Brother IntelliFAX 2820 Plain Paper Laser Fax

The Brother Intellifax 2820 was bought to replace a Sharp fax that suddenly stopped feeding the paper. After looking online at various non-laser faxes which either received poor ratings or good ratings but had small ink cartridges, I decided that a laser fax was the best option.

The Brother Intellifax 2820 was the best option both because of ratings and price. The unit uses the TN-2000 cartridge which seems to be equivalent to the TN-350 which gives a 2,500 page yield at 5% coverage which was way better than the 150 sheet yield for the old fax machine.

The 2820 is fairly bulky since it is like a regular fax machine attached to the top of a HL 2140 laser printer. The dimensions are approx. 14"w x 14"d x 14"h (the latter is to the top of the paper support when fully extended).

There is a port to connect another phone as well as a USB B port. The latter is to connect a computer. The web address to get the drivers is http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/bsc/public/us/us/en/dlf/download_top.html?reg=us&c=us&lang=en&prod=fax2820_us_as. I downloaded the "Full driver and software package" 59.69 MB. Driver Software seems to be available for Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP (Home and Professional, x64), Server 2008, Mac OS 9 - 10.4.

Setup was easy. Brother provides a registration card which you can fax to them (also to test your machine) and they return a receipt notification. It appears to scan while dialing so that once it is connected it can send the information. The receipt notification from Brother was sharp and printed quickly. Unlike the Brother 5250DN printer, ordinary multi-purpose 20 lb paper comes through flat with no curling! I have to use 24 lb laser paper in my 5250DN to minimize curling!

Copying at 100% is very easy - just press the copy button, put in your paper print side down and press the Start button. In this case, the copy was better than the original.

I installed the printer drivers to my computer, connected the USB cable and printed a 20-page double-spaced, full-page text document with the settings at 300 dpi, toner saver on, and the print was very sharp, even for the small text used - no need to use higher settings (seems sharper than the 5250DN)! Speedwise it's about 16 pages per minute at this setting. It does print images - the first draft I printed didn't have them in there, but the next copy I printed did. Don't expect to print photos and detailed graphics with good reproduction on this printer though - it's the same with the 5250DN.

The fax machine can accommodate legal size paper, but I haven't tried this or the manual feed option yet. The machine also seems to wake quickly.

If it weren't for the smaller page yield, slower print speed, inability to print images, lack of duplexing and networking capabilities, I would probably ditch my 5250 DN for this fax machine since it seems to print sharper text.

Update

Having used it for about a month, I've discovered two things:

1) There're far less junk faxes - don't know if it blocks them or not, but this is wonderful considering the amount that used to come before!

2) Like other Brother printers, high humidity causes paper jams. You will need to put in fresh paper, open the compartment where you put in the toner, shut it, then press the "Start" button to resume printing. I find if you only replace the paper and don't open and shut the toner compartment it will continue to give the paper jam message.

In regard to toner usage, there are sites online that give information on how to "extend" the toner life which seem to help - one person claims they got an extra 500 pages printed using one technique.