Customer Reviews
Great Features but some reliability issues 
2008-09-18
For the past 1 1/2 I have purchased several of these brother MFC machines, including the MFC 8870DW. As one other person indicated, the Brother printers seem to have a flaw with the paper tray and periodically they will stop working and click. A call to Brother does not resolve the problem. The good news is that I always buy through Costco so instead of sending back the problem machine to Brother for a "refurbished" one, I merely order a new one and take the broken one back to Costco for a full refund. It certainly would be nice if Brother could figure out the problem as I am sure they are getting lots of returns (5 from me at least) but the cost per copy is so much less than other printers and the speed of printing is teriffic. Also, the duplexing I use all the time and that too is very fast. So if you are looking for lots of features and don't mind bringing back a machine or too to Costco, buy this machine at Costco and don't worry about the problems. You can just get a new machine when the old one breaks!
Great Printer, Horrible Customer Service 
2008-07-07
The MFC is great with double sided printing and wireless capability, but there does not exist enough expletives to describe Brother's customer service.
Thus: Printer = 5 stars, Customer Service = -10 stars.
Setup was quick and easy and printed well. But mine had a problem making copies. Fax, Scan, Print all worked great, but just copies came out blurry, light, and with toner hue inconsistently across the page. It did not matter whether using the automatic feeder or the flatbed.
So I call customer service. Go through the process of cleaning everything and checking settings as told. Copies look the same as before. Customer Service tells me to replace the drum.
I am not the smartest kid on the block, but if printouts look great from printing, why would the drum be bad? And why would I replace a 2 week old drum on my own dime? Logically, the problem would be before the process of placing toner to paper (such as the scanning portion).
I attempted to convey this to customer service. But got the answer that I have to replace the drum before they can further talk to me. I asked for the next level of help, but I was told everything was handled correctly and would not be forwarded to the next level. I asked for customer service to lodge a complaint, but was given the 1-877-BROTHER number instead of being forwarded.
If you have a problem, just exchange it or return it. Save yourself the hassle from calling Brother. If you do have to call, just lie and tell them you replaced the drum. Probably easier to scour the web, though, for an answer.
Off topic: Amazon has been great in exchanging. UPS picks it up and drops off an exchange in its place.
Best Multi-Function Printer on the Market 
2008-04-24
Best b/w multi-function printer money can buy. This is one of the few that has duplex capability for BOTH printing and scanning, and it is the only MF that has both capabilities and is anywhere close to this price range. The Brother MFC-8870DW would be a bargain at twice the price. We are especially happy with the wireless networking that has finally allowed us to locate the printer where we want it, rather than being constrained to being within cable range of our Mac. Highly recommended.
Brother Printer Review 2008-02-10
So far, all seems to be working just fine.
Look forward to using the many features installed with this printer
Good but not perfect..... 2008-01-19
My wife needed this all-in-one to replace an overloaded HP 1012, an old and balky fax machine and a flatbed scanner. The main impetus was her business was requiring scanning of multiple sheets. We've had it for 2 months now and here's the results so far:
THE GOOD: Frees up a lot of desk space; Quick & easy initial set up; big paper tray; superfast printing, quiet operation (despite some earlier reviews to the contrary); fax and document scanning has been a breeze; even the duplex feature has worked perfectly the few times we've used it.
THE BAD: Our biggest grouse is the print output - when printing large jobs the output tray gets jammed up, eventually causing internal jams. It may be the cheapo paper we're using - after 40 sheets or so they seem to curl up and don't lie flat in the out tray - we have to constantly empty the output tray every 5 or 6 sheets otherwise it shoots sheets onto the floor or jams. Also as noted in other reviews, it will print envelopes for us but they tend to come out curled and wrinkled - we'll be doing envelopes (not a high priority for us) in our InkJet. Document scanning is great, but some initial attempts to scan 4x6 photo prints were spoiled by stripes or "plaid" artifacts - solution so far has been to resurrect the old flatbed. And lastly, we went and got the top-of-the line with wireless capability in the hope that my wife could print direct from her laptop. I was unable to follow the setup instructions in the manual first time through - will try again when I'm in the mood - would probably be easy for a halfways competent IT guy.
