Customer Reviews

Brother DCP-7020 Laser Digital Copier/Printer

5 star:		(54)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

I almost never write a review, but the forest of multi-functions is so thick and I am so impressed by my Brother DCP-7020 that I figure I ought to share my personal view of this tremendous small office/home-office machine.

I spent weeks researching and testing multi-functions, going back and forth among Brother, HP, Sharp, Xerox, Canon, and others. What a nightmare, sorting out and comparing all the rival features!

My own needs were straight-forward: truly excellent, professional-looking B&W laser printing and copying capability; reliable paper-path routing with few or no jams; able to handle periodic high volume and otherwise steady daily use; large paper tray capacity; reliable Auto Document Feeder; handy and roomy output tray; acceptable color as well as B&W scanning; and reasonably priced laser supplies that have a reasonably high volume capacity.

While I had no need for fax or networking, I might have taken either or both if the quality of the more important features I sought warranted the extra price. I also was hoping for a stand-alone copying capability, just to give me more flexibility in office machinery since I also have a Brother HL-5150DLT (which is a tremendous stand-alone printer, by the way!)

Several times I almost decided on the Sharp AL-1641CS or its equivalent at Canon and Xerox. My initial misgivings about the latest Brother multifunction machines came down to three things: I was concerned about a few reports of modest paper curling; I was nervous about the paper output slot which seemed at first glance kind of puny and inconveniently located at the inside front, rather than outside to the side, of the machine; and the Brother multi-function machines somehow didn't look to me quite as robust or strong as some of their competitors, at least as they sat on the store shelf.

Repeated testing in multiple stores convinced me that the Brother DCP-7020 was the most likely to meet my needs at an initial price (and also a lower laser cartridge supplies price) so substantially less than the Sharp or equivalents that I decided to 'chance' it, as I thought. It turned out far, far better than I had hoped.

This is a GREAT workhorse machine that takes up substantially less work space and yet turns out excellent laser printing and/or copying with sharp, professional-looking text. Reliable, smooth paper handling with no paper jams to speak of (other than one deliberately caused for testing, which was very easily cleared). Superior copying capability (stand-alone or attached to a computer.) And, though not my top priority, very good scanning as well, supported by excellent, intuitive software.

The earlier review and product descriptions you can read at Amazon.com are accurate. This machine is awesome; the best buy for the money you will find, unless you need faxing capability or color printing in your multi-function. As for my original misgivings, here's my experience:

(1) Paper curling. Not a problem! The paper curling reports are true but greatly exaggerated. Very, very minor curling occurs (probably due to the extreme heat needed for any laser printing), but the paper flattens quickly as it cools and in a minute or so you won't even know it had a slight curl as it emerged from the machine.

(2) Output tray. Not a problem! True, the output slot at the front of the machine looks a little inconvenient or insubstantial, but that turns out to be a mirage, probably because we are so accustomed to expecting to see a bulky exterior separate output tray. The Brother DCP-7020 output tray actually is an innovation. It works perfectly and can hold up to 100 pages, no problem. Lift the lid below the copier and you will see you have access to the entire output tray in all its glory.

(3) The wrong-est I was in my initial misgivings was in thinking that visually the Brother DCP-7020 looked somehow more fragile, or less robust, than the Sharp or similar competitors. It may look that way, but in reality it is every bit as much a workhorse machine as its equivalent competitors. The DCP-7020 is a strong, muscular, and reliable machine. Just a much smaller footprint and at half the price.

Although not my own top priority, I've also been very pleasantly surprised at how good the scanning function is. A couple of reviewers here and there on the web grumble about this, but I found the Brother DCP-7020 scanning function and quality does at least well with color photos as any other $200-$400 scanner I've used, and far better than most of them. The text recognition software is far superior to what most well known competing brands use. And the scanner control panel is very intuitive with good defaults and ample opportunity to easily customize. I've wound up putting my 1 year old $400 HP scanner in the attic.)

I unhesitatingly recommend the Brother DCP-7020. It is everything I wanted in a B&W laser printer/copier/scanner -- and more! -- at half the price of the competition.

Afterword about Brother support: For those concerned about tech support, there is good, and bad, and more good news -- but REALLY good news if you pay attention to what I have to say here.

1. Good news: Brother's toll-free number you can call in an emergency usually leads you to a live English-speaking person who isn't in India or Sri-Lanka or some other Exploited-Labor-of-the-Month hell hole.

2. Bad news: Like the infamous Indian "tech support" people we all know and loath, you probably will get an American who is mostly clueless other than they've been trained to read the manuals. If you haven't read the manual yourself, they can be a kind of "aural" manual and walk you through a few quick fixes. If you know the manual and those fixes haven't worked, go to the next point below.

