Brother MFC-7820N

We have several $500-$1500 HP and Canon printers, scanners, and fax machines. The Canon machines are excellent, but the initial cost and supplies are sky high. The HP machines are reasonably priced, however over the last 5 years the quality has gone down and usability is now fair to poor. Out of frustration we bought a 7820N - despite reservations about being mfg by a "sewing machine" company. Frankly, for the $270 we paid after rebates the machine is amazing, one of the best I have used in 20+ years.
The setup was simple, the network installation was the easiest I have ever seen (we set up 5 ethernet workstations in 30 mins). Everything works well, with no frustrating error messages.
Print - works well as a USB 2, parallel, or network printer - includes postscript emulation
Fax - 33.6K bps super G3 fax with up to 600 page memory (32M) and 200 stored numbers.
Copy - Sharp, high quality text - avg. graphics for a business printer, paper curls a bit.
Scan - Other reviews have criticized the scan function - we use PDF files and the included software creates excellent PDF docs - better than our HP 6250c. Color is 24 bit, so this is not a photo scanner.
There are some minor irritations, a hum in the fan, the build quality is lightweight, options are limited, per page costs are avg for lasers - about 3 cents (but way less than inkjets), etc. On the other hand, the MFC 7820 is 50% to 25% the price of the competition, and 100% easier to use. We highly recommend it for home office / small business / even as a departmental backup.

This printer has the poorest initial quality of any I have owned. I am not a heavy user and do not move the machine on the desk. Still the Ethernet port becomes loose and requires constant attempts to move it just right so that it may work. Customer service takes much time and effort and frustration. Does not play well with routers.