BROTHER MFC-1170 RIBBON CARTRIDGE

Brother MFC-1170 Review

Overview:

At the time of the Brother MFC-1170’s release, it was actually quite the cutting edge machine; combining multifunctionality with basic fax features to bring an affordable paper handling solution to the home office. Today, the device’s thermal ribbon technology seems painfully outdated, but with cartridges still available, current owners of the device should be able to continue taking advantage of its hardware for some time to come.

Pros:

When dealing with such an ancient electronic device, it is difficult to segregate the worthwhile features from the obsolete. That being said, the Brother MFC-1170’s 14.4 Kbps fax modem is actually not much slower than the Super G3 ones found in current fax machines, and at the time of its release it was top of the line.

The unit’s paper cassette is up to par with a 200 sheet capacity. It also carries a 16 character display that is more than adequate when entering in fax numbers or viewing receiving fax information. 

Cons:

Thermal ribbon technology in general is extremely limited in many ways, one of them being the lack of color print capabilities. While today we can find full color, photo quality multifunctional devices for well under a hundred dollars, the Brother MFC-1170 prints exclusively in black and white as if it were a laser printer without the speed. The unit’s gray scale is only 64 bits as well, making imagery printing very clumsy and not really worthwhile.

The device’s print speeds are, as expected, atrocious. The Brother MFC-1170 is really only good for very casual faxing and printing of small volume projects, as it is no longer qualified as a business level device. The unit suffers from older style limitations such as an 8.2 inch printing width. With standard paper being 8.5 inches wide, this thermal printer cannot print objects such as page numbers close to the edge of the page.

The unit’s resolution is absolutely terrible, and reflects the device’s primary function as a fax machine rather than a printer, though it is fully capable of connecting to a host PC. With a horizontal print quality of 203 dots per inch and adjustable vertical resolution, the Brother MFC-1170 is very limited in the category. Vertical quality can be adjusted between standard, fine, and super fine/ photo quality (98, 196, and 392 dots per inch respectively), though no one in their right mind would ever use the Brother MFC-1170 to print photos.