Brother MFC-L3720CDW All In One: In-Depth Review and User Opinions

The Brother MFC-L3720CDW is an all-in-one color laser printer, copier, scanner, and fax machine designed for small offices and home offices. It offers an attractive blend of hardware features and printing capabilities that makes it flexible enough for a range of office needs.

Key features of the MFC-L3720CDW include:

• Printer, copier, scanner, and fax machine all in one compact device
• Wireless networking for cable-free printing from mobile devices
• Automatic two-sided printing to conserve paper
• 250-sheet paper capacity reduces need to reload paper frequently
• High-yield replacement toner cartridges lower printing costs
• Built-in NFC for easy peer-to-peer printing from mobile devices
• 3.7” color touchscreen for intuitive operation
• Compatible with most mobile platforms for wireless printing

With its space-saving design, robust feature set, and affordable cost per page, the MFC-L3720CDW is a versatile all-in-one printer suitable for home offices and small businesses.

Design

The Brother MFC-L3720CDW all-in-one printer has a sleek, modern design with curved edges and a two-tone black and white color scheme. It has a relatively compact footprint, measuring approximately 17 x 14 x 12 inches (H x W x D). The printer has an intuitive control panel on the front which tilts upwards for easier viewing.

The input paper tray is located at the bottom front and can hold up to 250 sheets of paper. There is also a manual feed slot above the tray for printing envelopes or other media. The output tray extends out from the top back of the printer. Accessing the toner cartridge is easy with the front cover that opens vertically.

Overall the MFC-L3720CDW has a clean, space-saving design suitable for home offices or small businesses. The two-line LCD display and buttons make navigating the menu and settings straightforward. The all-black color with white accents give it a sleek and modern aesthetic.

Print Quality

The Brother MFC-L3720CDW produces excellent print quality for both text and graphics. It has a maximum print resolution of up to 2400 x 600 dpi, which allows it to render fine details accurately.

Text printed from the MFC-L3720CDW looks sharp and crisp even at small font sizes. Letters have clearly defined edges without jaggedness or blurriness. This makes the printer well-suited for printing documents with a lot of text.

The printer also excels at printing graphics and images. At 2400 x 600 dpi, photos and graphics are reproduced with good detail and vivid colors. Even complex graphics with gradients and fine lines come out looking smooth and accurate.

The toner cartridges use a small particle size, allowing the printer to produce sharp prints without a grainy quality. Photos have a smooth tonality, free of the coarse dot patterns sometimes seen in low-quality laser printers.

Overall, the print quality of both text and graphics rivals what you would expect from more expensive laser printers. The high resolution and excellent toner enable the MFC-L3720CDW to produce professional, publication-quality printouts.

Print Speed

The Brother MFC-L3720CDW all-in-one printer offers fast print speeds for both black and white and color printing.

For black and white printing, it can print at up to 24 pages per minute (ppm) when printing in simplex (single-sided) mode. When printing duplex (double-sided), the speed is slightly slower at 12 images per minute (ipm).

For color prints, the maximum print speed is 20 ppm for simplex printing and 10 ipm when printing duplex pages. So you can expect reasonably fast print speeds whether you are printing in black and white or color.

The printer uses a 250-sheet paper tray which helps support the fast print speeds by reducing the need to frequently reload paper. Overall, the print speeds are comparable to similar models in this price range, making this a good choice if you need an efficient home office printer.

Scan and Copy Features

The Brother MFC-L3720CDW all-in-one printer offers versatile scan and copy capabilities for both home and office use.

With its automatic document feeder, you can easily scan or copy multi-page documents. The ADF can hold up to 50 pages at once.

For scanning, the printer allows you to save scanned files directly to your computer or to a USB flash drive. File formats supported include JPEG, PDF, TIFF, and more. It also enables you to scan directly to services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote and more with Brother's built-in apps.

The scanner can reproduce color documents in vivid quality at up to 2400 x 1200 dpi. You get multiple settings to optimize scan quality depending on whether you're scanning photos, documents, receipts, or other originals.

On the copy side, this printer delivers rapid speed, with the ability to churn out copies at up to 24 pages per minute. You can make 2-sided copies automatically to save paper. The copier can handle making up to 99 copies in a single run.

Enlargement and reduction settings allow you to resize copied pages from 25% to 400% of the original. Other handy copy features include the ability to sort and stack multiple copies as well as make poster size pages by copying one document onto multiple sheets.

Overall, the scanning and copying capabilities make this all-in-one printer a versatile machine for managing documents and digitizing paper records in the home or small office.

