There are few moments of office-related frustration more acute than the one where a critical document needs printing, and your printer decides to throw a cryptic error, declare a phantom paper jam, or, most commonly, announce it’s out of cyan ink when all you need is a black-and-white return label. For years, I navigated this landscape of clunky software, exorbitant ink cartridge costs, and connectivity issues that seemed to surface at the worst possible times. The promise of a seamless, wireless, all-in-one device often felt like a mirage. The reality was a tangled mess of drivers, wasted paper, and a drawer full of half-used, overpriced ink cartridges. This constant battle isn’t just an inconvenience; it can derail productivity for anyone working from home, managing a small business, or helping with school projects. Finding a reliable, cost-effective printing hub is not a luxury—it’s an absolute necessity.
- The MFC-J1170DW comes with 1 year of FREE ink with a Refresh Subscription. See instruction in the box.
- Full functionality in a small footprint. Despite its compact design, this inkjet all-in-one is fully loaded to meet all of your printing and scanning needs. A welcome addition to any home, home office...
What to Consider Before Buying an All-in-One Inkjet Printer
An All-in-One Inkjet Printer is more than just an item; it’s a key solution for consolidating your home or small office workflow. It serves as a central command center for turning digital ideas into physical documents, archiving physical papers into digital formats, and quickly duplicating important information. The main benefits are efficiency and space-saving; instead of needing a separate printer, scanner, copier, and fax machine, you get all that functionality in a single, compact unit. This integration streamlines tasks, reduces clutter, and simplifies connectivity, as you only need to network one device for all your document management needs. The Brother MFC-J1170DW Wireless Inkjet Printer Bundle aims to be this exact solution, packing a tremendous amount of versatility into a small footprint.
The ideal customer for this type of product is someone facing the daily demands of a modern workflow: the remote worker printing reports and scanning contracts, the student printing essays and research papers, or the small business owner creating invoices and marketing materials. If you need the flexibility to print from a laptop one minute and a smartphone the next, and require scanning and copying capabilities on a regular but not industrial scale, an all-in-one inkjet is designed for you. However, it might not be suitable for those who exclusively print high volumes of black-and-white text documents; in that case, a monochrome laser printer would be far more cost-effective per page. Similarly, professional photographers needing gallery-quality prints would be better served by a specialized, dedicated photo printer.
Before investing, consider these crucial points in detail:
- Dimensions & Space: While billed as compact, all-in-one printers still command significant desk real estate. Measure your intended space carefully, accounting not just for the printer’s footprint (34.3 x 40 x 17.2 cm for this model) but also for clearance to open the scanner lid, access the paper tray, and allow for proper ventilation.
- Capacity/Performance: Look beyond just print speed (PPM). Consider the paper handling capabilities. A 150-sheet input tray is generous for home use, reducing the frequency of refills. The 20-page Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) is a critical feature for anyone scanning or copying multi-page documents, saving immense time and effort compared to manually placing each sheet on the flatbed.
- Materials & Durability: Most consumer-grade printers are constructed from plastic to keep costs down. The key is how robust that plastic feels. Pay attention to the hinges on the scanner lid, the paper tray guides, and the overall rigidity of the chassis. While not built like a tank, a well-designed plastic body can provide years of reliable service for its intended use case.
- Ease of Use & Maintenance: A printer’s usability is paramount. Features like a color touchscreen, intuitive mobile app, and straightforward wireless setup can make the difference between a helpful tool and a constant source of frustration. For maintenance, consider the cost and availability of ink cartridges and whether the device provides clear instructions for tasks like clearing paper jams or cleaning print heads.
This model packs a lot of modern conveniences, making it a strong contender in its class. From our hands-on testing, the feature set is robust and well-suited for its target audience.
While the Brother MFC-J1170DW Wireless Inkjet Printer Bundle is an excellent choice, it’s always wise to see how it stacks up against the competition. For a broader look at all the top models, we highly recommend checking out our complete, in-depth guide:
- Print, Copy, Scan: The PIXMA TS3720 is a true colour printer scanner copier all in one that is compact, versatile and easy-to-use with a 60 sheet rear tray that reduces the need to refill paper as...
