Brother MFC-L2820DW Wireless Compact Monochrome All-in-One Laser Printer with Copy, Scan and Fax, Duplex, Black & White | Includes Refresh Subscription Trial(1), Works with Alexa by Brother

Several years ago I switched from Brother printers to Canon. This piece of junk reminds me why. When I needed to replace the Canon that had served me quite well for 6 yrs (prior Canon lasted 5), it was for cosmetic reasons; printer still worked. This time Canons with features I need were all too large and heavy. So I took a chance on Brother. How bad could it be, right? Answer: VERY bad.

My main requirement for a printer, besides the obvious, is an ADF. Other lasers I saw with that feature were bulky and heavy. The Brother came and no wonder it was so light. It looked and felt like a toy. I’d say it performed like a toy, but it would have to improve to garner that much credit.

First, who the #!%$&* thought it would be a good idea to design a printer that requires user to go in BACK of the printer to clear a paper jam?! Every office I’ve ever worked in, every home office I’ve ever had, printers are against a wall. I have yet to see one sitting in the middle of a room. For certain types of jams, I have to pull printer out about a foot or so, turn printer around, then clear the jam.

WHY MUST I REPEATEDLY HAVE TO “RECOVER” WIRELESS CONNECTION? No such thing as a quick print job–at least not the first print job of the day. I never turn off the printer, but do turn off my PC every night. Next day, every day, I have to go into printer settings, choose “Recover WLAN,” wait about 5-10 minutes for document to print. I’ve learned to fix breakfast while it warms up, wakes up, or whatever it’s doing all that time.

Those are the biggies. More minor annoyances: Screen doesn’t stay lit. Very strange defaults, some of which I still don’t know how to disable or change–assuming that’s even possible. I’ve used printers for 25+ years. I’ve had Epson, HP, Canon; Canon being best, but all were ready to go once set up–and stayed ready till they gave out. My 1998 printers were better than this Brother.

Okay, so will it print from my phone or tablet? Yes, both. But that doesn’t make up for its many inadequacies.
Scan? Yes. Adequate I suppose.
Fax? I’ve had no reason to try that.

Obviously, I DO NOT RECOMMEND this Brother printer.

This thing is an incredible printer. It spits out B&W pages within about 2 seconds a page. It does double sided printing and copying as well. It uses a lot less ink than cheaper printers. In fact, switching from a cheap printer saved me more money in ink than the price of the printer.

That said, my only issue with this is the scanning. I wish I would have spent the extra $50 for the next level upgrade. The scanning works but it’s one single page at a time. You have to scan each page separately on the scanner bed. This makes absolutely no sense as there is a feed tray on top for copying where the pages are scanned. But the scanning is quick, you can do it with one button and you don’t need to create a login or account to scan like you do with HP printers.

Il est très bon comme produit. Longtemps hésité mais je ne regrette pas mon choix

The Brother MFC-L2820DW is a great all-in-one printer for black and white printing. It’s fast, easy to set up, and prints sharp documents.

Scanning and copying work well too, and it connects to Wi-Fi without issues. If you just need a solid printer for everyday use at home or in a small office, this one works great.

It arrived quickly and was packaged well.

Nice printer! Especially at the price point I bought it for. Does everything I need, and prints beautifully. Only downside is that it’s a bit noisy, but for the savings and quality I’m good with it. Have used HP for many, many years, but their prices are climbing and they won’t let you use non-HP toner any longer. I refuse to pay $80 for a toner cartridge! Brother allows non-Brother toner cartridges and still works great.