Customer Ratings & Reviews

Best Value printer. Small footprint to fit in tight spaces. Easy setup. No usb cable supplied if using a hard-wired connection to your computer

The Brother - MFC-J1170DW Wireless Color All-in-One inkjet printer in black is a nice, compact printer that is mostly easy to install. Since I am a CPA in public practice, I use all kinds of printers for all sorts of applications-mostly laserjet for fast numerous printing of lengthy tax returns, but all in one inkjets for billing and other miscellaneous printing jobs. The only hiccup that I had was after I had officially set up the printer. So, on its LCD screen there was a message that a firmware update was available. I hit the arrow that takes you through a series of prompts to eventually have to enter a password. Well, silly me, I thought the password was the same one as my online Brother account and even changed that thinking I had it wrong when the message on the machine's screen kept telling me that I had the incorrect password. Little did I realize that on the back of the machine there is a little stamped area that not only has the machine's serial number, but also has a PWD and I believe 7 combo of letters, caps and lower case, numbers, and special characters. The easiest way for me to enter and read was to use my phone's camera to take a picture and read and enter it into the machine. I did wind up calling Brother's toll free number, speak with someone off shore, I believe from their accent, which I do not like. However, after almost pulling my hair out over this password thing, all was done. I already had the Brother set-up program and its utility type programs so downloading the necessary software to my older desktop was easy. I have a newer Dell 2 in 1 on a different floor and that connected to this new Brother machine quite easily, too. Pros-small enough to set on an ottoman, see attached picture, or on any desk surface area. Quick 1st paper out, quality of print, and speed. This is good for smaller office type jobs or smaller home type jobs. I also had the Brother Mobile Connect app already downloaded to my smartphone and I love using that to print necessary items right from my phone. The literature states that ISO print speeds are up to 17ppm for black print and up to 16.5 ppm for color print. I used wireless connectivity, but there is ethernet available, automatic duplex (2 sided) printing, and many things , like the Cloud, Dropbox, etc., can be reached directly from the machine itself, and a 20 page auto doc feeder. Con-Does not state on the box that it is compatible with the recently release Windows 11, so I would call the toll free Brother number and get an opinion on that if you have that operating system. I have not priced replacement Brother brand ink for this machine-there is a "Refresh" Brother program found at www.RefreshmentEZPrint.com that is similar to that of HP's instant ink program where the machine communicates with them seamlessly and for a monthly fee, based on projected number of pages to be printed on a monthly basis, you will receive ink without even having to request it by mail or some other delivery service of their choosing. This machine comes with only starter cartridges for Bk/C/M/Y. The standard ones per Brother will print around 200 pages where the high yield print up to 500 ;ages. I will be looking into the best ink pricing to see what is the most economical way to buy ink because unfortunately, that can be more in the long run than the machine itself.

TLDR; 17ppm black, 16.5ppm color. Capable of 2-sided printing. Has both scanner feed and scanner bed. Scanner only capable of single-sided scans. Can perform faxes, if needed. Can be connected via ethernet or wirelessly. With a Brother account set up, you can print wirelessly from anywhere (remote printing) using the Brother Mobile Connect App. Ink is a 4 cartridge setup, and the cartridges are relatively small. Brother encourages you to sign up for their Refresh Program, automatically sending you ink when you’re running low. Program is a monthly fee. The Brother MFC-1170DW mult-function printer can print, scan/copy and fax, plain and simple. But at the price point, I'm very impressed with what it has to offer. Firstly, the printer itself is very good at printing everyday documents and I really had no complaints here. Once out of the box and plugged in, the printer will prompt for the installation of ink cartridges and then follow-up by performing its self-diagnostic (checking for clogs, alignment). This is a relatively painless process time-wise, and once complete you’re off to the races. During my tests, I did a combination of multi-page pdf documents as well as some documents with color in them. One print job was a welcome packet from a doctor’s office that was about 14 pages, and the Brother ink-jetted its way to completion. I would say that the claimed 17ppm is about in-line with what I was experiencing. I reprinted the same doctor’s office doc, but this time 2-sided and similarly it performed very well. I think 2-sided printing is a huge plus here and I would think at an entry-level, this printer would not include that feature. For color documents, I copied a couple of work orders from the service center for our vehicle. The original document was printed on watermarked paper and the Brother’s copy came out almost identical. The printer did a fairly decent job replicating the tiny disclaimer text usually found on the bottom corners of these work orders. A quick tweak of the scanner and printer DPI settings should probably take care of this a lot better. I only have one complaint about this printer thus far, and that it only does one-sided scanning. Wireless printing set up is also straightforward as the unit guides you step-by-step. The end result is that your printer is now part of your home wireless network. And since it’s on your wireless network, anyone with access to your network can use your printer. But it doesn’t end there; if you acknowledge and consent to remote printing, you’ll be able to print documents from anywhere as long as you have access to the internet. This is done using the Brother Mobile Connect App. The Brother Mobile Connect App allows easy use of your printer for document printing, photo printing, scan/copy and maintenance, all through your phone. The app uses content on your phone (docs, photos) and it makes it easy to select these files and send them off to print. Lastly, there is the Refresh Program, which is Brother’s direct-to-home ink service. This isn’t like your typical “Subscribe-and-Save” program, if you know what I mean. It’s actually a bit more complicated actually. Based on the subscription service you choose, you’ll be allocated a page allowance and based on that page allowance, you’ll pay a relatively low monthly fee! This is made possible by the printer sending your print statistics to big Brother (zing!). So maybe I'll use myself as an example here. I signed up for the Moderate Plan ($4.49/month) that gives me 80 pages a month as a print allowance. If I end up printing less than 80 for the month, my pages carry over as an extra allowance (max carry over of 80 pages). Now if I go over my 80 page allowance in a month, every 10 pages I print will cost me an additional $1. I guess it’s worth mentioning that when the ink does get low, Brother will automatically send you a fresh batch of ink. So the name of the game here is to find out what your level of use really is, and you can save a lot of money on ink. They have various plans with adjusted allowances and page rollover and overage costs. If I do the math (and I stay consistent with printing use), I would only spend $60/year for ink using the service. If I chose to not use the service and bought ink locally, I calculated it to be about $120 for the same amount of pages. Not too shabby! If you find yourself using less or more, you can change your plan at any time, or cancel if you no longer need the plan altogether.

