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Brother MFC-3820CN

REVIEW DATE:  11.25.03

  • Product: Brother MFC-3820CN
  • Street price: $230
  • Requires: Microsoft Windows 98, Me, 2000, or XP; Mac OS 8.6–9.2, OS X (Version 10.1 or later); USB port or network connection.
  • Company Info: Brother International Corp., 800-284-4329, www.brother.com

    •  3.0 out of 5.0

      2.0 out of 5.0

    discuss  Total posts: 1

    buy it here $230.00

    Brother MFC-3820CN

    Enlarge

    by M. David Stone

    The Brother MFC-3820CN is one of just two MFPs in this roundup that incorporates every MFP function we list above. (The other is the Canon MultiPass MP730.) The Brother printer is also one of two that have built-in Ethernet connectivity in addition to the USB port we used for testing. (The other is the HP PSC 2510 Photosmart All-In-One, which offers wireless, though at nearly twice the price.) Both let you print, scan, and fax over a network.

    The MFC-3820CN's front panel has a numeric keypad and lots of buttons for copying, faxing, scanning, printing photos, and using the LCD menu system. You'll also find an ADF and memory card slots for CompactFlash, Memory Stick, Secure Digital, and SmartMedia formats, along with menu commands to let you print an index sheet and individual photos.

    Setup is straightforward: Snap in the four ink cartridges, then run a manual alignment step. Installing the software is also easy but takes a notably long time.

    Among the manufacturers here, Brother is the relative newcomer to ink jet printing, and the MFC-3820CN's print quality scores were on the low side on our 10-point scale. That said, the output is good enough for most purposes, be it color brochures or photos of a vacation to France. The only issue worth mentioning is that in default mode, colors on plain copier paper are less saturated than they should be, yielding a pastel look. For handouts, you'll want to upgrade to one of the higher-quality ink jet papers Brother recommends.

    Our test scans showed some artifacts. These barely show onscreen at 100 percent view, but they are obvious if you zoom much closer. The scanner is good enough for capturing documents and images, but it's not ideal for archiving photos.

    Whatever this MFP loses on quality, it makes up for in speed. The overall speed on our performance suite (17 minutes 36 seconds) is the second fastest for this group. It also turned in the third-fastest speed for printing from Photoshop.

    Ultimately, the MFC-3820CN is not the MFP for high-quality scans or the best possible photo output. But for home and small-office users, it's a good choice. More important, it's a good value for the price, especially if you need a full-featured MFP and the ability to work over a network.

     MEMBER RATINGS Rate it Yourself 

    steve1600
    Member rating: 
    March 12, 2007
    With the constant print head cleaning it's almost like brother is in the business of selling ink rather that printers. Received the infamous error 41 yesterday, 1 month out of warranty. The part was $40.00 plus labor so forget having it repaired. Though I am happy for most of Brother products, this is not one of them. Spend a little more and buy laser!

    kalo555
    Member rating: 
    February 14, 2007
    Enjoyed it for the first couple months. Error 41 required the printer head to be replaced(recalled). A few months later had to have printer head replaced again. Constant paper jams. Constant cleaning cycles will drive you insane. Goes through ink incredibly fast. If one cartridge is empty cannot print anything..ex if out of cyan, cant print black text. Must make many attempts to print one task. As I speak, have spent 45 min trying to print one page. Have to constantly open and close cover and wait for cleaning cycle. I will keep it so I have a fax machine..although it wont print confirmations...looking for something else. Waste of time and money.

    BayAreaBookkeeping
    Member rating: 
    December 28, 2006
    I bought the original machine in '04 and had the error 41 within the first year. They replaced it with a refurbished machine, which lasted 2 years until a got the error 41 again. This time its not covered under warranty & will cost a min of $85 to repair. You would think that with so many complaints about the error 41 there would be a recall.

    tdelnero
    Member rating: 
    June 16, 2006
    I didn't own mine for a year before I was struck with the "machine error code 41". I then started to read other reviews, obviously too late. I won't ever purchase another Brother product, now that I know they will still sell them knowing their product has a guaranteed fatal error. It wouldn't be worth my time if Brother paid me to use it.

    TBK
    Member rating: 
    January 13, 2006
    I bought this and it has a Machine Error 41. The only way to fix it is to call Brother. They sent me a refurbished one for the new one I bought and gave me 3 month warranty on this refurbished one. It failed again with the same error. I have to throw it away because the refurbished one had only 3 months warranty. I won't buy a Brother printer ever again.

    joeabecker
    Member rating: 
    December 31, 2005
    I rate this product pretty good for overall capability and small footprint. Good copying capability in black. Software makes scanning easy and it seems adequate. Easy faxing and works OK. Color capabilites are poor, but I use an Epson for photo quality. Black printing is adequate for an ink jet. I'd recommend and use a laser for high quality and volume. Bought this refurbished from Fry's Electronics for $59, so if anything goes wrong, I'll just toss it.

    Blaqueness
    Member rating: 
    November 5, 2005
    This printer is not worth the money. Its scanning ability is non-existent. When you scan a picture, you get horizontal lines in the image, and the color is dull, off. When you print pictures or documents, even in the highest quality you get horizontal lines through the document. Its photo capture ports are very slow. Uploading pictures to your PC takes a year and a century. Another stupid thing is that if one of the ink cartridges are empty, the machine won't print, even in gray-scale. The only thing that works okay is the Fax machine. The LAN is slow too. I only bought this because my Quote un-quote extra helpful friend convinced me to by it. I wanted to by stand alone units, but I guess my friend was trying to help me save money, when in fact I have to shell out more to buy the original stand alone units that I wanted initially, plus this piece of crap I already bought......... I'm so mad that I bought this machine.

    tekgeek
    Member rating: 
    October 10, 2005
    I wanted an MFC with built-in network for a home office with light printing volume. The MFC-3820CN fits my needs. It produces fair quality print-outs for office documents in S-FINE mode, but poor quality for pictures. Half of the time, I would have to ask people to refax docs again since this machine would have the tendencies to stop printing the bottom half of the fax page. Never used the card readers so no comments on this. RELIABILITY is by far the biggest disappointment and deciding factor that I would NEVER buy another Brother MFC, although others had fore-warned me. The 1st unit went down at month 10th with a "machine error code 41". Brother replaced it under warranty with a refurbished unit. Well, 4 months later, the yellow quits printing on the refurb'd unit, and within a week, it also bites the dust with the same error code 41. I haven't called Brother cuz the unit is out of wrnty. I'll shop for a different brand MFC to replace this one. May be an HP or Canon. I had an HP560C printer for 8 yrs, and this thing didn't break on me.

    paxtonc
    Member rating: 
    April 18, 2005
    Great features & price ($160). But at 14 months, yellow quits. No user replacable print heads, so it's back to the service center, w/ a min $85 charge.

    cjm1219
    Member rating: 
    March 16, 2005
    When I saw this on the shelf at Office Depot ... I was impressed with this machine ... fax, color copier, network capable, scanner. And, great price. I'm in a private office ... I'm the only one using this machine. But, just two months after the 1-year warrantee runs out ... it's in the shop (and to make matters worse, only one Brothers-approved service company in our city). I guess the jury is still out ... but, with the small amount of volume that machine has gone through in 1-year ... and the good care I've given it ... I'm disappointed that it's in need of repair already!
     
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