Brother MFC-7820N Toner Cartridges

Brother MFC-7820N Printer Review

The Brother MFC-7820N is a monochrome laser printer with multifunction capabilities, designed for the small networked office environment. Its wide array of features for the price makes it a very appealing choice, but small capacities may limit growing offices. Small offices have generally the same needs of a larger office, the ability to print, scan, copy, and fax. What small offices lack is usually space and budget for multiple devices to accomplish these all of these tasks. A multifunction laser printer is designed to fit these needs in an affordable, compact package.

The MFC-7820N has the ability to print, scan, copy, and fax, like the more expensive Brother MFC-9420 toner printer. All of these features are very well-implemented and compliment each other quite nicely. The MFC-7820N's faxing capabilities are a bit more robust than the average multifunction device, as Brother included a full keypad and a number of dedicated buttons for faxing functionality on the control panel of the unit. Users who rely heavily on sending and receiving faxes for their business needs will appreciate this attention to detail.

Scanning is another highlight of the unit. Documents can be scanned at resolutions up to 2400 dpi, and color scanning is possible, despite the fact that the unit only supports monochrome printing. Scans can be sent to email or directly to a computer on the network. Scanning can be done with the unit's flatbed scanner or the automatic document feeder, which can hold up to 35 pages at once.

Built-in ethernet connectivity makes the MFC-7820N easy to connect and share across a network of users, but too many users on the network may begin to hit the limit of the unit's paper and toner capacities. Print speed is 20 pages per minute, a very impressive speed for the price. Print quality is very good, especially for text, and graphics quality is good enough for day-to-day use.

The printer is shipped with a starter Brother MFC-7820N toner cartridge that only has a 1,500 page capacity. Such a small capacity Brother toner cartridge in a printer with network capabilities will have to be replaced fairly quickly. The replacement Brother MFC-7820N toner has a more reasonable capacity of 2,500 pages, so later replacements will be less frequent.

Overall, the Brother MFC-7820N has a lot to offer for an affordable price, reasonably priced toner cartridges and very compact size. Network sharing is easy to setup, and multifunction features all work well.