When printing regular sheets, it pulls the paper in a way that leaves it with a curl at the edges. Not good if you're trying to print something that is supposed to look professional. The only plus I can give it is its Vista compatible.
I would not recommend this if you're going to use it as a printer.

I primarily bought this 5-in-1 for its printing capabilities. My prints are clean and are processed very quickly when the document hits the print que. The only downside is that while the printer is working, it does make more noise than I expected. Plus, when printing is complete, that background humming noise persists for a few minutes still. I have wireless in my home, so I have taken advantage of using its Ethernet capabilities with my router to print from another laptop. There's just a little lag time between sending the job for print and when the printing actually happens. This is nothing to quibble over. Wireless printouts are just a crisp and clean as when the printer is connected via the USB connection. I have faxed several copies with no problems--even received a few faxes with no problems. I haven't tried the PC fax option yet (no time to read instructions to anything lately). Everything I've done so far has been pretty straightforward--and works very, very well.

i am not using the fax. but i was a bit disappointed in the scanner software.
I couldn't scan and create pdfs from the software, which i s what i wanted to do.

I was very disappointed with this printer. It worked fine for about a year and a half and then it started to click and paper jam. We took it in the have it serviced and the Brother repair center said it was the drum. We spent $150.00 on a new drum and got it home, plugged it back in and it still clicked and paper jammed all the time. We sent it back to the repair center and they had it for two weeks. They finally found the real problem, one of the paper tray gears malfunctioned, they fixed it and we used it for about 2 months and now it clicks and winds and it paper jams. I would not spend my hard earned money on this product. It was not very reliable and it was frustrating to have spent ~300.00 and have it work for a year. I will probably never buy another Brother product again.

Super quality printer; faxes and copies very nicely. Home use for one year now and still doing a great job.

I bought this multi-functional printer to replace my old array of HP LaserJet 6L + AcerScan A640 + Sharp U-100 Fax + D-Link DP300U Print Server. It takes only 1/3 of the space and provides a convenient built-in network capability.

We have three PCs and 1 laptops at home, plus the laptops my wife and I brought home from the offices. We need to be able to print anytime and anywhere at home.

Other than the printing, the most useful function is the copy machine. We used to use the Sharp U-100 plain paper fax as the copy machine. The difference in qualities are so huge that I wonder how we could endure the old fax machine for so long.

The scanner function, although less frequently used, is fast and can produce crispy documents. We do not care about the graphics much so it's definitely good enough.

We only sent and received faxes a couple of times so I cannot say too much. But again, we are satisfied with the document qualities.

We did not have any power-drain problems reported by some reviewers. Maybe it's because of our relatively new purchase that the problems got fixed in the later manufactured batches.

The only short-coming for this compact and convenient machine is that it only comes with black-grey double tones. That does not match too well with my home-office. I wish Brother can provide more choices in color.


Good overall printer, especially for the price. The manual feed design is poor when compared to HP. You basically need to hold and feed sheets one at a time.

jams all the time, always grabs 2 or 3 pages when it's feeding. you have to watch it like a hawk. Absolute waste of time and money unless you want to audit every fax and copy job page by page to make sure it didn't fee doubles. Horrible machine.

I bought this for a job hunt figuring I could print out some nice resumes and envelopes and use the fax for communication. I haven't used the fax yet (and never will because I'm returning it).

With 24lb bond paper you can only put 20 or so sheets in the tray or it jams and creases the edge of the paper. It curls the pages, not a show-stopper but just another item on the list of things I hate about this printer. The worst part and the straw that broke the camel's back for me is that 24lb bond #10 envelopes fed one at a time through the manual feed slot come out curled, creased and with ghost images of the addresses all across the envelope, totally useless.

I purchased this recently.

I was quite delighted to see how compact it was. The installation was very easy.

The features I really like are: the feeder on top for scanning sheets. My 5-year old loves it since she can scan her 'drawings' and see them on the computer and save in her old 'folder'.

I have received and sent faxes (over Vonage) and was happy to see it work.

The print-outs are sharp and very fast.

I am light-duty home user - about 10-20 pages/week, 5-10 scans/week and an occassional fax.

I have had it for a month now and very happy.

I was very excited to purchase this product to replace my 6-year-old Brother MFC-8300. I wanted networking capabilities that the other one did not offer, but since I was otherwise pleased with how the 8300 performed, I didn't hesitate to look at another Brother. I found I had used the single-slot manual feed on the front of the machine extensively before (especially for envelopes but also for half-sheet printouts) and didn't have much luck finding a good, reasonably-priced printer with this capability in a different brand.

