Brother MFC-J1170DW All In One: In-Depth Review and User Opinions

The Brother MFC-J1170DW is an all-in-one inkjet printer designed for home and small office use. It combines printing, scanning, copying and fax capabilities into one compact device.

This is an ideal printer for those looking for an affordable machine that can handle basic document and photo printing needs, plus scan and copy documents. It has a minimalist design with an easy to use control panel on the front.

The MFC-J1170DW uses Brother's inkvestment ink cartridges, which are designed to deliver high page yields while keeping printing costs low. It can print in black and color at speeds up to 12 pages per minute.

Overall, the Brother MFC-J1170DW is a solid choice for those seeking an entry-level all-in-one printer with essential features for home and home office use. Its strengths lie in its compact size, low cost of operation and suite of useful functions beyond just printing.

Design & Build Quality

The Brother MFC-J1170DW All-in-One printer has a sturdy, compact design with a 4.7 x 16 x 12.5 inch footprint that will fit nicely on most desktops. Weighing only about 18 pounds, it's easy to move the printer between locations as needed. The MFC-J1170DW features an attractive black plastic exterior case with a gray band wrapped around the middle. The interior frame feels solid with no loose or flimsy parts. Buttons on the control panel have a satisfying click when pressed. The printer comes with a 250 sheet paper tray that slides smoothly in and out when loading paper. There is also a manual feed slot for printing envelopes, labels, or other one-off media. Overall, the printer's physical design and construction seem geared towards durability and reliability for home office use.

Features

The Brother MFC-J1170DW is an all-in-one printer with strong capabilities for home office and small business use. It can print, scan, copy and fax giving you a versatile machine to meet most basic office needs.

For printing, it uses inkjet technology to deliver up to 12 pages per minute in black and 10 pages per minute in color. Print resolution goes up to 4800 x 1200 dpi for vivid clarity in photos and graphics. The 150-sheet paper capacity is ample for home use but businesses may need an extra tray. Connectivity options include wireless, Ethernet, USB and WiFi Direct for flexible setup.

Scanning is done using a flatbed scanner which can scan letter or legal sized originals. It scans in color at up to 1200 x 1200 dpi optical resolution for sharp image quality. Scan documents directly to your computer over the network, save scans to a USB flash drive, or email them to yourself and others. It can scan to popular formats like JPG, PDF and more.

The copier function supports making up to 99 copies at a time. You can reduce or enlarge copies from 25% to 400% using the touchscreen controls. Fax capabilities are also built-in with a 33.6 kbps modem and up to 400 speed dials. Send and receive faxes without tying up your phone line.

Overall, the feature set covers all the core functions for personal or small office use. The MFC-J1170DW delivers robust capabilities in a compact and affordable package.

Print Quality

The MFC-J1170DW produces high quality prints at up to 1200 x 1200 dpi resolution. It can print bordersless photos in up to 8.5" x 11" size.

The printer is fairly fast, able to print black text documents at speeds of up to 24 pages per minute and color documents at 20 pages per minute. For 4" x 6" photos, you can print a photo in as fast as 36 seconds.

Duplex printing is supported for printing on both sides of the paper automatically. The automatic duplexer works well and helps save on paper usage.

Overall the print quality is excellent. Text is sharp and easy to read even at small font sizes. Graphics and photos look vibrant with good detail. The MFC-J1170DW produces lab quality photo prints that look great.

Scanning

The MFC-J1170DW has a flatbed scanner that captures vivid colors and fine details. It scans at up to 1200 x 1200 dpi optical resolution, allowing you to scan documents and photos with precision.

The scanner can directly scan to popular image formats like JPG, TIFF, BMP and PDF without needing any additional software. It has built-in OCR (optical character recognition) that allows scanning documents into searchable PDFs or editable Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other files. This makes organizing and finding scanned files much easier.

You can scan single or multi-page documents via the ADF (auto document feeder) which holds up to 30 sheets. The scanner also features auto 2-sided scanning for convenient duplex scanning. Overall the scanning capabilities are very versatile for home office and personal use.

Copy & Fax

The Brother MFC-J1170DW performs well when it comes to copying and faxing.