3. More good news: If you have time to e-mail or call Brother support and ask specifically for a truly knowledgeable tech person to contact you, in a day or at most two you will wind up being called by a REAL expert who will take the time to answer all of your questions patiently and in depth. These people know what they're doing. They're honest and knowledgeable. They are the way tech support used to be, once upon a time.

Overall, I'm amazed with this printer. I've only used it for a few weeks, but I've already printed a few hundred pages in various sized jobs, and installed it on multiple machines across platforms.

The Good:
-Very fast startup
-Very fast printing
-The printing is very detailed, even for a laser printer.
-Good OCR (optical character recognition) software. I tested this on small grey text from the back of a bank statement.
-Very little page curling
-Once connected to a computer, shared printing is a snap.
-The output area, embedded in the machine itself, is very sturdy

The Bad:
-No automatic duplexing
-Windows oriented documentation
-Somewhat loud
-The scanning is slow, although typical with my experience.
-Limited use if connected directly to a network router / airport express (i.e. no scanner)
-Not appropriate for high volume printing. The volume specifications are on the Brother website, but they don't mention that the output area is only an inch or so tall.

More Details:
As a Macintosh user, I thought that the software was horrible. It installs a bunch of weird files and folders in your applications folder. I spent a ton of time trying to install the printer. However, if you follow the advice below it should only take you about 5-10 minutes.

As far as I can tell, the drivers from the Brother website work just as well in place of the software on the CD. The printer drivers and the scanner drivers are separate, and the scanner driver is labeled "TWAIN" driver. Unfortunately, the OCR software is only on the CD.

Photo scanning - I had good luck with one photo, and bad luck with the other. I suspect that you could tune the settings better if you knew what you were doing, since there are many options.

The documentation is totally wrong in places, even in the short "quick setup" guide. I called tech support and got through to a person quickly. They were somewhat brief and surly, but they were US based (if that's important to you).

FYI: The Brother website is useful for research. It's accurate and detailed, and good for side-by-side comparisons. Unfortunately, limit of only comparing four printers at a time forced me to copy the results to Excel.

I wrote this detailed, independent review because I had a hard time believing the other reviews when I was making my decision (especially since the some reviewers hadn't posted many other reviews). I figured that high quality laser performance was impossible at this price, but I have to confess the good reviews are highly accurate.

EDIT: It's been more than years now, and I am still totally happy with this machine. Works perfectly for my needs.

I noticed a negative review by Paul Robinson. His review is very well written and accurate, but the issues he raises just didn't matter to me. For example book photocopying is good enough for my needs (and I won't pay for Kinkos). I'm sure there are better all-in-one laser printers, but I couldn't find one two years ago for about $200, and I'm glad I don't have to look again.

One more thing, if you're sharing through a mac, download Bonjour printer wizard for windows, and your windows machine will be able to easily print to the mac when it's shared and turned on.

I agree with the review above by "On The Level". My wife has copied school papers on this machine continuously since we got it. It appears to be tough as nails.

We bought two full-sized toner cartridges in addition to the starter cartridge. Each of them reported low toner and stopped copying with about half the toner still left! For a while, I switched cartridges to fool the machine, but even that did not work. The ink cartridge has two small circular windows in the sides. The machine shines a light through the cartridge to see how much toner is left. The holes are not at the bottom of the cartridge! The light can get through when lots of toner is left.

I put a piece of black tape over the hole in side of the carrier for the cartridge. This keeps the sensor light from entering the cartridge, and makes the machine think there is plenty of toner. Works like a charm. With this fix, I am very happy with the machine.

This copier has worked well for me.
Advantages:
1. Space saving design
2. Fast Printing
3. good scanner
4. Easy to use
5. Really like the automatic feeder!
6. Good value

Disadvantages
1. Some paper curling
2. Not compatible with some programs (Office Mate Optometry program)

Overall, VERY pleased.

I've only had the machine for a few weeks and haven't used its scanner yet, but it's printing and photocopying are top-notch. They really figred out how to engineer the thing to take up the least amount of room possible. One caveat - when manually feeding in paper (as you must do for labels, e.g.) be very careful about the margins. The device (plastic thingamabob) that's supposed to help you put the paper in straight and in the right place moves very easily (cheaply made). But if you pay attention (I didn't until it was too late), it's controllable. I think for the price it's unbeatable (once again for actual printing and photocopying it's perfect).

This is a GREAT product I would like to call. I especially like the auto feed function and PaperPort software for scanning. You can scan up to 35 pages each time and save these pages as a single document using the PaperPort software. You can also scan double sides for many pages each time. The software will automatically arrange the pages for you in a right way. You can also straiten each page after each scanning. The copier and printer are easy operated and work very well for me. Every function is extremely user friendly, including the USB cable. I think this is one of the best investment I have made so far if this machine can last longer than 3 years.

