Customer Ratings & Reviews

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.

I have always loved every brother printer I’ve ever had. This is no different.

Enjoying my new printer! Bought it online and I received good delivery time!

THE IS AN EXCELLENT PRINTER IT PRINTS GREAT AND ITS FAST.

Don’t buy this printer. Brother is throttling the black ink cartridge availability and Best Buy I’m sure knew this when marking it down for sale. Black ink cartridges appear to be available in Canada but I cannot get them shipped to the US. There should be a class action suit against brother, as it seems the black cartridges are available thru their subscription ink service!

The Brother MFC-J1170DW is a great home/home-office printer. In the box is the printer, 4x ink cartridges (Red, Yellow, Blue, Black) and a telephone cable. The latter is so you can connect it to your phone line and use it as a fax - something I didn't test as I don't have a phone line (and does anyone send faxes anymore)? When you turn the printer on it makes a cool chime noise. You are then prompted to install the ink. The ink cartridges are easy to fit (Cartridge Model LC401 if you're wondering). The Black cartridge is a little larger than the colors, since we all tend to print more black than color. Its nice to see Brother thinking ahead. After the ink is installed it takes about 4 minutes for the printer to "charge" the ink. During this time, on first setup you set the date and time. Load paper and do a test/calibration print. The color/touch screen is REALLY good. The best I have used on a printer at this price point. It's up there with thousand dollar corporate printers. It's crystal clear, even in direct sunlight, and super responsive. You can also adjust the angle/tilt of the screen, so it' easier to read at your desk. WiFi Setup was easy, the MFC-J1170DW connected to my mesh WiFi network easily. I used the touch screen to go through the process (and the on screen keyboard). Again, Brother need to be thanked for making such a great touch screen. But the real test of the printer is in the printing itself. I did some test prints of black and white PDFs of reading material for work, and was getting about 19 pages per minute in my test. This is a little faster than what the printer is rated (17) but not super scientific and I had some blank, low text pages in my test. In my color tests, using PowerPoint, I was getting closer to 14 pages per minute (specs are 16) again - not scientific but an impressive result. Scanning was easy too, I did test scans of my CDC Vaccine Card and no complaints about speed or quality. One last thing I will add is this is the first time I have used a Brother printer without having to download their PC or mobile software for setup or use. It's just so good to be able to use a printer without having to install a lot of stuff you just don't want or need. Brother does offer an extra 6 month warranty if you register the printer, but you're not pressured or forced to use their software or ink subscriptions link some other printer makers. The only watch out on the printer is Brother have a weird design choice where LAN (and fax) cables go through a little trough underneath the scanner. I am not sure why Brother do this, but if you want to actually plug this in to ethernet or use it as a fax, just keep in mind where and how you connect the cables is odd. Tip. Make sure you remove the orange cartridge protector before you try and install the cartridges! PS. My MFC-J1170DW is black. It's great to see black printers available again, looks much more at home on my desk next to a black cased gaming PC a black monitor.

This Brother MFC-J1170DW is a really nice all-in-one color printer with a small footprint. Scanner/copier function is works great for quick copies and backups. The auto doc feeder on top and auto duplex printing are both big pluses for me – I really appreciate these features in a printer but rarely see them on printers this small so they are really nice functions to have. Printing is quick first page out and speedy continuous printing. Manufacturer claims 16.5 ppm color and 17 ppm black/white which seems right in line with what I’m getting. Setup and connection are very easy. Honestly quite a bit simpler and quicker to get up and going than multiple other printers I’ve had recently. It auto updated all the software including firmware as it was setting up which was nice. Wi-Fi connection was seamless, easy to input password with the large touchscreen display. None of the confusion of various networks, just enter your current Wi-Fi password and then the computer found the printer and setup everything automatically. Obviously has the Wi-Fi which is all I’ve used but nice to know that this can also be used with Wi-Fi Direct, Ethernet or wired connection using a standard USB interface. I’ve used this wirelessly with my laptop, phone, and tablets with no problems whatsoever. Love that this unit can scan directly to my OneDrive and drop box without suing a computer. Software suite is solid and all user friendly, very intuitive. Brother Mobile Connect App and page gauge are right on point and simple to use.

You sold me a printer for which there is no black ink available!! Granted not your fault but you must have known. At any rate, restore my faith in your company and stop selling all Brother printers until Brother makes black ink available.