- Innovative Cartridge-Free Printing ― No more tiny, expensive ink cartridges; each ink bottle set is equivalent to about 80 individual cartridges (2)
- FROM CANADA'S MOST TRUSTED PRINTER BRAND – The DeskJet 2855e is perfect for homes printing to-do lists, letters, financial documents and recipes. Print speeds up to 5.5 ppm colour, 7.5 ppm black.
Unboxing and First Impressions: Setting Up the Brother MFC-J1170DW
Upon unboxing the Brother MFC-J1170DW Wireless Inkjet Printer Bundle, the first thing we noticed was its thoughtful and secure packaging. Everything was logically placed and easy to remove. The printer itself has a clean, modern aesthetic with a surprisingly compact footprint for an all-in-one device. The build is primarily plastic, which is standard at this price point. While some users have noted it feels less substantial than older Brother models, we found it to be perfectly adequate and sturdy, with no concerning flex or flimsy components. The adjustable front panel housing the 2.7” color touchscreen is a nice ergonomic touch, allowing for comfortable viewing from a seated or standing position.
The initial setup process is often where a printer shows its true colors, and this is where the MFC-J1170DW begins to shine. As one user aptly put it, the fold-out instruction sheet can look intimidating (“UH THAT’S A LOT OF STEPS”), but in practice, the process is incredibly streamlined. We were up and running in under 10 minutes. The touchscreen guides you through every step, from installing the four initial ink cartridges to connecting to our Wi-Fi network. The on-screen keyboard, while small, was responsive enough for entering our complex network password. It’s a refreshingly straightforward experience that confirms the overwhelmingly positive feedback from users who praise its simplicity. You can see its full feature set and user reviews to get a sense of how easy others found it.
Key Benefits
- Exceptionally easy and fast setup process
- Comprehensive connectivity options including Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and NFC
- Automatic duplex printing saves paper and time
- The “1 Year of Free Ink” bundle offers significant upfront value
Drawbacks
- Ink consumption can be high after the promotional period
- Build quality is functional but not as robust as older models
Performance Under Pressure: A Detailed Analysis of the Brother MFC-J1170DW
A printer can look great and be easy to set up, but its true value is revealed through day-to-day use. We put the Brother MFC-J1170DW Wireless Inkjet Printer Bundle through a gauntlet of real-world tasks, from printing dense reports and vibrant graphics to scanning stacks of documents and making quick copies. This is where the machine’s thoughtful design and feature set truly came to the forefront, though not without revealing its inherent trade-offs.
Setup and Connectivity: A Truly Painless Experience
Brother has clearly invested heavily in optimizing the user setup experience, and it pays off magnificently. Our experience mirrored that of many satisfied users: it was shockingly simple. After plugging the unit in, the 2.7″ color touchscreen immediately came to life and became our primary guide. The process of installing the four starter LC401 ink cartridges was foolproof, with each slot clearly marked and the cartridges clicking satisfyingly into place. Connecting to our office Wi-Fi network was the next step. Using the small touchscreen to type in the password required a bit of precision, but it was responsive and connected on the first try. From there, the printer was on the network and ready to go.
The real magic lies in its device compatibility. Without installing a single driver on our Windows 11 PC, the printer was automatically detected and added to our list of available printers. This “plug-and-play” convenience is a huge win. For more advanced features, like scanning directly to a PC, we downloaded the Brother iPrint&Scan software suite, which was a quick and intuitive install. On mobile, the experience was just as smooth. Printing photos and documents directly from an iPhone and an Android device via the Brother Mobile Connect app was seamless. The app also allows you to check ink levels and initiate scans remotely. The inclusion of NFC (Near Field Communication) is a standout feature in this price bracket. Tapping our NFC-enabled Android phone to the designated spot on the printer immediately initiated a print job—a futuristic convenience that we came to appreciate for quick, one-off prints. For those who prefer a hardwired connection, the availability of both USB 2.0 and Ethernet ports provides welcome flexibility. This wide array of connection options ensures the Brother MFC-J1170DW Wireless Inkjet Printer Bundle can integrate into virtually any home or small office setup with minimal fuss.
Print, Scan, and Copy Quality: The All-in-One Promise Delivered
At its core, a printer must produce high-quality output, and here the MFC-J1170DW performs admirably. We tested its printing capabilities across a range of media. For standard black-and-white text documents on plain paper, the text was crisp, sharp, and easily legible, even at smaller font sizes. The claimed print speed of 17 pages per minute (ppm) felt accurate for text-heavy documents, proving more than fast enough for typical home office needs. When we moved to color documents with mixed text and graphics, like business reports with charts and logos, the colors were vibrant and well-saturated without any noticeable banding or bleeding. The printer handled these jobs at a respectable pace, close to its 16.5 ppm color rating.