Connectivity

The Brother MFC-L3720CDW all-in-one printer offers both wired and wireless connectivity options for linking to your computer or mobile devices.

For wired connectivity, it has a built-in Ethernet port that allows you to connect it directly to your router using an Ethernet cable. This provides a fast and reliable hardwired connection to your home or office network.

For wireless connectivity, the printer supports Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n standards. Connecting over Wi-Fi gives you the flexibility to place the printer anywhere in your home or office while maintaining a strong signal. It's compatible with Windows, Mac, iOS and Android devices for wireless printing and scanning.

The printer also supports wireless networking standards like AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Brother iPrint&Scan, and Cortado Workplace. This allows you to print directly from your mobile device without needing to install drivers or connect over a network.

Overall, the wired and wireless capabilities of the Brother MFC-L3720CDW give you multiple options to integrate the printer into your existing setup and print from all your devices. The connectivity technologies make it flexible and convenient for home or office use.

Mobile Printing

The Brother MFC-L3720CDW offers convenient printing directly from your mobile devices. You can print from your smartphone or tablet through wireless networking or NFC touch-to-print technology.

The printer is compatible with AirPrint, allowing you to print from your iPhone or iPad over your wireless network. You don't need to install any drivers or software on your Apple device to use AirPrint.

For Android devices, you can download the free Brother iPrint&Scan app to enable wireless printing through your home WiFi network. The app lets you print photos, PDFs, web pages and Microsoft Office documents straight from your phone or tablet.

The MFC-L3720CDW also supports printing through near-field communication (NFC). Just tap your NFC-enabled mobile device to the NFC symbol on the printer to establish a connection and print. It provides a quick, easy way to print from your phone without dealing with network settings.

Overall, the variety of mobile printing options makes it simple to print from all your smartphones, tablets and other mobile gadgets. Whether you prefer wireless networking or NFC, the Brother MFC-L3720CDW has you covered.

Print Costs

The Brother MFC-L3720CDW uses replacement toner cartridges to print pages. The black toner cartridge (TN-3430) yields approximately 3,000 pages and costs around $55. The color toner cartridge (TN-3431) yields approximately 1,500 pages and costs around $70.

This works out to a cost per page of:

• Black and white printing: Around 1.8 cents per page
• Color printing: Around 4.7 cents per page

The printer comes with starter toner cartridges that yield around 1,000 pages for black and 700 pages for color. So initial printing costs are lower until the toner needs to be replaced.

Overall, the print costs are very reasonable for both black and white and color pages compared to inkjet printers. The toner cartridges last for a high page yield to minimize the frequency of having to replace them.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Fast printing speeds up to 24 pages per min for monochrome and 20 pages per min for color
• Automatic 2-sided printing capability
• 250-sheet paper capacity expandable to 1,300 sheets
• Built-in wireless and Ethernet connectivity
• Supports mobile device printing
• Scanner with 35-page capacity auto document feeder
• Scanner can make copies and scan to multiple destinations
• LCD color touchscreen for easy operation
• Relatively low cost per print for both black and color
• 1-year limited warranty

Cons

• Lack of fax capability
• No USB thumb drive support
• Maximum print resolution relatively low at 2400 x 600 dpi
• Auto document feeder only holds 35 pages
• No built-in stapling, hole punch, duplex printing, or other finishing capabilities
• Small paper capacity unless expanded with extra trays
• Ink can be expensive if printing photos or lots of color documents
• No monthly duty cycle published for monthly maximum print volumes

Conclusion

The Brother MFC-L3720CDW is an excellent all-in-one printer for home offices and small businesses looking for a reliable, feature-rich printer. It produces high-quality prints at decent speeds, includes automatic two-sided printing, and has a large paper capacity.

Connectivity is a highlight of this model, with built-in wireless, Ethernet, USB, and mobile device printing via AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Brother iPrint&Scan, and Mopria. The 2.7" color touchscreen makes navigating menus and selecting options easy.

Scanning is enhanced with the 50-page automatic document feeder, and both copying and scanning can be done without a computer. Copy and scan files can be saved directly to a USB flash drive inserted into the printer.

While ink costs are moderate, the super high-yield ink cartridges help lower long-term print costs significantly. Toner may be a better choice for very high volume printing.

Overall, the MFC-L3720CDW is highly recommended for home office use, small businesses, and workgroups that need a fast, high-function printer with low operating costs. Its strong connectivity and mobile support make it a versatile choice. For those needing basic print/scan/copy functions in a single footprint, the Brother MFC-L3720CDW is an excellent all-in-one printer.