The Brother MFC J1170DW printer is an excellent choice for business or at home. Packed with features that work when you need them. I have used this printer for multiple uses and it has out performed itself each time. My favorite feature is the glass scanner as it scans to perfection. Scanner: Since the scanner is my favorite feature I decided to start off with it. I had a large photo scanning project that needed to be done. So I scanned about 80 pictures in one day between this brother MFC and another major brand printer. I have to say the brother printer scanned beautifully and outperformed the printer which I though it could beat and was way more expensive. I did notice scanning at 1200 dpi the brother was much much slower but it produced a much better high quality image than the other brand at the same dpi. I was scanning at 600 dpi then which the brother moved much quicker and it produced yet again a high quality image. The document feeder works well and holds 20 pages. The only dislike I have is that the document feeder is single sided scan only. This should be duplex as I will need this. Software: The Brother Iprint&Scan i think is the best on the market. There are no gimmicks here. The software was able to automatically detect corners and images that I scanned and crop them precisely on the edge. At the same time, I tested my other brand printer scanning images and it messed up every single photo and could not detect the correct edge or corners in fact in couldn't even get out the white background (it would leave a thin white border). Brother just has it down right. My own thoughts when using their program is that it is clear, concise, and works professionally as it should. Printing: Fast, quiet, precise and accurate. Just the way I like my printer. It holds 150 blanks in the tray and also prints duplex. I like when my ink is separated and not just two cartridges meaning it has a cyan, magenta, yellow, black cartridge. What I like about having the 4 cartridges rather than 2 (one black and the other holding the three colors combined) is that it last so much longer and I feel as though its so much cheaper. In addition, the black ink cartridge in this series is larger so it just lasts. I feel as though buying all 4 cartridges doesn't cost me anymore than systems with 2. In my opinion Brother really has a good price for their ink compared to all the other brands. Setup/wireless: Setting up the MFC J1170DW was a breeze. The wireless printing works great and once the printer was connected to my wifi all of my devices connected via wireless or network cable had access to the printer and I could just click print. As simple as that.

Would not connect to wifi. Returned after geek squad agreed it needed a cable attached to print

Having used a few popular brand-named printers, I was a bit skeptical about trying out a Brother brand-named printer. I haven’t really heard much about them and always went for the same brands that I knew. Having gotten this printer, I must say I am changing my tune. The design and quality are as good, if not better than some of those other popular brand-named printers. Set up of this printer is easy. Fill the printer with paper, plug in the power cord, open the ink cartridge cover and insert your cartridges in the correct color slots, and turn on your printer. You will need to set the time and date and follow the on screen instructions to have the printer hooked up to the Wi-Fi. If you are using a wired connection, open the scanner cover and plug in the Ethernet cord. If you are using the fax feature, plug in the phone line to the jack on the printer. A couple of my favorite features on this printer is that it does auto duplex printing. No need to flip the paper over and put it back into the printer, it does it automatically for you. If you have a bunch of papers you want copied, no problem. Place the papers into the automatic document feeder and it pulls in each sheet to copy them. Two sided pages you want copied, it does that too. This printer will hold up to 150 pages and prints fairly quickly in either monochrome or color printing. It has a good sized touch screen to make copying and scanning easy. The printer has a mobile app, so that you can even print photos from your phone or tablet. The only thing I wish was different about this printer is that it would still print if there is no color ink. Unfortunately, if you run out of colored ink and still have plenty of black it, it will not print for you. With all the other great features, in my opinion, this is a minor setback.

So this is our first inkjet printer in probably 10 years. I have been doing color laser for well over a decade, because ink jets were just not reliable. Well.. with the changing market, we decided to give this one a go, when our one printer died. So far.. so good... almost too good. So let's get this out of the way: This comes with a fax port, and wire, and connection... that I have ZERO way to test or even try to use. I was actually really laughing when opening the box and there was a phone cord in there for the fax. So I don't have a review on that other then... yes, it is there. For setup... this was super easy. Very quick connection to the wireless network. Normally I do wired, but we want this one in the kitchen, and we don't have a network jack there. But it was quickly added to our mesh wifi network, and so far: 100% reliable. It is seen by our iPhones, it was seen by our Mac and Windows computer with no funny business... and I haven't had to do any "tweaks" to keep it reliably connected. Now for Print speed: it has been great. From the iPhone, the print out maybe starts in about 15seconds. Computer, depends on what it is.. .but it is almost as fast. And I have NEVER seen an inkjet print at this speed. It is faster then the laser printers. And this is my only nit pick on the printer. It prints so fast, it ejects the paper sometimes too much and it is on the floor. Printer quality is great. I wouldn't say photo realistic quality but for a general color print... it is really good. The printer is a little on the noisy side, doesn't bother us.. but if you have light sleepers or pets, you may want to factor that in. it is very light weight, so in wireless mode, you can relocated this to your work space and have it right next to you.

Worked fine for the first print, keeps paper jamming.

Pro: -Fast prints -Texts are clean -Multi page copy is fast Con: -Cartridges seems small A solid printer for the home office with fast and clean prints, fast multi page copier, scanner, and fax (never used this feature). It has a good size touch screen for the three main functions along with maintenance and set ups. The print line quality is good, and the color accuracy can be close. Scanning and copying an image, however, resulted in muted and darker prints. The color cartridges are estimated to be able to print 200 pages each, but it does seem small. Setting it up was straightforward. It had a bit of a snag trying to find the WiFi network and I had to manually set it up on the printer, but no issues beyond that. After setting up, I had to update the printer. Updating the printer requires a password which is a bit annoying. You can change the default password using the screen on the printer, but to change it again you have to use a browser and access the printer through its IP address. The USB and LAN ports are on the inside of the printer, which is different. The printer can be linked to online storage accounts like Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneNote for online printing. It can also be set up to print from the phone or the cloud using their app. Documents overall look good. There’s a bit of a fuzz on the letters, but expected for an inkjet printer. Scanning and copying are fast with the top loader going through each page within seconds. Pictures are a bit mixed. Printing from a file has mostly good color accuracy. When copying (scan and print) an image using plain paper and normal settings, the colors are less saturated with bright blues looking more like muted navy. However, using the best quality setting and premium paper will give more accurate colors but take much longer to print.