The copy resolution goes up to 1200 x 600 dpi, delivering crisp and clear copies. You can make copies at speeds of up to 30 pages per minute. The copier can also do 2-sided copying to save paper.

For faxing, the MFC-J1170DW includes a 33.6K bps fax modem that can store up to 500 pages in memory. You can easily send faxes from the printer, your computer, or your smartphone app. The fax machine is capable of broadcasting faxes to up to 250 locations. Fax forwarding and PC fax send/receive are also supported.

Overall, the copy and fax capabilities of this all-in-one printer are quite robust for home office and small business use. The speed and quality are solid, and connectivity options for sending faxes are flexible.

Connectivity

The Brother MFC-J1170DW offers excellent connectivity options for home and small office use.

• For wireless connectivity, it has built-in WiFi 802.11b/g/n and WiFi Direct. Connecting to your wireless network is quick and easy using the setup wizard on the LCD screen. WiFi Direct allows wireless printing directly from mobile devices without a router.

• In addition to WiFi, you can connect to the printer via USB 2.0 for direct printing and scanning. The USB port is located conveniently on the front of the printer.

• For wired networks, the MFC-J1170DW includes an Ethernet port on the back. Connecting via Ethernet provides a fast and reliable wired network connection.

• For printing on the go, the printer supports Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Brother iPrint&Scan, and Mopria. You can print directly from your iPhone, iPad, Android smartphone/tablet, Chromebook, and other mobile devices.

• Overall, the connectivity options on the Brother MFC-J1170DW are versatile for home and small office environments. The wireless and wired network connectivity combine with mobile printing support for easy printing from anywhere.

Software

The Brother MFC-J1170DW comes with a robust software suite to help you get the most out of the printer.

Drivers

It includes drivers for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. The drivers are easy to install and allow you to access all the printer's features. You can update the drivers directly from Brother's website to get the latest software.

Software Suite

The printer also comes bundled with Brother's iPrint&Scan app, Brother Control Center, and other utilities. iPrint&Scan allows you to print from and scan to your mobile device. Brother Control Center provides access to the printer settings and lets you check ink levels. There are also apps for converting scanned documents to editable text, scanning business cards, and more.

Overall, Brother provides a full software suite comparable to other manufactuers. The drivers work seamlessly across platforms and the extra utilities help maximize the printer's capabilities.

Ink & Toner

The MFC-J1170DW uses Brother's LC3033 black and LC3035 color ink cartridges. The included ink cartridges can print around 200 pages (black) and 165 pages (color).

Replacement high-yield ink cartridges offer improved page yields of 600 pages (black, LC3037) and 500 pages (color, LC3039) and are reasonably priced at around $25-35 per cartridge. This allows you to print up to 6 cents (black) and 7 cents (color) per page, which is very economical for an inkjet printer.

One downside is that the ink cartridges are not super high-yield, so you will have to replace them more often if you print frequently. But the low printing costs per page help offset more frequent cartridge replacements.

Overall, the MFC-J1170DW provides affordable ink printing with typical cartridge page yields and competitive ink costs compared to other inkjet all-in-one printers. Just be prepared to swap ink cartridges relatively often if your printing needs are high volume.

Conclusion

The Brother MFC-J1170DW checks a lot of boxes for having onePrinter with quality printing, scanning, copying, and fax capabilities in a single space-saving unit. Here's a summary of some of the key pros and cons:

Pros:

• Compact all-in-one design saves desk space
• Fast print speeds up to 22ppm
• Automatic 2-sided printing
• 150-sheet input tray capacity
• Versatile scanning with built-in OCR
• High-yield ink tanks reduce long-term costs
• Easy wireless connectivity and mobile printing
• Quiet operation suitable for home office

Cons:

• No LCD display screen
• Limited 20-sheet ADF for scanning
• Cannot print on specialty media like cardstock
• Mediocre photo print quality
• No Ethernet port

Overall, the MFC-J1170DW is a solid choice for home offices and small businesses wanting a basic all-in-one printer with key functions like scan, copy, and fax. While the ink tanks help lower long-term costs, the lack of an LCD screen and specialty printing features make it less versatile than some similarly priced models. But if your needs are basic black and white printing and document management, the Brother MFC-J1170DW gets the job done in a compact package.