The 7820 was easy to set up and quite customizable. It has a pretty small footprint considering all it can do, and I like that the front areas are black. It's a bit louder than the MFC-8300 was when it's working, but it prints sooo much quicker, quiets down promptly, and finally goes into a sleep mode (silent) soon thereafter.

All that said, there are a few disappointments. The main problem is the paper curling. It seems hit or miss from the reviews I've read, and I seem to be one of the unlucky ones for once. All paper was getting curled: half sheets, full sheets, 20#, 24#, plain, premium.

After a 75-minute call (on hold and back-and-forth customer service and software support transfers), they opted to replace my machine. I thought, great, despite all this work, that's what should be done and they're doing it. However, they waited until the end of the call to tell me they'd be sending a remanufactured unit. Now, I purchased a brand new unit. I opted to spend about $50 more to specifically avoid a remanufactured unit. So, why am I being penalized with a potentially used product? (They could offer no answer but assured me that "not ALL of their remanufactured units are used...some are, but some aren't.")

I received it within about 3 days and just spent over an hour replacing my old unit. End result: MOST of the paper curling is gone. Definitely not all. And half-sheets still curl like crazy. I never had a problem with the MFC-8300. In fact, I've never even heard of this type of problem in other brands that use many roller mechanisms like this does.

(By the way, this remanufactured replacement unit has a much looser auto-document feeder top than my original new one did, and the lower single-slot manual feeder is ridiculously loose--to where any paper inserted into it now prints very crooked. I'm not happy with either of these NEW issues. My original unit was from January 2007, and this replacement is from June 2006. You'd think they'd have figured out the paper curling problem within a 6-month period to update their new machines in time.)

Another issue I don't care for in the 7820N is how the paper is read. Perhaps I'm missing a setting, but single-sheet insertions are read from the right side to the left, rather than typical left to right. Since I print Classic planner pages and I have a print utility that formats a letter-size printout into a half-page printout, I need to be able to insert a half-page into the printer so I don't waste a full letter-size page. I was told by tech support after a lengthy discussion that this printer doesn't support that feature, and I couldn't get him to understand that a software enhancement (to Brother's included software CD) could fix this issue. Instead, he kept referring me to my third-party software company (which incidentally has nothing to do with the problem, as the print utility is specifically made to format "typical" printer capabilities).

These are major issues for me, but if you're in need of an affordable all-in-one for personal use, it's a great little unit. The text is clear for both printouts and copies, and the fax is easy to both send and receive. I haven't tried copying photos or scanning yet. The software interface could be more comprehensive and clearer to use. The quick setup manual is helpful (the layout could be much clearer though than it is), but the main manual is disappointing, as it continually refers to the software manual from the CD for the answers. Tech support left a lot to be desired. Even the exchange instructions are vague and can be easily misinterpreted. Hopefully the pickup and processing of the return will be smoother than support conversations have been so far.

In the end, I have a remanufactured unit that I paid full price for one month earlier:
+ a unit that prints and copies text well
+ faxes flawlessly
+ network-connects flawlessly
- won't easily print onto half sheets of paper without manual configuration before every single printout
- prints crooked from the single-sheet feeder without two ultra-steady hands
- curls paper more than other units

Very reasonable price, has all the features you probably want, the Vista drivers really work - unlike the competitive HP product, less bulky then the HP, easy to configure ....
cons. only comes with a starter cartridge.

I purchased a Brother MFC-7820 printer about 2 years ago, and have been so pleased that I just got another, the MFC-7820N, for my daughter. I love these printers for their print quality, print speed, reliability and copy/scan/fax features. The consumables are also on the less-expensive side, compared to other brands. The MFC-7820 or MFC-7820N would also be quite suitable for a small business. For Linux and UNIX users, CUPS drivers for these printers can be downloaded from a Brother website.

After major pain with HP (vivera inks are not water resistant!?!?) I ordered this Brother. Wow, what a difference.

They claim 30 pages a minute, I get 30 pages a minute (unlike my HP's which crawl along at whatever my computer's spare cycles allow.

The output is beautiful, the scans and copies are perfect.

All in all the best laserjet I have ever owned.

Easy installation, relatively small footprint, fast print & copy, excellent scan images, very economical.

This replaced by HP 3015, which lacked Vista drivers and I've been impressed so far. It's drivers, footprint and speed all seem superior to the HP. No issues after about 2 weeks of use including no issue with power consumption.

I searched for an all-in-one for several months and debated buying a high-end (by price) HP, but the user reviews were p