Brother MFC-L2820DW

In this brother mfc-l2820dw review, the verdict is simple: the Brother MFC-L2820DW is the best budget all in one laser printer in our 2026 guide and it ranks 7 of 9 overall. At $279.98, with a 4.3-star average from 974 Amazon ratings, it is the highest-rated machine in the comparison. The unit is a compact monochrome (black and white) multifunction printer that handles printing, copying, scanning and faxing in one box. Home offices and small teams that mostly run text, invoices and contracts are the right buyers. In practice, you pay mid-range money for laser speed, a touchscreen and an automatic document feeder, not for color output. If color pages are part of your daily work, this is not your printer.

Day to day, the Brother MFC-L2820DW prints black and white pages at up to 36 pages per minute, with the first page out in about 8.5 seconds, and copies at up to 34 pages per minute. That means a 20-page contract finishes before you refill your coffee. Meanwhile, a 50-page automatic document feeder keeps multi-page scans moving, at up to 23.6 images per minute in black and up to 7.9 in color, while automatic duplex printing saves paper on two-sided jobs. The 2.7-inch touchscreen adds shortcuts to cloud apps like Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote and OneNote. On top of that, dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4GHz and 5GHz), Ethernet and USB let you connect almost any laptop, phone or tablet. Maximum print resolution reaches 1200 x 1200 dpi, and the 250-sheet tray accepts plain paper, envelopes and labels up to 8.5 x 14 inches.

Value is where this Brother laser printer earns its budget label. The 250-sheet tray and a 99-copy maximum mean fewer refills, and the TN830, TN830V and TN830XL cartridges give you a high-yield toner path that lowers cost per page over time. By contrast, if your work needs color, you will have to look at another machine in this guide, since this one outputs black and white only. That said, the trade-offs are real: a single paper tray, 470 watts of power draw and a 1-year limited warranty. Even so, at 22.5 pounds it is the lightest model in this ranking, so it fits small desks and spare rooms. If your printing is mostly text, contracts and invoices, this is the budget pick to buy.