By M. David Stone The simplest description for the Brother MFC-J870DW, also available as the MFC-875DW with some superficial differences), is that it's an improved version of the Brother MFC-J825DW that it's in the process of replacing in Brother's line. A particularly good fit as a personal inkjet MFP in any size office, the MFC-J870DW offers faster speed than the MFC-J825DW, better output quality, and one eye-catching new feature: support for Near-Field Communication (NFC) so it can print from NFC-capable smartphones. The combination makes it a shoo-in to replace the MFC-J825DW as Editors' Choice.
Although NFC support is far from the MFC-J870DW's most important feature, it's the most interesting, if only because this is the first printer to come through PC Labs that offers NFC. If you have an appropriate phone, like the Samsung Galaxy S III that I tested with, NFC makes printing from the phone impressively easy.
To use NFC, you first have to make sure the feature is turned on in both the phone and printer, and you have to install Brother's print app from the Google Play Store. Once that's taken care of, you can print whenever you like. Open Brother's print app, pick a file or other item to print, and hold the phone next to the NFC logo on the front of the printer for a moment. After the printer and phone automatically negotiate the connection, you'll see a message on the phone saying you can move it away from the printer. All that's left is to wait for the file to print. It's that simple.
Of course, as useful as NFC can obviously be for mobile printing, not everyone needs it, and a lot of phones (Read: iPhones in particular) don't support it. Fortunately, the MFC-J870DW also offers lots of other features that make it worth getting even if you don't have an NFC-capable phone.
Packed with Features
Basic MFP features in the MFC-J870DW include printing and faxing from, as well as scanning to a PC, even over a network, and working as a standalone copier and fax machine. It's also easy to scan to email, using the email program on your PC, by using the front-panel menu accessed through the 2.7-inch touch screen. Additional office-centric features include automatic duplexing (for printing on both sides of a page) and a 20-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) that supplements the letter-size flatbed for scanning at up to legal size.
Unlike some Brother MFPs, the MFC-J870DW also offers lots of photocentric features, including the ability to print directly from PictBridge cameras, memory cards, and USB memory keys, as well as view photos before printing on the front panel LCD. Built-in menu commands also let you connect to a selection of Web sites, some of which, like Picasa Web Albums, are primarily of interest for home use. Other choices include Google Drive, Flickr, Facebook, Evernote, Box, and Dropbox.
Also very much worth mention is the ability to both print on printable optical discs, and use a copy command to copy an image onto a disc.
One key limitation for the printer is that it holds only 100 sheets of paper, with no upgrade options. That should be enough for most personal use, but unless you print very few pages, it's too meager for sharing the printer on an office network, even though you can connect using either Ethernet or Wi-Fi. Partly making up for the low capacity is a 20-sheet tray for 4 by 6 photo paper. The second tray lets you switch between plain paper and photos without having to swap out the paper in the main tray.
Setup, Speed, and Output Quality
Setting up the MFC-J870DW is standard fare. For my tests, I connected to a network using the Ethernet port, and installed the drivers on a Windows Vista system. On our business applications suite I clocked the printer (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing) at 4.7 pages per minute (ppm). That makes it faster than either the MFC-J825DW, at 4.0 pages per minute (ppm) or the Editors' Choice Epson WorkForce WF-3520, at 4.4 ppm. It also counts as fast for the price. Photo speed was also reasonably fast, averaging 59 seconds for a 4 by 6.
Output quality is par or better across the board. Text in particular is at the high end of the range that includes all but a few inkjet MFPs, making it easily good enough for most business needs. Graphics output is good enough for any internal business use. Depending on how critical an eye you have, you may or may not consider it good enough for PowerPoint handouts or the like as well. Photos were dead on par, making them a match for what you would expect from drugstore prints.
As with the MFC-J825DW that it replaces in both Brother's line and as Editors' Choice, the Brother MFC-J870DW offers a long list of features—from its ADF, to its duplexer, to its NFC support—that makes it highly attractive for office use. The low paper capacity pretty much limits it to being a personal printer, but being able to share it on a network can still be a useful convenience, particularly for the dual role of home and home-office MFP. If you need an office-oriented, personal MFP, the Brother MFC-J870DW belongs on your short list.
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