Brother IntelliFAX 1820C Plain Paper Inkjet Fax

Pros: Decent print quality and many machine options
Cons: Breaks too easily and snarfs up ink

The Brother intellifax 1820 seems to have been badly designed; it has a decent print quality but it 'breaks' easily and uses ink at a high rate. This model is no longer in production by Brother; documents and drivers still seem to be available from the ...

Pros: Adequate faxing, copying and printing
Cons: Mortally flawed printing system.

I am a small business owner, computer technician and web developer, and I've used in my work experience an untold number of fax machines of various designs, features and configurations. I have also in the past supported various organizations in the ...

Pros: Initially the print quality was pretty good.
Cons: Ink guzzling, unreliable and didn't even make it out of the warranty period.

I tried to get our (Oh) Brother 1820c IntelliFAX to go to an IA (Ink Anonymous) meeting. It was drinking way too much of the stuff and not being very productive. It had all of the problems that Brother printer/fax machines seem to have: couldn't decide ...

Pros: It looks good. That is all.
Cons: Wastes ink like no other device I have seen.

First off, although I have never written a review for a product online before, I've relied on many reviews to make a purchase and do see the value in them. But I feel so strongly about this Fax machine as being a complete waste of money that I feel ...

Pros: Lots of features
Cons: It broke and the repair cost is more than a new fax

Guess I'm not the only one with problems with the machine. It eats cartridges with nonsensical self cleaning of print heads. It is not user friendly. You don't want to lose the book. The user manual doesn't guarantee you'll figure out what needs to be done either. I'm keeping away from Brother in the future.

Pros: none
Cons: brother rips consumers off using dodgy ink cleaning

What a mistake, I will never buy a brother printer again. they are ripping us off by draining all the ink out of the machine every couple of weeks. - oh yes, and that great sound of cleaning in the middle of the night - while on standby! i unplugged it in the end.
Pathetic, mine's going in the trash.

Pros: None at all
Cons: Everything about this machine is a con.

This machine is not worth a penny. It was purchased less than 6 months ago and it has given us nothing but problems. It states ink cartridges are empty, but they are not. And every time we change one here, the cartridge doesn't want to align so then it prints about every other line for incoming faxes. We have cleaned the cartridges, we have bought brand new cartridges, and nothing works. It is a worthless piece of machinery.

Pros: Zip, Zero, Ziltch!
Cons: Where do I begin!

Wow, this is the biggest waste of money I have ever encountered. Not only does it waste ink like it's going out of style but it "eats" paper just as bad! Every time I try to fax it sucks up ALL the pages at once rather than feeding them one at a time. In addition, the phone line randomly cuts in and out during conversation. Very annoying and not very professional, as I use this as a business fax for my home based business. They have just sent me my THIRD replacement machine and I have yet to see the problem fixed. It is simply a poorly made machine. Stay away from Brother products!!!!

Pros: Cheap and sends well
Cons: Uses heaps of ink for cleaning

It's very bad how it uses ink to clean it's self. Mine ran out of color (which I had not used) and would not print a black only fax, so I put black electrical insulation tape over the side facing forward and told the machine it had a new ink cartridge. It now prints black ok.

Pros: Cheap and looks pretty
Cons: Does not know it is a printer!

Well don't I feel the absolute idiot! Should have read all this before I bought the stupid machine. Nothing different to add from New Zealand. Eats ink, cleans like a maniac and now for some obscure reason one of the colors won't print even though it is full. There is no troubleshooting on the Brother site to over come this problem. I will be cutting my losses before using my fifth lot of ink cartridges in one year - and we only print about once a month and the ink is expensive.
Not fit for consumer use!

Pros: functional
Cons: gulps the expensive ink cartridge

1) it can only use A4 size paper when printing a fax. using letter size will print the fax on 2 pages. there is no way to change the setting.

2)color ink cartridges ran out after 3 months even if I only use black ink for fax. self cleaning wastes so much ink. ink empty lights up yet when you look at the 'empty' cartridge, there is still a small quantity of ink flowing inside.

3) noisy

Pros: Neat looking and fairly simple to use.
Cons: Poor ink quality and drains ink too fast.

We have two of these machines in our faculty, both are used casually in offices. Neither machine has printed many pages at all, yet they have both been through 2 sets of ink cartridges already!

Shockingly poor print quality too.

All in all, rather a terrible fax machine. Evidently it just sucks ink up without even needing to be used.

Pros: None.
Cons: See other reviews. The company deserves to go broke for being so greedy.

I've just replaced a cartridge in this piece of sh*t, but DIDN'T remove the strip of adhesive paper that covers the ink-hole. I just trimmed the loose bit off.

So far so good! The 'ink empty' message has gone, and it's printing fine, in black anyway.

Pros: Prints great. For the most part this printer is a good one.
Cons: Sucks ink quickly unless you put it on "fast" print.

I want to explain how I made it through a machine error 41.

Turn the machine off and make sure you can turn it on but hold down the on/off button down at the same time. It somehow resets the stupid things and MAKES it accept the ink cartridges inside (the refills) and the heads (?) are no longer an issue. You will have to clean it a couple of times and check the 12345 settings (reset the values so that the print is clear and legible.) I hope this helps others.

Pros: Cheap
Cons: Upkeep and support is expensive.

BAD product! Just like HP inkjets, you have to keep feeding it ink cartridges. I cannot clear error 41, and I noticed that daily (at about 3 AM) the printer goes through a complete clean cycle. This eats ink up at a huge rate. There is a tray under the print head that "catches" the ink that is cleaned (full of goo). I have had this 1820c for one year, and I have spent more than $200 on ink cartridges. THIS IS A RACKET!!! Bad design, and bad economy have steered me away from both Brother and HP!