Brother MFC-J1010DW Printer Review

The Brother MFC-J1010DW's build quality is great. Though entirely plastic, the printer feels sturdy, with a solid damper to hold the printer open. The design has some downsides, as you can only access paper jams via the back panel, and the power cord isn't removable, making it impossible to replace if it gets damaged. The USB port is inside the printer, which means the cable's length is slightly shorter on the outside. Lastly, you can't separate the input and output trays as they're a single piece.

This printer requires a fair amount of maintenance. Like most inkjet printers, the printheads can clog if you don't use the printer for an extended period. However, there are built-in functions to help resolve the issue, like printhead cleaning and alignment. The ink cartridges yield very few prints, so you'll have to replace them regularly. The printer doesn't need to be on to change the cartridges. The input tray holds 150 sheets of paper, which is on the lower side but fine for home use. Unfortunately, you can only access paper jams via the panel on the back of the printer. You can see the user guide here.

The display is decent. The screen is on the smaller side, but it doesn't impact the ease of use as it isn't touch-sensitive. It has good vertical viewing angles, meaning you can see the screen well from slightly above or below, but it's a little tougher to see from the sides. The Brother MFC-J1170DW variant has a different front panel with a larger 2.7-inch touch-sensitive screen and fewer physical buttons.

This printer uses color dye ink and black pigment ink. Unfortunately, these cartridges don't last very long, meaning you'll have to replace them often. The printer stops printing as soon as it detects that there isn't enough ink to produce a good-quality print, though this also means that you'll be discarding cartridges that still have some ink left.

This printer has decent scanner features. The lid has a foam backing to help smooth out uneven sheets, and its hinges can extend slightly to accommodate thicker items like textbooks. It doesn't support duplex scanning even though it has a feeder, so you'll have to flip the pages manually when scanning double-sided sheets. To use optical character recognition—a feature that lets you create a searchable PDF—you can either select 'OCR' as the file destination from the printer's menu or save the file as a PDF and enable the 'Searchable PDF' option in Brother's iPrint&Scan software application.

The scan quality is outstanding. The text looks crisp, and fine details are clearly visible. The scanner boosts the contrast and color saturation, which isn't a problem for documents, but it might not be ideal if you expect perfect accuracy when digitizing photos.

• Quick Setup Guide
• Telephone cord
• LC401 starter ink cartridges:
• 1x Black
• 1x Cyan
• 1x Magenta
• 1x Yellow

This is a corded desktop printer with no built-in battery.

The print quality for black and white documents is outstanding. Text looks sharp, and small details come through clearly. There are some vertical lines when printing in the Standard Quality mode, but they aren't present when printing in the High Quality mode.

The print quality for color documents is outstanding. Text looks sharp, and all the fine elements are visible. The only complaint is that the colors look slightly washed out.

The cost per print for black-only printing is low, but color printing can get expensive if you print a lot. This printer is eligible for Brother's ink subscription service, Brother Refresh, which might help you save money.

The Brother J1010DW doesn't take long to initialize and get a single page out. It's decently fast for longer documents when printing in black and white but slow when printing in color. The output tray holds 50 sheets, so you'll have to watch it during large print jobs as it can overflow.

The Brother MFC-J1170DW variant prints color documents faster because its color printheads have more nozzles (210 x3 vs. the MFC-J1010DW and MFC-1012DW's 70 x3). The MFC-1170DW has an advertised color document printing speed of 16.5 PPM, while the MFC-J1010DW and MFC-1012DW have an advertised speed of 9.5 PPM.

This printer has a mediocre color gamut. It has trouble reproducing bright, saturated colors and darker shades of blue and green. There's some banding, but there isn't much grain. The printing pattern is only visible up close; it isn't a problem when viewing the photo at normal viewing distances.

The color accuracy is okay. It struggles mainly with blues and darker skin tones. The color accuracy is good enough that pictures don't look unnaturally off, but it's still not ideal for professional photography.

The Brother MFC-J1010DW is outstanding at reproducing small details. Fine elements look clear and well-defined; the halftones (dots) only make distant objects harder to see.

You can find the USB input by lifting the flatbed scanner.

Brother's Mobile Connect app is outstanding. It lets you print, scan, and copy directly from your smartphone. You can also use it to perform maintenance tasks like printhead cleaning, manage your ink subscription, order supplies, and access the printer's support page.

You don't need to install drivers or apps to use the printer on Chrome OS and macOS devices. On Windows devices, it isn't necessary to manually install drivers to print or scan, but you won't have access to all the functions available. You can download the drivers here.