Photo printing is often a weak point for office-centric inkjet printers, but we were pleasantly surprised. Using Brother’s own glossy photo paper, our 4″x6″ and 5″x7″ prints showed good detail and accurate color reproduction. While it won’t replace a dedicated photo printer for professional work, it’s more than capable of producing beautiful prints for family albums or casual display. The automatic duplex printing feature is a genuine game-changer, flawlessly printing on both sides of a page without requiring any manual intervention. This not only saves paper but significantly streamlines the printing of multi-page reports and booklets.
The scanning and copying functions are equally robust. The 20-page Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) is the star of the show. We loaded a 15-page contract, and the ADF fed each page through smoothly without a single jam. The ability to scan directly to cloud services like Google Drive or Dropbox from the printer’s touchscreen is incredibly useful, eliminating the PC as a middleman. Scan quality was excellent, capturing fine details and accurate colors. Copying was fast and reliable, with duplicates that were nearly indistinguishable from the originals. The combination of these strong, well-integrated functions makes this device a true workhorse. To see if it fits your needs, you can check the latest price and availability online.
The Ink Dilemma: “Free” Ink, Running Costs, and Third-Party Cartridges
No review of an inkjet printer would be complete without a deep dive into the ink situation, and this is where the value proposition of the Brother MFC-J1170DW Wireless Inkjet Printer Bundle becomes more nuanced. The headline feature is, of course, the “1 Year of Free Ink” promotion. This is handled via enrollment in the Brother Refresh EZ Print Subscription service. We found the sign-up process to be simple, and as one user happily noted, replacement cartridges were shipped out proactively, long before the initial set ran dry. For a moderate user, this represents a significant upfront value, effectively removing the cost of ink from the equation for the first year.
However, the story changes after that first year. Several users reported that the standard LC401 cartridges run out quickly, with some estimating a yield of only 200-240 pages. Our own testing, which included a mix of text and color-heavy prints, suggested that these user reports are credible. For a household or office that prints frequently, the ongoing cost of Brother’s genuine ink cartridges can add up quickly. This is the classic printer business model: a lower-cost device subsidized by higher-margin consumables. It’s a critical factor to consider when evaluating the printer’s total cost of ownership. The printer also enforces a frustrating rule, common among many brands: it will refuse to print in black and white if any single color cartridge is empty.
This leads to the question of third-party ink. We tested a set of compatible non-Brother cartridges to see how the printer would react. As users have warned, the device immediately recognizes them as non-genuine. The touchscreen displays persistent nag messages, and while it didn’t outright block printing initially, the risk of future firmware updates disabling them is very real. One user reported that their non-Brother cartridges simply wouldn’t work despite the warnings. This is a gamble buyers must be willing to take if they choose to go the third-party route. The printer’s value is highest for those whose print volume aligns with the subscription model or who print infrequently enough that the convenience outweighs the cost. This ink subscription model is a feature that really sets it apart for the right user.
What Other Users Are Saying
Across the board, the sentiment surrounding the Brother MFC-J1170DW Wireless Inkjet Printer Bundle is largely positive, with a few consistent caveats. The most frequently lauded aspect is the incredibly simple setup. One user, who described themselves as “not a tech savvy person,” was amazed at how quickly they could get it connected to Wi-Fi and print from their phone. This feedback is a recurring theme, cementing its reputation as a user-friendly device right out of the box.
Positive comments also frequently mention the excellent print quality for everyday tasks and the convenience of the touchscreen and mobile app. One happy customer noted, “This is a great printer, easy to connect, the print quality is excellent and the touch screen is so easy to use and so convenient.” The “1 Year of Free Ink” promotion is another major point of praise, with one reviewer thrilled that “as soon as I signed up… they sent me my first replacement ink cartridges!”
On the negative side, the most prominent complaint revolves around ink consumption and cost after the initial promotional period. A user lamented, “Ink cartridges are small and only last for about 200 pages… Unless you continually want to buy replacement ink, stay away from this printer.” This concern about long-term running costs is the most significant drawback cited. A few other users mentioned a perceived step-down in build quality compared to older Brother printers and frustrations with the printer’s refusal to work with third-party ink cartridges or print in monochrome when a color cartridge is empty.