Extremely fast shipping, only took me one day for waiting.

My purpose of writing this review is let others know this great product and appreciate the efforts this company have put on this product. I also want to correct one misunderstanding by others: this machine CAN scan multiple pages and save it as a single document using PaperPort Software.

I run a small business and this printer has been incredible. The print quality and speed of the machine is good for the price. The copy quality is great and no longer have to go to Kinkos or Postal Annex to make copies. I think the best feature is the sheet feeder tray which allows me to scan multiple page documents easily. While some reviews have stated that they have had technical problems, I have had no problems with the printer and I have been heavily using the printer for the past 6 months.

Works exactly as advertised. Have been using it for about two months and it has performed flawlessly.

The print quality is great. Prints quite fast. A little noisy when it is printing, but otherwise totally silent in the standby mode.

Easy to use as a copier. Just feed the originals in the feeder, select the number of copies on the keypad and hit the green print button.

Easy to feed envelopes for printing too, unlike what some other reviewers found.

The scanner works great also, except fo one problem I found but there is a workaround solution to this too. If you scan using the buttons on the machine, the scan quality is poor despite my playing with the various settings. But if you scan using the Paperport document handling program that comes with the printer, the scan quality is just fine and it also has many more settings for fine tuning the scan quality.

Although this lacks fax capability, most people will not need it. Windows XP has a built in fax program. All you need to do to send a fax is scan the fax, which places the image on the Paperport desktop; drag and drop the image from Paperport on the fax icon and it launches the fax wizard where you enter in the number you are faxing to and send the fax.

Overall, very pleased with this unit and would recommend it highly.

Here is my review for the sister model of DCP7020 (7820N), the only difference between this and 7820N is this does not have fax & the rest is the same, so my review should apply to MFC 7420 as well (EXCEPT FAX DOESN"T APPLY TO DCP 7020)

WoW ! This must be the best MFC out there. I have owned several canon, hp, lexmark MFC, photo printers, fax machines etc. This machine is it. All you need is this MFC & a separate photo printer. you are all set.

1. This is a laser MFC - scan(color), copy, fax, print
2. very fast for home/small office use
3. very compact - very space saving
4. Network ready - other computers on network can use all functions of this.
5. unlimited tech support. not just 1-year like HP/canon.
6. Machine feels sold & feels it will last long
7. All fax,copy, scan can be operated either from machine buttons or pc software interface.
8. installation was breeze
9. software is top notch. very intuitive
10. tested print, copy, scan & fax - AWESOME AWESOME.
11. they don't outsource cust support to india
12. only regrets: no duplex, no separate output tray, but from a compact machine like this, you can't expect output tray.
13. This MFC is clearly the winner. nothing else.
14. $50 cartride takes you upto 2,500 pages. not bad
15. Auto feeder works flawlessly
16. buy from local office depot store when they give $40 gift card with it.
17. you can connect any answering machine, so all you need is one line for phone callss & fax. this machine shows whether it is a phone call or fax. can use distinctive ring too.
18. backlit LCD menu
19. if you network with this printer, you don't need to buy USB cable
20. 32mb memory for printing, huge memory for fax.
21. super fast fax speed
22. Excellent looks.
23. DEDICATED MAC SUPPORT, although i only used it for Windows.

why didn't i know about Brother earlier ?

I bought this machine 2 1/2 months ago and I've been very happy with it. As somebody else here pointed out, the plastic casing LOOKS a little flimsy in person, but don't let that fool you. It is very well designed. A few things I like about it:

1. Prints come out fast and clear.

2. The driver is simple, yet powerful. It won't take over your computer, but it is easy to do manual double-sided printing, N-in-1 composition, 1-in-N segmented poster printing, etc.

3. The console controls are reasonably easy to use.

4. It does MORE than it says it does. Copying, printing, and scanning work just as well as having 3 dedicated machines on your desk. Furthermore, you CAN do multi-page sheetfed scanning. The specification isn't clear about that.

5. The price is unbelievable for what you get, IMHO.

A few caveats:

1. Paper curls a little, especially when you print double-sided (manually). It's not bad. It doesn't bother me.

2. If you just pop the installation CD in, it will want to install a couple other applications, maybe a light version of PaperPort and an OCR application. I don't need that stuff, so it's a little bit of a nuisance. However, if you look around on the CD, it's easy to find the program that installs just the driver and nothing else.

3. The envelope feeder looks pretty minimal. I haven't actually tried to print an envelope, but it looks like it might go in crooked. I'm not sure.

I spent a long time comparing all-in-one machines. I'm 100% sure I made the right choice, given my budget and needs.