The Brother MFC-3820CN is a no-nonsense AIO that offers full functionality at a affordable price.Brother's MFC-3820CN is a feature-packed multifunction complete with everything from an automatic document feeder (ADF) to networking support. What really makes this unit shine is its AU$499 price tag. That said, with the affordable price, it's easy to brush aside this unit for one that will surely produce low-quality prints, copies and scans along with sluggish speeds. Therefore, it comes as a pleasant surprise that the results turned out much better than anticipated.
Like most office-oriented AIOs (All-In-Ones), the MFC-3820CN arrives with a plain but functional design. The usual keypads, controls and basic LCD are sited on the front lip of the unit, while the ADF rests neatly on top of the flatbed scanner. Similar to HP's recent makes, the memory card slots are located near the bottom of the unit. Unfortunately, unlike the print giant, Brother has support for only four of the more common formats--SmartMedia, CompactFlash, Memory Stick and Secure Digital.
Our only gripe over the MFC-3820CN's design is its implementation of the scanner's paper guide. While just about every manufacturer chooses one corner for users to align their originals, this Brother expects the user to align the media with respect to letter-size paper. This won't be a problem if all your company uses is letter-size media, but for the majority of us in this region--where A4-size paper is the de-facto standard--be prepared to spend some additional time aligning the media if you want perfect copies. Thankfully, the problem is alleviated slightly with the unit's ADF.
Like most devices these days, setting up the MFC-3820CN is not much of a challenge. Included is a comprehensive startup guide detailing steps and instructions that are easy to follow. The software installation program is also logical and simple to understand. The only peculiarity arises when you try to align the printheads. The software driver has no provisions for this and you'll have to mess with the onboard controls to do so.
To install the cartridges, the Brother flips open as you would the hood of a car. There's a fair bit of room to work with so users with large hands will not have any difficulty doing so. Taking a cue from the bigger manufacturers, the Japanese firm also incorporates individual ink cartridges for the AIO.
The MFC-3820CN produced respectable scores in our speed tests with reasonable quality. This AIO finished our 10-page test in 147 seconds or approximately 4.1 pages per minute. As the MFC-3820CN is an office-oriented machine, it doesn't support "borderless" A4-sized photo outputs. Still, the Brother provides two photo printing settings. You can pick between outputs with three or four colours in photo mode. Printing with three colours was 4.5 minutes faster but pictures did not exhibit true black. Four-color, high-quality photo prints took about 13 minutes and pictures were noticeably more pleasing.
In terms of quality, the results were mixed. Text prints were generally clean and legible to 2.5pt font size. However, photos tended to lose some of the blues. Graphics also generated some dithering although the results were mostly acceptable.
Scanning, printing or copying on the MFC-3820CN can be done easily. On the front panel, clearly labelled buttons give users one-touch access to scan, copy and fax. The scanner and copier of the Brother also did fairly well with regard to colour fidelity--although colour matching was a problem as with most units. The AIO did not produce washed-out colours when copying, which was commendable. Copying an A4-size photo took a rather acceptable 4.5 minutes but the results showed visible dithering. The other aspect that Brother had overlooked was the design of the scanner cover. The top was not double-hinged, so scanning or copying of books posed a bit of a problem.
When it came to multiple prints, the MFC-3820 did fairly well. Not surprisingly, the ADF helped copy speeds remain decent. It took about 3.5 minutes to copy 10 sheets which was reasonable. As we expected, copies of photos took longer and needed about 4.5 minutes for high-quality prints.
In all, we think the MFC-3820CN is certainly a capable unit. It may be a little rough around the edges, but for most tasks the Brother's reasonable speed and quality should be up to par. If "borderless" printing is not on your list of requirements, the MFC-3820CN should prove a compelling buy given its well-rounded feature set and competitive pricing.
Brother MFC-3820CN
Company: Brother Australia
Price: AU$499
Distributor: Selected resellers
Phone: 02 9887 4344
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i went to cworld.com.au to buy this model but they have short, but i am surprised to see the price difference , they are saling on $396/- while u have priced for sale $499/-why?
they promised to be available next week.