How Does the Brother MFC-J1170DW Compare to the Competition?
The Brother MFC-J1170DW Wireless Inkjet Printer Bundle operates in a competitive space, primarily challenged by printers that have abandoned the traditional cartridge model in favor of refillable ink tanks. These “supertank” printers typically have a higher upfront cost but offer a dramatically lower cost per page, making them compelling alternatives for high-volume users.
1. Epson EcoTank ET-8500 Wireless Supertank Printer
- Package dimensions: 101 h x 173 l x 207 w (in inches)
- Great quality product
The Epson EcoTank ET-8500 represents the premium end of the supertank market. Its primary advantage is its six-color ink system, which delivers truly exceptional photo quality that the four-color Brother simply cannot match. It’s designed for creative professionals, hobby photographers, and anyone who prioritizes printing vibrant, gallery-quality images. The cost per page is minuscule thanks to its large, refillable ink tanks. Someone should choose the ET-8500 over the Brother if their primary use is photo printing and they are willing to make a significantly larger initial investment to save a massive amount on ink over the long term.
2. HP Smart Tank 7602 Wireless All-in-One Printer
- FROM CANADA'S MOST TRUSTED PRINTER BRAND – The Smart Tank 7602 is perfect for families printing a variety of color documents in high volumes. Print up to 15 pages per minute black and 9 pages per...
- FULLY LOADED WITH SAVINGS – Best for low-cost, high-volume printing—2 years of HP Ink included; get up to 8,000 color pages or 6,000 black pages right out of the box
The HP Smart Tank 7602 is a more direct competitor to the Brother in the general-purpose, all-in-one category, but with the ink tank approach. Like the Epson EcoTanks, it promises extremely low running costs and comes with a generous supply of ink in the box (up to two years’ worth). It offers a similar feature set to the Brother, including an ADF, wireless connectivity, and mobile printing. A user would prefer the HP Smart Tank 7602 if their main priority is minimizing long-term ink costs for regular document and color printing, and they are prepared to pay more for the printer upfront to achieve those savings.
3. Epson EcoTank ET-3850 Wireless All-in-One Printer
- Innovative Cartridge-Free Printing ― No more tiny, expensive ink cartridges; each ink bottle set is equivalent to about 80 individual cartridges (2)
- Dramatic Savings on Replacement Ink ― Save up to 90% with replacement ink bottles vs. ink cartridges (1) – that’s enough to print up to 7,500 pages black/6,000 color (3)
The Epson EcoTank ET-3850 is arguably the most direct challenger to the Brother’s overall value proposition. It strikes a balance between the high-end ET-8500 and the traditional cartridge model. It’s a workhorse all-in-one with a robust ADF and excellent connectivity, but its main selling point is the cartridge-free EcoTank system. This printer is the perfect alternative for a family or small office that prints frequently but doesn’t need the specialized photo capabilities of the ET-8500. It directly counters the Brother’s weakness (high long-term ink costs) by shifting that cost to the initial purchase price.
The Final Verdict: Is the Brother MFC-J1170DW Wireless Inkjet Printer Bundle Right for You?
After extensive testing and analysis, our verdict is clear: the Brother MFC-J1170DW Wireless Inkjet Printer Bundle is a superb all-in-one solution for a specific type of user. Its greatest strengths lie in its incredible ease of use, comprehensive feature set, and excellent upfront value thanks to the included year of ink. For students, families, and home office professionals with moderate printing needs, this machine is a fantastic choice. The seamless setup, reliable wireless performance, and versatile print, scan, and copy functions make it a productivity hub that simply works with minimal fuss.
However, its reliance on a traditional cartridge system makes it a less economical choice for those who print in high volumes. Once the promotional ink period ends, the ongoing costs can become significant. If you print dozens of pages daily, the higher initial investment for an Epson EcoTank or HP Smart Tank model will likely pay for itself over time. But if you value a low barrier to entry and a machine that delivers on its promises of convenience and quality for everyday tasks, the Brother MFC-J1170DW is a confident recommendation. It successfully eliminates the common pain points of home printing, offering a polished and powerful experience. If this sounds like the perfect fit for your home or office, you can find the best price and grab yours here.
Last update on 2025-11-07 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API