Two unique features make the Brother MFC-J870DW printer a big hit with me

Last week I told you about the nightmare experience I had with the Epson XP-820 printer when setting it up for a client of mine. That story ended with me returning the printer to Office Depot. This week I thought it only fair to update everyone on what printer I bought in place of the Epson XP-820.

The printer I ended up with, and quickly fell in love with, is the Brother MFC-J870DW. Long-time readers of my blog know that I am a huge fan of Brother printers but my experience with them to date has only been with their line of laser printers. This is the first Brother inkjet printer I have had the opportunity to work with.

Two favorite features

Rather than give a big, long review of the Brother MFC-J870DW, I thought I’d shortcut my review by telling you about my two favorite features. The first is the location of the ink cartridges. Rather than having to open the lid of the printer and reach inside to get at the print cartridges, the Brother MFC-J870DW has its ink cartridges located conveniently in the front of the printer. To access them, you just pop open the access panel. No digging inside the printer. No getting out a flashlight so you can see what you’re doing.

My second favorite feature is the location of the access ports. They’re not in the back where they usually are. Instead, they are inside the printer, under the top lid. Ironically, this is nearly the location that the ink cartridges would normally be located but the ports are right up front so you don’t have to go digging inside the printer to get to them.

There’s also a cord run so you can route your USB printer cable, or Ethernet cable, from the inside of the printer out to the rear of the printer. I’m assuming the logic here is that you don’t have to pull your printer out and flip it around to get to the back of it to connect your printer cable or to check to see if the connection is good. Instead, you just life the lid of the printer and the ports are right there in front of you.

Everything else

As for everything else, I have no complaints. The print quality is more than adequate, the paper trays are easy to use, it has built-in duplexing and it has every type of connection you would want to use—USB, wireless and wired. You can also print directly from a memory card or USB flash memory.

Oh, and did I mention, when I set up this printer for my client, the setup went off without a hitch?