Brother MFC-L3720CDW review: a sturdy, but limited color laser printer

If you’re shopping for an affordable all-in-one printer, the Brother MFC-L3720CDW might catch your eye. Brother is a familiar name and makes some of the best color laser printers that offer the reliability and refinement that small businesses depend on.

With its built-in automatic document feeder (ADF) and fax capability, the MFC-L3720CDW could solve many home office needs, saving a trip to the local office store. I went hands-on to check the speed and print quality, tested the copy and scan features, and researched the long-term cost of toner to help you decide if this is the right printer for you.

Specs

Design

The MFC-L3720CDW is a big, sturdy all-in-one color laser printer with print, scan, copy, and fax capabilities. It has a footprint of 17.5 inches by 16.1 inches and a height of 15.8 inches. The 44-pound weight means you want to plan where to put this printer before lifting it onto your desk or stand.

Brother’s off-white and medium gray color scheme will blend in with any decor. The 3.5-inch color touchscreen is fixed at 7 degrees from horizontal so I had to stand to read the display.

The main paper tray holds 250 sheets and a manual feed tray lets me print single sheets, which is a nice option for labels and envelopes. The ADF accepts up to 50 pages at a time.

While most Brother laser printers include three types of connectivity, the MFC-L3720CDW supports dual-band Wi-Fi and USB-B, but lacks an Ethernet port. However, it does have ports for fax in and phone out, so you can connect an answering machine without a separate line.

Printing performance

The Brother MFC-L3720CDW outputs crisp black-and-white text, even for fine print. Color documents also look good, with no banding or gaps in color blocks.

Photo print quality is good, but a bit undersaturated and dull. If I oversaturated the picture on my phone, the MFC-L3720CDW could create a richer photo. That implies this is a software issue that Brother could fix in a future update.

A color laser printer is almost always faster than an inkjet for long documents. Brother’s MFC-L3720CDW manages 19 pages per minute (ppm) for monochrome and color documents, which is double or triple the output of some inkjet printers.

However, HP’s speedy OfficeJet Pro 9125e rolls through 22 ppm in black and 18 ppm in color, making the MFC-L3720CDW the slowest color laser printer I’ve ever reviewed.

Another important speed test is how long it takes to print the first page. Brother cut corners a bit here as well. The MFC-L3720CDW takes 15 seconds for the first page out (FPO). By comparison, Canon’s well-rated imageClass MF654cdw cuts that by a third with a 10-second FPO.

Special features

For an office, copy and fax can be essential. The Brother MFC-L3720CDW includes fast ADF and flatbed scanners to handle those needs. The scanner is faster than the printer, so there’s no delay when making a copy. It matches the 19 ppm print speed.

While the printer supports duplex, the ADF can’t scan both sides of a page. If I want to copy a double-sided document, I’m forced to use the flatbed scanner and manually flip each page, which is a laborious task.

The ADF scans at a maximum of 600 dots per inch (dpi), which is fine for most situations. For a more detailed scan of a photograph or fine print, I chose the 1200 dpi flatbed scanner. So far, most printer manufacturers limit mobile scanning to 300 dpi.

Printers like Epson’s EcoTank 2800 allow up to 600 dpi scanning. Still, that’s half the resolution available when connecting to a computer. I don’t like arbitrary limitations of otherwise good hardware.

Software and compatibility

As a leading printer manufacturer, Brother makes setup simple. The toner cartridges are stored inside the printer, but are capped for shipping. It only takes a few seconds to uncap and replace the four cartridges. Like most modern printers, the MFC-L3720CDW checks for new firmware and can install updates without connecting to a computer.

I connected the MFC-L3720CDW to Wi-Fi using the Brother Connect mobile app and was ready to print in just a few minutes. Windows and Mac computers recognize Brother printers easily and automatically install drivers as needed. For the best quality and most options for scanning, I downloaded Brother’s desktop iPrint&Scan app.

Price

Brother charges $400 for the MFC-L3720CDW, a nice price for small businesses that need a durable color laser printer. It’s also affordable enough for home offices. The greater concern is how quickly toner costs will accumulate.

The MFC-L3720CDW ships with starter cartridges that can print up to 1,000 black and 1,000 color pages. If you print often or in high volume, you’ll want to order more toner soon.

High-yield cartridges offer the most value. The MFC-L3720CDW can print monochrome pages with an average price of three to four cents per page. Color costs will add up quickly at 13 to 17 cents per page.

If you want color laser printer speed at a more affordable cost per page, Brother’s MFC-L3780CDW is faster and accepts XXL cartridges to reduce printing costs to two cents for black and 10 cents for color pages.

Is this the printer for you?

Brother’s MFC-L3720CDW is designed for offices and is rated to print up to 40,000 pages per month with a sustained volume of 3,000 pages. Brother includes security features and cloud connectivity that might appeal to small businesses.

Unfortunately, the features are limiting, lacking Ethernet and duplex copying. Since the most economical cartridges won’t fit, the MFC-L3720CDW has worse long-term value than other Brother printers.

Brother’s MFC-L3720CDW faces stiff competition from better printers like the Canon imageClass MF654cdw. Even the HP OfficeJet Pro 9125e, a business-oriented inkjet printer, is as fast as Brother’s budget laser printe,r with a lower initial cost and more economical cost per page for ink.

If you like the look of the MFC-L3720CDW, but want a faster printer with more features, Brother’s MFC-L3780CDW only costs $100 more, comes with more toner, and accepts the largest XXL cartridges.