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

Great printer! Prints quickly, was a breeze to setup, and came with great software. It also has plenty of features First Brother printer and will not be the last!

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.

Great quality for the brand. Setup was easy. Making a copy was simple.

A very nice home office printer. Easy to set up and works well.

Easy to set up and start printing via wifi right away. Compact and practical. Good value for the price.

Although so much of what we do these days is fully-digital, the need to print physical documents still crops up from time to time -- and when it does, not having a (reliable) printer around is painful. As an adult working in an office environment I have for many years relied on my office printer when the need arises ... but with a new hybrid schedule post-pandemic I've found myself wishing I had a home printer more and more. With this in mind I added this Brother MFC-J1170DW machine to my home office. I chose to go with a Brother printer because of years of positive experiences at work with Brother machines, which I've found to be straightforward, reliable workhorses that rarely need much, if any, intervention. While I'm a big fan of laser printers for their speed and cost-effectiveness, for occasional use at home I elected to go with an inkjet printer to both save physical space and enable color printing when needed. While color laser printers do exist, they're both expensive and bulky, and I knew that level of printing would be lost in my modest home office. Having not researched home printers in a number of years I was pleased to find Brother offered not only a wide selection of models but also multifunctional machines like this J1170DW. I find myself needing to scan documents to the "cloud" more than I need to print them and I quickly realized scanning capabilities at home would be nice to have. With these needs in mind I settled on the Brother MFC-J1170DW. Upon unboxing I was pleasantly surprised at how compact this machine is: it fits perfectly on the bottom shelf of my bookcase, which is exactly where I hoped to place it. I wager Brother did careful research when designing the J1170DW because it seems expressly designed to fit in tight spaces. The paper tray is internal and the entire package needs minimal clearance on the sides and back, making placement on a shelf a no-brainer. Everything folds up in a tidy package when not in use, giving a very sleek appearance. The first hurdle for any printer is initial setup, and I have to say, Brother did a good job here, too. Setup can be largely accomplished using the integrated touchscreen in combination with a smart phone or laptop, assuming you're planning to use this printer via wired/wireless networking. Simply plug in the machine, boot it up, download the Brother app to your phone and follow the step-by-step instructions. I had the printer up and running in a few minutes, with all basic functions enabled. The Brother mobile app isn't the sleekest, but it gets the job done easily and efficiently. After setup you're able to print documents from your phone and -- this is neat -- scan documents directly to your phone, a feature I've already used more than once. You really can use this printer without involving a traditional computer, something I was not expecting. For deeper setup, you'll need to page through the lengthy options menus on the printer's touchscreen, which is thankfully clear and easy to read. In addition to printing/scanning to and from your mobile phone you can link the J1170DW with some of the most popular cloud storage services (Dropbox, OneDrive, Box and more) to print and scan directly from your cloud storage library. As a frequent user of both Dropbox and OneDrive I immediately linked my accounts and found myself able to scan documents directly to the cloud easily. You can also use the touchscreen to scroll through your cloud files and print them, but with the small size of the screen it's generally more efficient to do this on your computer or mobile device and send them to the printer as you might normally. Speaking of computers, I followed Brother's suggestion and downloaded their software and driver package to my Windows 11 laptop. Installation was a breeze and I was pleased to find the full package didn't clog my computer with lots of bloatware. In addition to the official Brother driver package I chose to install the iPrint & Scan application, the printer status monitor and the software update notifier. I didn't think I'd find much use for iPrint & Scan, but I was wrong. The application, like Brother's mobile app, is simple but effective, allowing you to tweak various scan and print options before you input or output your documents. I highly recommend it for scanning, as it lets you set parameters the way you like, and like the printer itself you can link your cloud storage accounts and have your scans save directly to them. Digging into more advanced settings requires accessing the printer's web interface and/or using the touchscreen to change things like wake/sleep time, default behaviors and more. Depending on your level of comfort with these types of systems you may run into some difficulty, but Brother's extensive online support site should help you if you get stuck. For anyone that's used to managing printer settings from a webpage in an office environment you'll find the J1170DW very straightforward and easy to use. Beyond setup and use, I'm pleased with the reliability of the printer and the quality of prints it produces. Colors and text are more than adequate for office documents and general mixed use. If you're looking for high-quality photo printing I'm not sure this printer is what you're looking for, but for moderate home office use it's absolutely capable. This brings me to the ink situation, which is often the make-or-break element of inkjet printers. This Brother uses a newer-style cartridge/tank hybrid system of sorts, wherein you insert four separate ink cartridges (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) into slots at the front of the machine, from which the printer pulls ink and mixes it internally. This is opposed to the traditional inkjet setup where cartridges are also the dispensing mechanism and are installed directly on the moving printhead. The advantages here are a compact footprint, printhead accuracy, and ink volume (you can purchase regular or XL cartridges and replace them individually as they run out). That being said, this is not a true ink "tank" style printer, and the cartridges are not exactly cheap -- if you do lots of printing, you'll notice the cost. To that end, this machine is eligible for Brother's subscription service, which I would recommend looking into. Brother's "Refresh EZ Print" subscription service offers a few different subscription tiers, all based on the number of pages you anticipate printing per month. Once you've selected a tier and enrolled your machine, you just go about your printing, with the machine monitoring ink levels in the background and automatically ordering new cartridges as needed, all for a flat monthly fee. You can rollover a certain number of unused pages per month, while going over the monthly page limit costs you a set price per page. Depending on your printing habits the Refresh EZ Print service can be a moderate or even major cost-saver, but your mileage may vary. Regardless, paying one set monthly fee and simply receiving cartridges as needed at no additional cost is appealing. Either way, it's worth your time to check this out. Overall, I'm very pleased with the Brother MFC-J1170DW. It prints, scans and copies reliably and at a quality and price perfect for home office or even light business use. The machine itself is compact and attractive, and about as easy to use as a printer can be. The ability to print and scan directly to/from cloud storage services and mobile devices is a huge bonus, and the availability of an affordable subscription program for ink refills is innovative and (possibly) cost-effective. Overall, I recommend this machine and the Brother brand, and advise giving the MFC-J1170DW a good looking-at if you're in the market for a new all-in-one machine.

The Brother MFC J1170DW wireless color printer is another great product for the Brother line. I had an older printer that needed to be replaced in my office, and decided to try out something from Brother. I was looking specifically for something small, with wireless printing, duplex, and in the black color to match my decor. This model fit all of those requirements. Great print quality, even when printing from my mobile devices. The software that is included has tons of functionality as well. You can subscribe to a monthly subscription, but I chose not to at this time. Setup was very simple. It comes with a USB cable as well. I chose to go wireless. There was a firmware update that needed to be done when I first got it on. There is a key located on the back of the printer that is used when doing all updates to the printer's firmware. More secure that way. All in all, the printer is great. I have had no issues while using it, and can recommend the Brother J1170DW to anyone looking for a small printer for home or office use.