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.

The setup process is pretty simple, i didnt have any issues connecting to my laptop chromebook. Its meant to be a compact printer for your light use, i wouldnt recommend it of you are doing heavy duty printing becauase of the document feeder capacity and the slower speeds of the printing and scanning. The quality is decent, its an inkjet so obviously not laser quality but the ease of use and reliable print quality make this a good entry point for an all in one inkjet. Do not be a name-brand snob, Brother has come up with an affordable entry. I usually go with HP or samsung but the build quality seems to be comparable to every other printer i have purchased. The options are pretty much standard, i connected it to my router and now the network printer has worked well for all my network computers. Overall its a very nice machine with good print quality, scan quality, good build quality but a tad slow if your find yourself printing alot of sheets at once. A great machine for a small household or light-medium use.

My new brothers printer or any new printer for that matter comes with the challenge of connecting to WiFi and then if you work from home connecting to your companies network. This process was simple and worked the first time without issue. The first unit we received was left uncovered during a monsoon by the delivery driver and I was a little worried that Best Buy / brothers wouldn’t replace it but they immediately shipped me another unit which I received two days after the first. Build quality.. I’m not expecting this printer to last more than a few years and it is poorly built. All printers in this price range are built poorly though. The paper drawer feels like it’s going to break off when opening and closing it. This is and inkjet printer and the cartridges are easy to install and remove which I appreciate. The scanner works great but doesn’t scan double sided automatically. The printer quality is what I really enjoyed on this unit. One of the big perks on getting a brothers printer is the yield on the cartridge I am expecting about 1000 pages on the black. Very high page yield. Printing speed.. very fast. Much faster than other ink jet printers we’ve owned in the past. Photos… average and you need to print with high quality to avoid grainy pictures. The color is great. Overall this is a decent ink jet printer. For the price, you get a high yield cartridge that last. This is perfect for a daily printer or a work from home printer. I would recommend to a friend.

This Brother MFC-J1170DW is the ideal color inkjet all-in-one printer for my home office, school and basic computer needs. Out of the box I was greeted by this nice beautiful printer, all in black. Set up was really easy with little manufacturing tape to remove. Connecting to my home wifi was simple and I love just how compact it is to fit in the corner of our office. After a few weeks of using it here are my thoughts. This offers two-sided printing which helps save paper is a dream to have, as I do home business and with kids starting school. The printed pages are of high-quality output and print speeds – up to 17 ppm black and white and 16.5 ppm color was amazing to experience. As I (and the kids) print large papers this is a nice added feature. The MFC-J1170DW has a very clear 2.7” color touchscreen that is really responsive and makes it easy to navigate compared to previous Brother color printers. As with most of the newer printers out there, you can access printing through the Brother Mobile App where you can print anywhere. You are able to preview the remaining page levels so you can order new ink. Printing speeds are great: up to 17 ppm for black and white and 16.5 ppm for color. Print quality itself is very clear and crisp. The only issue that I encountered is that the paper tray has a smaller capacity than my previous Brother printer. It holds 150 sheets, slightly smaller than what I had before but it’s a welcome one since I use 24lb paper in order to have better printing quality on a “denser” paper. Overall, this is a great printer to have in your home office and for school usage. I am really enjoying the touch screen!

I have been looking for a nice wireless color printer and scanner combo for my office for quite some time now. We have a big clunky laser printer that is only black and white and it's very old and does not work all too well anymore. The new Brother Wireless Color printer is amazing! We can all print right from our phones and iPads and don't have to deal with the cumbersome old printer anymore, which has definitely increased productivity. We do not do a ton of prints but I can already tell the quality on this new one is so much better! Plus being able to get perfect color reproduction on our documents is nice, especially after having only black and white for so long! Unboxing and setup on this really only took me like 15-20 minutes. Once I got all the tape off, and the cartridges in it was just as simple as setting it up on our office wireless network and then we were good to go! Everyone on that network has had zero issues connecting and printing. If you are looking for an easy to use and effective wireless printer, this Brother is a win!

I’ve had brother printers before and they always worked well. I have to say my experience with this Brother -MFC-J1170DW has been the best and easiest and also most useful for what I need now then ever before. First off I don’t use a pc as much as I used to. I am always on my phone. I LOVE Brothers mobile connect App!!!! I set the printer up with my phone and can remotely print now and do everything and I mean everything through my phone. No need anymore for hooking up to my PC. Also it was so easy to do. I scanned the code on the top with my camera, set up a new account and then it went through some basic firmware updates and 4 minutes of making sure the initial ink is good etc etc. it didn’t ask me any weird confusing stuff just add the password to my network at home and it was pretty much done. Well done brother! The printer is nice not too big, the app is amazing! And the way you made it all work together is appreciated. It’s funny you don’t think you need a printer till you don’t have one. Anyway very much recommended.