Design & Build Quality

The Brother MFC-L3720CDW is built like a true office printer. Weighing around 44 pounds, it has a sturdy construction designed for daily business use. The larger footprint houses a generous paper tray, a large touchscreen, and a robust automatic document feeder.

The HP Smart Tank 7603 is significantly lighter at only 17 pounds. Its compact design fits much better in home offices where desk space is limited. The refillable ink tanks are neatly integrated into the body, making ink monitoring easy.

Brother feels more premium and durable, while HP focuses on convenience and compactness.

Winner: Brother MFC-L3720CDW

Print Quality

This is where the biggest difference appears.

The Brother uses laser technology, producing razor-sharp black text and highly detailed business graphics. Fonts remain crisp even at smaller sizes, making contracts, spreadsheets, invoices, and reports look professional.

The HP Smart Tank uses thermal inkjet technology. It produces richer colors and smoother photo prints, making it better for brochures, flyers, and occasional photo printing.

If your work mainly involves documents, Brother wins. If you print colorful marketing materials or family photos, HP performs better.

Business Documents: Brother

Photos & Color Graphics: HP

Print Speed

Brother prints at 19 pages per minute, making it noticeably faster for everyday office work.

The HP Smart Tank prints black pages at around 15 ppm, which is respectable but slower.

For offices printing hundreds of pages daily, those extra pages per minute save considerable time.

Winner: Brother MFC-L3720CDW

Running Cost

Running cost is HP’s biggest advantage.

The Smart Tank 7603 includes enough ink for up to:

• 6,000 black pages
• 8,000 color pages

HP also includes up to three years of ink in the box, dramatically reducing ownership costs.

Brother laser toner lasts a long time but replacing toner cartridges is considerably more expensive than refilling ink bottles.

If you regularly print thousands of pages every month, HP can save hundreds of dollars over time.

Winner: HP Smart Tank 7603

Paper Handling

Brother clearly targets business users.

It includes:

• 250-sheet input tray
• 50-sheet Automatic Document Feeder
• Automatic duplex printing

The HP Smart Tank also supports duplex printing and includes a 35-sheet ADF, but its paper handling isn’t as robust.

Businesses processing large scanning jobs or multi-page documents will appreciate Brother’s higher capacity.

Winner: Brother MFC-L3720CDW

Scanner, Copier & Fax

Both printers provide:

• Print
• Scan
• Copy
• Fax

However, Brother’s larger ADF makes scanning contracts, invoices, and large document stacks much easier.

The HP scanner is excellent for home office use and also supports Scan to PDF, making digital workflows convenient.

Overall scanning productivity is higher on Brother.

Winner: Brother MFC-L3720CDW

Connectivity & Smart Features

Brother offers one of the strongest connectivity packages in this price range.

Features include:

• Dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4GHz & 5GHz)
• Wi-Fi Direct
• USB 2.0
• Google Drive integration
• Dropbox integration
• OneDrive integration
• OneNote support
• Mobile printing
• Remote management
• Toner monitoring
• 48 touchscreen shortcuts

HP also includes wireless printing, mobile printing, and smart app support, but it doesn’t offer the same depth of workflow integration.

Businesses working heavily with cloud storage will appreciate Brother’s advanced capabilities.

Winner: Brother MFC-L3720CDW

Ease of Maintenance

Maintenance differs because of the printing technology.

Brother laser printers require almost no day-to-day attention. Toner doesn’t dry out, making the printer ideal even if it sits unused for weeks.

HP Smart Tank requires occasional ink refills, although HP’s spill-free bottle system makes the process simple and clean.

Users who print only occasionally may prefer laser technology because there’s no risk of ink drying in the printhead.

Heavy-volume users, however, will appreciate HP’s inexpensive refills.

Winner: Tie

Home Office vs Business Office

For a home office that prints schoolwork, family documents, occasional photos, and color projects, HP offers tremendous value thanks to its low operating costs.

For accountants, legal firms, consultants, agencies, medical offices, or any business that prints documents throughout the day, Brother is the better fit due to its speed, paper handling, and professional output.

Price & Value for Money

The prices are almost identical.

• Brother MFC-L3720CDW — $459
• HP Smart Tank 7603 — $469

Since the Brother actually costs slightly less while delivering better office performance, it provides excellent value for businesses.

However, users focused on minimizing long-term printing costs may recover HP’s slightly higher purchase price through much cheaper ink refills.

For productivity, Brother offers stronger value.

For economy, HP wins.

Final Verdict

Both printers are outstanding, but they target different users.

Choose the Brother MFC-L3720CDW if you need a dependable business printer with laser-quality text, faster printing, a larger paper tray, a bigger touchscreen, and advanced office features. It is the better option for professionals who print documents every day and want maximum productivity.

Choose the HP Smart Tank 7603 if your priority is extremely low printing costs, high-volume color printing, and refillable ink tanks. It is ideal for home offices, students, and small businesses that print thousands of pages while keeping operating expenses low.

Overall Winner: Brother MFC-L3720CDW ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Its faster performance, superior laser print quality, larger paper capacity, better business workflow features, and competitive pricing make it the better all-around printer for most office environments. If your work revolves around professional documents and productivity, the Brother MFC-L3720CDW is the stronger