So, this little printer is a highly impressive specimen. Not only was it incredibly easy to set up and get going with the easy-to-follow instructions, but it prints like a bat flying out of hell! I actually swore with surprise the first time I printed off a text page and it just shot out of there like a high velocity rifle round--printed with perfect accuracy. This is a compact, user-friendly printer—highly economical this inflationary day of age, with ink that according to my research is actually rather economical to replace too! That is a huge win for me all around. The size means that this printer is friendly on most workspaces and is honestly perfect for the occasional printer like me who wasn’t looking for something crazy fancy or high-volume. What I really wanted that this printer has, is the ability to scan documents easily to my Onedrive account. I upload manual timecards to my company via scans, and my old printer lost its ability as it is so old to connect to my Onedrive account to upload scans directly to the Onedrive folder I had selected. Getting this Brother printer set up to do it was easy and now I have that ability back again! I am very pleased with this. Altogether, I can’t think of a better entry-level printer at this time. I do miss when entry-level, beginner printers were cheaper, but this printer seems to have the ability to do it all while being user friendly and compact, and I don’t know if I can give it a better recommendation than that! Thanks for reading and hope this review helps you feel confident in your purchase!

Arrived packed excellently. And when opening, had printed basic instructions on box flaps for sliding out, and re-packing. The first part of setup was straightforward - probably the easiest printer I have setup, and went smoothly. Load paper in tray, put tray in machine, and install ink cartridges. There is an orange protector that must be removed - don't throw away, it needs to be put back if cartridges are removed and printer is shipped. Then set date and time. Now the printer went through a print quality and alignment check. If you are going to use as a fax, you must connect phone line and setup for fax. Download the Brother setup software, and once installed, it will walk you through the rest of setup. It took a couple tries, and checking a few modem settings to get the wi-fi going, but it did connect and works well. Now to the printer. It has a nice color display that can tilt for best visibility. The paper tray is simple to load and insert. There is an automatic document feeder in the top of the machine. The cartridges "snap" in place easily. There is a removable "door" in the back of the printer for easy jam removal. I do like that the cartridges are just ink and not the complete print head found in many printers. Should make ink replacement less expensive. Next I did some printing. The printer is quite fast on the wi-fi. Black printed text was sharp, print was dark and not washed out. I did color - on plain paper - and even that looked good. I would think this printer could do excellent photo printing with photo paper. Scanning was fairly quick, and gave a sharp image. When I wasn't using the printer, it went to sleep, but with any command, it was on and ready instantly. This would be a good choice for home, student, or home office use. Simple to use, good print quality, and fairly speedy for multiple prints. One thing I cannot comment about would be the number of prints one can expect from the cartridges. I would recommend.

This is a wonderful printer. It's compact, easy to setup, and works well with both PCs and Apple Macs in our family. The printout quality is excellent. I've used it to print documents on regular paper and mailing labels. The touch LCD screen makes it very easy to use. It prints double-sided which I use often. To my amazement, I've printed out maybe 750 pages total so far and it hasn't jammed or misfed at all - it's very reliable. I've used the scanner (in both flat and auto sheet feed modes), and that works well too. The purchase price was very reasonable for these features and quality. Overall I'm very happy with it.

