Brother MFC-J870DW review

The Brother MFC-J870DW is a small business-oriented MFP with a comprehensive specification. There’s a fax machine, direct printing and scanning from its USB port and memory card reader, wired and wireless networking and the ability to print from a smartphone or tablet using NFC. The MFP has a 6.8mm touchscreen and numeric pad which lights up when required.

When you plug in the MFP, you’re prompted to insert the ink cartridges into slots located behind a neat flap on the front right of the unit. As you push each of the four cartridges into place, they’re instantly recognised and removed from the on-screen list of required colours. The printer comes with a set of LC-121 cartridges, but our cost estimates are based on the larger, better-value LC-123 cartridges, which work out a somewhat expensive 3p per mono page and 9p per page of mixed colour and black printing.

The J870DW’s main paper tray takes up to 100 sheets of plain A4 paper. Mounted above it is a second tray capable of accommodating 20 sheets of 4x6in photo paper. To load and print on 6x4in paper, you have to manually pull this tray forwards with a blue plastic tab. If you want to print on normal paper, though, you have to remember to retract the 6x4in tray manually. It’s a little annoying, but at least the printer tells you if you’re trying to print on the wrong paper type.

We also found that the photo tray didn’t always hold our paper in perfect alignment, so there were sometimes bits of white at the edges of pictures. Photo printing is not this MFP’s strong suit, partly because of this alignment issue, partly because of poor contrast and shading, and partly because six 6x4in photos take a long 14m 15s to print. That said, its photos aren’t entirely dire, with colourful images looking pleasingly vivid.

Colour A4 print speeds were generally slow even by inkjet standards. A 24-page colour document printed at 1.9ppm, with occasional pauses. Our colour duplex text, which prints five double-sided pages, was completed at a fast rate of 2.7ppm, but this is because the printer pauses during long print jobs, creating a situation in which longer print jobs can print at a slower rate than shorter ones. High-quality colour prints looked unremarkable. Images were a little dull and large images had faint lines across them.

Close examination also revealed lines on our mono text print, but from a standard reading distance, text documents were solid and readable. They printed quickly, too, with an output speed of 12.1ppm. Switching to draft mode raises this to 16ppm but produces dull grey text.

The MFP is surprisingly capable even if you never connect it to a PC. We’d have liked to be able to print documents from our USB disk or memory card, rather than just photos, but the ability to scan to USB is very handy, as is the MFP’s support for web services including Google Drive, SkyDrive and Facebook. You’ll have to generate a unique registration number on Brother’s website for each service you want to use. Tap the code into your printer and give it a display name, and you’ll be able to upload scanned documents and photos as well as browse and print images and documents from your online account.

The MFP’s NFC receiver allows it to communicate with a compatible smartphone using the Brother iPrint&Scan app. Unfortunately, the receiver is inexplicably positioned on the front of the MFP, so you have to hold your phone or tablet in place with one hand to maintain the connection, while tapping its screen with the other to send your chosen picture to the printer. Fortunately, this doesn’t take long for most images and documents.

Scan quality from the 2,400×1,200dpi CIS scanner isn’t fantastic, unfortunately. Scans suffered from poor contrast in dark areas, where dark greys all become black, as well as fuzzy edges in high contrast areas, such as a pale subject against a black background. Fine detail wasn’t very sharp and scan quality in general was somewhat grainy. The MFP is oriented towards home office users, so all we really want from it is decent quality document scanning, but at low resolutions we noticed a slight halo around scanned text. At least our documents scanned fairly quickly, with a 300dpi A4 scan taking 23s.

We really liked the MFC-J870DW’s interface and PC-less printing features. It’s the first MFP we’ve reviewed to have a built-in NFC receiver and, despite complaints about its positioning, it’s still a genuinely convenient feature. Unfortunately, the MFP is let down by mediocre print and scan quality. If you’re after a sub-£150 MFP, you’re better off with a Canon Pixma MX925.