Brother MFC-8420 Laser Multifunction

Other products by Brother

Product Details

Product Manual [9.88mb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 51 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000950RQ
• Item model number: MFC-8420
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: December 13, 2004

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Winner of the prestigious Editor's Choice Award from PC Magazine and combining all the necessary office machines into a single box, the Brother MFC-8420 is an excellent addition for home businesses or small networks. Including a laser printer and copier, color and monochrome scanner, and a 33.6 Kpbs modem fax, this convenient desktop assistant offers all the functions you need to keep printing and mailing costs to a minimum.

The monochrome laser printer and copier produces letter or legal sized pages at up to 17 ppm, with an outstanding 2,400 x 600 dpi resolution. Up to 99 copies can be sorted or reduced or enlarged at a range of 25 to 400 percent; manual two-sided printing helps you save on consumables. The scanner operates in either 48-bit color or 256-level grayscale, enabling you to scan full-color photos or monochrome documents. Either way, with an interpolated resolution up to 9,600 x 9,600 dpi, your scans will be impeccably smooth.

The fax provides a variety of sending and retrieval options designed to improve efficiency. Broadcast faxes up to 390 stations, or speed dial to any of up to 300 coded numbers. The 50-sheet automatic document feeder frees you from having to baby sit the box, while the 600-page memory guards against paper shortages. The MFC-8420 includes a one-year warranty with instant exchange service.

Product Description

The MFC-8420 is a 5-in-1 flatbed laser multifunction center combining performance, connectivity, and reliability. The MFC-8420 is a full-feature fax, and an up to 17ppm laser printer, which prints at up to 2400 x 600 dpi (HQ1200), an up to 17 cpm, legal-size digital copier and a 9600x9600 dpi (interpolated) resolution color flatbed scanner. You can copy objects such as books and magazines, or make reduction and enlargement from 25-400%.Also included is PC Fax capability, allowing you to send and receive faxes directly from your PC. An optional second paper tray and optional network capability makes this an optimum solution for your business. Both USB and parallel ports are standard, so the MFC-8420 can work with Windows and Mac applications effortlessly.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I bought this printer after giving up on HP, September 30, 2003

By	Firebright (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I went through a slew of hp printers. I experienced lousy, "outsourced" technical support, and had two printers fail in the same year. This on the heels of my friends brand new color laser fiasco, which was three failures in one year (also HP). They used to be the best, with printers like the 4050n and other tireless workhorses, but I think other vendors are now making significant inroads, especially in this middle ground space. You'll find HP laser printers to be profoundly expensive for what they buy, with high print costs, and low ram. The 1300 is a fine example of where HP has gone wrong.

So, we took the plunge on this 8420 (we got the "one up" D model, which includes duplexing -- works like a charm, and at about 1c a page (as the cost of paper) it will pay for itself quickly).

The upsides:

1) Very cheap toner. Especially the high yield. 6k pages for 90 bucks, which is more than any other cartridge we could find (and you get get those cheaper than 90 some places)
2) Very convenient. You've no idea how awesome a 50 page sheetfed scanner with OCR actually is until you need it. ;-)
3) Comes with a full toner cartridge. My hp's came with 1/2 full "intro" ones.
4) Best-of-breed. For it's downsides (below), it really is the best you can buy for the money.
5) It doesn't jam.

The downsides are:

1) It's a little slow to copy
2) High end color scans are not that hot. A little flat. If you want high end color scans, drop 60 bucks and buy a Scanjet 5300c. The scanner is really designed for document processing, at which it excels.
3) It's a little pricey to buy in. The high end models are overpriced for what they buy (duplexing for ~100 bucks, network for another 100-150). Yikes.
4) The software is a little "clunky", but it works
5) The warranty pretty much stinks (1 year). If you can get an extended warranty, it's a [really] good idea. With so many components, all-in-ones have that much more of a chance to fail, and they do. ;-)

Remember, inkjet printers are sold practically at a loss by their manufacturers (especially cheaper ones). They are designed to make up their money in ink cartridges. This is important when you are comparing all-in-ones.

Despite it's minor downsides, I'd highly reccomend this ot a friend. If you need something to get your business off the ground like we did, and don't want to spend a fortune or worry about being in constant IT mode keeping everything configured and working smoothly, this is the way to go. Faxing is a breeze, scanning is easy (50 docs at a time is a LOT btw), and printing is very high quality.

We combined this with a cheap bubblejet, and now we have the best of all possible worlds. We reccomend this route!!!

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This office machine is perfect for small offices, December 2, 2003

By	Talis12 (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

For our small office of 6 people, we have been looking for an office machine that is easy to operate, reliable, and cost-effective. The four contenders are HP 3330 MFP, Canon D680 imageClass, Brother MFC 9700, Brother MFC 8820D. They are all 4-in-1/5-in-1 machines(Fax, Laser printer, Scanner, Copier, Data/Fax modem) priced below US$800. Brother MFC 9700 is cheaper but comes with a 14.4k modem and only 8MB memory and a smaller flatbed; as the result it faxes and prints slower than MFC 8820D. The remaining three candidates all have excellent "pedigrees" and are well designed and built. However Brother MFC 8820D won at the end for the following outstanding reasons:

1. The 'D' in 8820D stands for Automatic duplex copying and printing: It prints on both sides of papers seamlessly and effortlessly. It is not necessary to remove the paper tray manually (a really tedious process in other machines). Duplex "fax receive" saves 30% to 50% in papers by printing faxes on both sides automatically. Now one can have some break from the cost of receiving junk faxes. This feature can be disabled if one-sided printing is desired

2. 32MB memory: This is more than enough for holding a lot of copies and faxes. Very good for large unattended jobs. The best part about this is again about cost. No immediate need to spend more money for upgrading the memory as is required for Canon D680 (measly 2 MB).

3. PC fax software for computer data/fax needs.

4. Expandability for network interface.

5. Digital paper count to indicate the no. of copies made and faxes received: good for cost management and safe guard against potential abuse of the machine by employees for personal uses.

6. Excellent ADF (automatic document feeder): we have not had any paper jam so far.

7. Very easy to program and operate: simple to use for beginners and sophisticated features for users who demand more advanced functions.

8. Last but not the least is the cheaper cost for its toner on a per page basis.

There are only two minor drawbacks for us:

1. MFC 8820D's ADF/scanner does not scan a page from edge to edge. However this is true of all machines in this price range. Canon D680 omits the least at both margins. HP 3330 is the worst.

2. Large footprint. We had to relocate it to a different room in the office where there is enough space instead of putting it at a more convenient place where there is easier access. Nevertheless it's not too bad considering that it replaces 4 separate machines all at once. Besides it forces us to walk down the hallway and get some exercies!! ;--]

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great for small doctor's office, December 12, 2003

By	"lwansz" (cincinnati, oh) - See all my reviews

I played with the similar models from HP (3330), Canon, and Samsung at my local store. Brother seems most solid. Plus definitely has the best engineering pedigree. I think each model/year brother has gotten more robust. Don't trust the first efforts of the other companies.

In the office it's great. No jams, efficient ADF, fast and flawless laser printing, fast ADF copies too! Hope to get good toner performance based on others experience. Certainly they seem to be more fairly priced than the competetors drum/toner cartridges that all and unstated or mediocre capacities.

Very satisfied so far.