This Brother 1170 is great. I was lucky to use last year's model but one model below. No touch screen. This version is 2 steps up. We will get to that in a little. Setup was a snap. It took about 30 mins. Follow the instructions. Insert ink. Print out nozzle alignment and scan and you are good. Then go through the other electronic connection and brother connection etc and you are all set. So what I did to make life easier for me and my family was that I set up a separate email address for all of our scans to go and we can then all log on to Google drive and pull the scans from one location. This worked really well for the Pandemic operations. The best part of this printer is the NFC and touch screen options. Way better and easier for setup and use. Multi paper scanning is great. Printing is nice and fast. Remote printing option is great. Mobile software was easy to use. I did not use the fax option. Also computer plug in print was easy. I was using windows 11. Nothing but positive experience for me. The only con is the ink amount and potential cost for ink replacement. Something to consider for heavy printing. I would recommend this product.

I needed a printer for basic home printing needs and this one does a good job. It’s pretty quick at printing multiple pages. Setup took a little while but it easily connects to mobile printing.

Great product. Easy install and setup. Wifi works great. No complaints

The printer is compact and fits on a specialized shelf that is in our closet so it plugs in and prints inconspicuously, quietly and is a helpful tool. Ink is very easy to change and adding paper is simple as well. Some of the print jobs are coming out a little slower than I would like, but overall, it’s a handy useful printer/fax/copy/scan that is compact and has other useful features for the more technologically advanced.

The setup was kind of lengthy yet easy if you follow the instructions. The size of this wireless printer was great because it didn’t take us a lot of space. I love the fact that it was compatible with the operating system (OS) of my parents’ HP laptop and my Windows tablet, which is Windows 11. I also love that I was able to scan for the first time, it was simple and uncomplicated. This was an upgrade from our old printer where we couldn’t scan at all. The only things that I dislike are the size of the display screen and the photo print quality. With the 2.7-inch display screen I kept accidentally hitting the wrong number and letter. The photo prints were decent but not of great quality. Some of the photos had a noticeable thin line going them. However, there were a few photos that came out quite decent but not 100% great quality. However, if my printer breaks down and I had to buy another one, I would purchase this one.

very nice printer works very well no problems as of yet. i like the ways that you can connect your printer such as ethernet,wireless, usb. i did have an hp printer with all the connections but i like brother better its my first one. i had my hp for 5 years. but it would not print cyan anymore so i tried brother. thank you

Very pleased with this model. Easy setup for Wi-Fi. I had an older Brother model so this one seems so much faster. Good quality for what I do. If you are printing photos you probably need a better printer. I like the ADF. I am not a fan of how to use legal size paper. It’s got an awkward paper tray. And lastly….Brother ink is very expensive. Haven’t tried any other brand yet. My sister has an Epson and it would only use Epson ink. Don’t know if Brother will have the same problem.

So far so good. I've been a Canon user for decades but bought this Brother printer since the Canon's either wear out or, more recently, won't connect to the wifi. The plastic and the mechanism on this machine are not as precise as the Canon's but the print is much faster and it's immediate. The Canon tended to wait a few seconds before printing. The print quality is ever so slightly worse than the Canon but certainly acceptable. The ink for this machine is in short supply however - either on line or in store. And of course, there's no telling yet how long it'll last.

NIFTY little printer! It is my first inkjet device, and I'm already impressed with Brother. The setup was pretty easy - the only thing that wasn't immediately clear was the location of the hardwire port. It turns out that the top half of the printer opens to reveal the port, and you must place the wire in the trough provided there. When you shut the top half, you can see the wire extending out of the back of the machine. So far, I've only used the printer to print documents - I haven't yet tried the other features (scanning, faxing, etc.). But it churns out the pages quickly, and the print quality looks crisp. Can't wait to use the other options. I like products that say what they do, and do what they say. And this printer seems to be one of them!

MFC-J1170DW. wireless connection to PC, cellphone and tablet good quality prints. I especially like individual color cartridges . A good model if you don't need a printer with ink tanks for high volume printing. I have two of them.

This is an excellent printer, especially for black and white printing. Letters, even down to 6 point font, are clear and crisp. It's a little hard to line up paper correctly to scan or copy, because the paper is face down, and the slight plastic indentations that keep the paper in the correct position could be raised a bit higher, but I make it work. I don't use photograph paper, so I can't comment on that.

So far the printer isn't loud and works fine, however, in order to get a decent print out you'll need to change the print quality setting. If you don't change the print quality, your document will look like it's missing ink. We use the standard print quality for printing return labels, etc., and switch the quality for more important documents. It did take a while to set up the wireless printing onto the laptop, however, it wasn't too difficult.

Works great and works as it should! Prints off paperwork quick and efficiently!

It was fairly east to set up and i really like the ink program. They sent me a new set of ink. The prints are clear & love that it can duplex print.