The Brother MFC-7420 Laser Multi-Function Center provides ease of use, performance and value for your money. This versatile all-in-one solution combines high quality laser printing capabilities with flat-bed copying, rich color scanning and a fully-functional PC and traditional fax. If you are looking for cost-effective equipment for your home office or small business, this multifunction printer will provide long-term efficiency and affordability.
Pros:
The MFC-7420 offers printing and copying speeds of up to 20 pages per minute.
Creating high quality and affordable documents is easy with economical laser technology that yields a print resolution of 2400×600 dpi.
The 35-page document auto-feeder is a quick and convenient way to scan, copy and fax multi-page documents.
The MFC-7420 has an economical paper capacity, featuring a 250 sheet paper tray that is adjustable for different paper sizes.
A single-sheet, manual bypass slot makes it possible to print on a wide range of media such as envelopes, labels and other stock.
The high-resolution color scanner makes it possible to scan documents into your PC and save them in PDF format for digital document storage and paper reduction.
16 MB of on-board memory allows storage of up to 500 pages for faxing and for handling multiple print jobs at once.
USB and Parallel interfaces provide the flexibility and convenience of connecting to a wider range of computers or even two computers at once.
Handles a sheet weight of 16-28 lbs in the paper tray, 16-43 lbs in the manual feed bay and 17-24 lbs in the automatic document feeder.
The MFC-7420 is Energy Star qualified and consumes only 10 Watts of power while in sleep/ready mode. It can operate in a broad range of temperatures, environments and humidity, making it perfect for home business applications. You can set it up anywhere and still enjoy reliable operation.
The unit’s dimensional footprint is 17.0” x 15.6” x 11.6”, allowing it to fit on virtually any desk or workstation.
An LCD display provides for copying on the fly and easy maintenance without having to continually go through the PC software interface.
A limited one year warranty on parts and service is provided with every printer to ensure peace of mind and return of investment.
Cons:
The LCD screen is not back-lit and can be difficult to see for people with vision impairments.
A paper capacity of 250 sheets is not ideal for large office use and even catalog print jobs for small businesses or home offices will quickly push this unit’s limits.
The toner cartridges are very low yield and may need to be replaced as frequently as once a week for standard office applications.
The fixed capacity of the paper tray is insufficient for anything other than home use, as offices and small businesses would much rather have a removable tray attachment that can fit a whole ream of paper at once and would gladly pay extra for that convenience. As a result, this printer’s paper capacity and overall expandability is considered to be very limited.
Ink/Toner Needs:
The MFC-7420 comes with a 60% starter toner cartridge that will hold 1500 pages of ink at 5% coverage and a drum that yields 12000 pages (full capacity). The standard-yield toner can hold 2500 pages at 5% coverage and is the only toner cartridge option available.
Separate toner and drum assemblies keep consumable costs low, allowing for replacement of accessories only after they have been thoroughly used.
The MFC-7420 takes toner cartridges that are cross-compatible with similar Xerox units and a wide variety of after-market, OEM-compatible cartridges, making toner consumption very affordable and practical for a small business or home application.
Given the lower toner ink capacity of these cartridges, compared to a 6000 page capacity of bigger printers, toner cartridges for this printer are a lot less expensive to replace and can often be cheaper than ink jet cartridges if bought in bulk or in OEM-compatible varieties, costing the user an average of $18 for a black toner cartridge that will yield 2500 pages at 5% coverage.
Compared to cost savings of individual toner and drum assemblies, increased maintenance time and difficulty of toner and drum replacement are negligible.
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