Bottom line: vast improvement on what we had been using, for about the same aggregate price. Only intractable issue is the small and confined output tray, and that might be less of an issue if we upgraded our paper.
High-quality duplex printing and copying 2008-01-07
The MFC-8870DW is the flagship model of the Brother laser Multi-Function Center product line and it leaves nothing to be desired for your small/medium business or workgroup. Built-in (802.11b/g) wireless and (Ethernet) network interfaces and built-in duplexing for 2-sided printing, copying, scanning and faxing. All making this the optimal solution for any office.
Brother, what a machine! 2007-12-13
I have been a long-time HP customer, both laser and ink jet. This Brother MFC-8870DW is head and shoulders above any HP printer or All-In-One that I have owned.
I have been using this machine for about a month in my business. Print quality is great. It worked first time, every time.
I previously had a HP 1170C All-In-One inkjet, which frankly, was a pain to use. The ink cartridges never lasted very long, it only worked with 24# paper, and I always had to make sure that I chose to print in black only (99.9% of what I print is B&W). That's no longer a problem with this laser printer.
The wireless connection was a snap to set up. Within 20 minutes it was connected to a sever, desktop and laptop - and I'm not a techie. Very cool.
I have had occasion to use all of the features, except the Fax (I have a dedicated fax). I have scanned to e-mail, copied single sided printing to double-sided copies, printed single and double side . . . and it is all wireless!
I researched a lot of laser printers and multifunction machines at local retailers and on the Internet. At the time, none of the standard retailers (Staples, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Best Buy, CompUSA, Circuit City) even had this machine in their line. I could not touch the quality and functionality of this machine anywhere else, not to mention the great deal that I got at Amazon.
Incredible flexibility and convenience - but not for high volume use. 2007-11-10
The Brother MFC-8870DW does everything I need it to do - and then some. Given the rich feature set, the price is quite low. Given the lightweight plastic feel of the paper drawer and small input rollers I have some concerns about the build quality of the paper path (but we've had no problems at all with it so far). There's no end of flexibility about how you can hook it up and make it do all the many things that it does:
* fast laser printer with fine resolution and duplex (automatic print on both sides) capability. Enabling duplex by default saves a ton of paper.
* fax machine with a ton of flexible receive options to make it coexist with answering machines on a shared line and other methods (including a well behaved manual mode).
* digital sender for network fax servers including RightFax.
* connection flexibility with network printing, faxing, and scanning (yes, to PDF too) via ethernet - as well as local via USB, and wirelessly via WiFi.
* stand alone copy machine w/50 sheet automatic document feeder
* did I mention that in addition to document scanning (with OCR) it does color scanning too?
The workstation on the network are all running WindowsXP so I can't comment on other OS support - but the included software is well behaved and feature rich. You can initiate scan jobs from the workstation, for example as well as print, fax We're into our 4th month with it. My wife has printed out several copies of her dissertation on it and the page count is several thousand and we haven't even had a jam. Our old Brother laser printer (a 1040) still runs after 8 years. The unit sure feels lightweight and plasticky. I wouldn't put this into a high volume environment - but for my home office it's killer and I've been so happy with it so far.
Follow-up June 2008 - 8 months later. Unit has been perfectly reliable so far. No jams or any trouble of any kind so far.
Solid office machine 2007-09-20
I have owned three different HP OfficeJet all-in-one. The Brother MFC-8870dw is the best yet.
PROS:
Fast printing. Excellent first page out speed with power saving turned off.
Good paper capacity.
Built in Ethernet networking works good. We do not use the wireless capability.
Excellent faxing. Scans the item before dialing number. So a paper jam doesn't waste a long distance fee.
The best document feeder i have used.
Duplexing works great.
CONS:
The software needs updating.
Mediocre first page out speed with power saving on.
Conclusion: This is a solid Small Business Machine. It may not be suitable for home use.
Dependable Printer 2007-08-11
This printer is reliable and heavy-duty. Our business has had good response from technical support in wireless issues with our printer. The end result has been a total success.
