Brother MFC-8820D Laser Printer, Copier, Scanner, Fax – Customer Reviews

... and I've seen lots.After getting burned (very badly) by a Sharp AL-1641CS, the Brother 8820D was a wonderful experience.

• The five-line dot matrix LCD screen is essential -- a device without it is going to be very, very hard to use.
  
• The toner cartridge has a refill port on it (although Brother tells you not to use it)
  
• The interesting "top heavy" design looks a bit strange, but comes in very handy when you realize that you can put the small footprint all the way at the edge of a table/desk.
  
• The printer and ADF mechanisms appear to be quite heavy duty -- probably only one step below the HP 8100 (which IMHO, is the pinnacle of modern super-rugged office machinery)
  
• Color fidelity on the scanner is very good; better than most multifunction devices.
  
• The ADF is unbelievably fast when you scan at 100dpi grayscale -- I'm guessing here, but it must be in excess of 60 pages per minute.Paper literally flies through it.Color scans are much slower, but still quite reasonable.
  
• BROTHER SUPPORTS MACS
  
• BROTHER SUPPORTS LINUX
  
• Unlike one of the other reviewers, I've found that the device scans to within 3mm of all margins -- I just did a test run and it was within 1mm of most of the margins.I'm sort of amazed that it can get this close.I think part of this is that it doesn't use the same part of the flatbed glass for ADF scanning that it uses for flatbed scanning -- there's a special separate strip of glass that curves downward to help the paper feed more evenly.
  
• Very sharp, high quality output.
  
• This printer has a real CPU in it with a generous amount of memory.Nothing is more frustrating than shelling out for a device only to realize that its ability to act as a printer was a complete afterthought, and that it chokes whenever you try to print anything too complex (cough, cough, Sharp, cough).
  

• Paper curls a bit after printing, although every compact laser printer has this problem (due to high-temperature fusers).The paper generally flattens out after 5-10 minutes.
  
• The mac scanner driver causes Image Capture to crash if you try to use the ADF.This is pretty annoying.Other than this, the drivers are excellent -- unobtrusive, simple, and reliable.The bundled software is a steaming pile, but that's true of nearly every hardware product.
  
• It only holds half a ream of paper (250 sheets), so you're always left with these torn-open half-empty reams lying around.Unfortunately the second input tray (so you can put two half-reams in) is unjustifiably expensive.
  
• No postscript support.
  

10/22/2005 12:00 AM | Rating:

This device is perfect for our needs for copying and printing. The laser quality is terrific and it prints much faster than similar ink jet models. The printer connected to the home network right away and both our Windows and OS X computers were able to print. The browser-based printer configuration over the network is really nice. The paper feed on the top never jams or rotates the page. This multifunction device is a great value.

I wish that I could comment on the scanner abilities except that neighter the Windows or OS X TWAIN drivers work. I've submitted a request for help twice over the past two weeks from Brother's online support page and have not received a response. It sounds like other people have very limited success with Brother's phone support. I have doubts that this company is willing to resolve issues that people have with their products. Be prepared to return the device if all functions don't completely work right out of the box.

3/16/2004 12:00 AM | Rating:

I spent several full days researching what laser printer to buy.Printers, multifunctions, copier/printers, etc., I looked at them all.This is the best deal on the market.The printing, scanning, faxing and copying are all easy and flawless.The software is even adequate (not great, but fully-functional and easy to use).Although the printer does use a lot of electricity when it kicks on, it isn't that noticable other than a very, very slight and momentary dimming of the lights.

I looked at the HP and the Canon and this is better.The toner is cheaper, there are more features and it is of better quality.It even feels more solid than the other brands of laser multifunctions.I've had the product for about a week and I'm thrilled with it.It is MUCH better than my Canon inkjet MultiPass F80 and little HP laser printer.

I didn't think I would write one of these reviews about a printer, but this one is that good.

2/13/2004 12:00 AM | Rating: