Brother MFC-L8970CDW color laser printer review: A downsized, upgraded spin on the company's best enterprise printer

TechRadar Verdict

Credit to Brother for finding ways to improve its already impressive L8000 series. Print quality here remains high, while a boost in speed, sustainability and features makes it even better able to support a busy workgroup. It doesn’t like thick paper, but it prints consistently on all other media.

Check Amazon Singapore Check Lazada Singapore Pros

• +

  Rapid reliable printing

• +

  Fast duplex copying

• +

  Generous inbox cartridges

• +

  Compact modular design

Cons

• -

  Cannot duplex heavy paper

• -

  No Bluetooth

• -

  Somewhat expensive

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Jump To:

• Design & build
• Features & specifications
• Setup
• Performance
• Consumables
• Maintenance
• Final verdict

Specs

Type: color multifunction laser printer

Functions: Print, scan, copy, fax, ADF

Connectivity: Ethernet, USB, Wi-Fi, NFC

Data storage slots: USB Host 

Print speed: 33ppm

Max paper size: Letter/A4

Print quality: 600x600 dpi

Memory: 1GB

Apple AirPrint: yes

Consumables included: 4 x toner cartridges (7,500 black, 6,500 color pages)

Dimensions/Weight: 454 x 505 x 460 mm (WxDxH)/58.8lbs/26.7kg

The Brother MFC-L8970CDW and MFC-L8930CDW are high-spec laser all-in-ones aimed at enterprise and they’re a subtle but significant step up from the outgoing MFC-L8395CDW, despite being 25% smaller.

The top model in the updated L8000 series comes with a blistering print rate of 33ppm (pages per minute) and an equally impressive duplex scan speed.

With high capacity cartridges in the box, features aplenty, and a compact, but expandable design, it looks to me like the ideal office printer for a growing business. I tested it with the extra paper cassette option to find out.

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Brother MFC-L8970CDW: Design and build

Image 1 of 3(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)

The Brother MFC-L8970CDW pictured here comes in two-tone gray, while the otherwise identical MFC-L8930CDW variant is gray and black. It’s the same machine targeting different territories and shipping with different amounts of inbox toner.

The MFC-L8970CDW is available with Brother’s MPS (managed print service) and it’s a multifunction device with a large ADF (automatic document feeder) and A4 scanner on top of a color laser printer with a large 7-inch touchscreen interface. It looks a bit top heavy, but Brother’s designers have done well to shrink the model it replaces by 25%, while increasing it’s capacity and display size. The 7-inch touchscreen is now twice as big.

This desktop printer’s footprint is relatively compact, especially when you start to add paper cassettes like the LT350CL as I did. It’s as simple as stacking the printer on top and letting the two units couple automatically. This US$226 upgrade doubles the 250-sheet paper capacity and allows you to load different paper stock in the second drawer. A 500-sheet cassette is available for $229, which makes a maximum paper capacity of 1,340 possible. There’s also a wheeled cabinet stand for $294.

Another design improvement is the increased use of user replaceable parts. Components such as drum unit, belt drive, paper feed kit etc can all be swapped out to prolong the printer’s life. Much of the material used in this printer's production is recycled and its packaging is cardboard rather than polystyrene. Office printers are never things of beauty, but I think it’s an aesthetic improvement on the old L8000 series and the whole thing feels like it’s built to last from pretty rugged plastic.

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Brother MFC-L8970CDW: Features & specifications

Image 1 of 3(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)

As the flagship of Brother’s L8000 line-up, the Brother MFC-L8970CDW comes with all the features. There’s duplex printing and single pass duplex scanning, an 80-page ADF, USB Host ports front and rear and the biggest touchscreen you’ll find on any printer. Dual-band Wi-Fi is built in, as is a gigabit Ethernet port and NFC for private printing using an NFC-enable staff card.

The print speed is very fast at 33ppm for letter-size pages, or 31ppm for fractionally larger A4 pages, and the copy speed is the fastest I’ve clocked so far at up to 20 sides per minute. It can print on envelopes, labels or any kind of uncoated paper up to Letter or A4 in size and up to 163gsm in weight. In other words, it cannot print on thick paper stock, card or inkjet photo paper. That’s a little disappointing, but it proved competent with all other kinds of media, including labels and envelopes during the test.

The ADF can hold more pages than most rivals at 80 sheets and the scan rate is 100ipm for two-sided mono pages is the fastest I’ve tested. This makes it a great photocopier in a shared office. It also comes with plenty of toner in the box, enough for 5,500 black, or 4,500 color pages, and compatibility with even higher yield cartridges that make this a very economical printer to run. The only thing missing is Bluetooth, which HP uses in its to make setup even easier.

Brother MFC-L8970CDW: Setup and operation

Image 1 of 3(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)

The setup procedure is simplified by the expansive 7-inch touchscreen display. The GUI is logical, if a little long-winded, so you probably won’t need the printed quick start guide, which fits on a single sheet of paper. With the four toner cartridges already installed, you simply need to remove the transport packaging, load some paper and follow the on-screen prompts until you’re ready to print.

The large display is intended to reduce congestion at the machine because you can see the printer’s status and menu at a glance. Brother’s free companion app called Mobile Connect makes it just as convenient to print and scan from your smartphone. Other factors that increase this printer’s ease-of-use are the not one, but two available USB Host ports for walk-up printing from a USB device.

And the choice of paper inputs between the multi-purpose and main trays allows you to load different various stock, so there’s no need to reload when switching from plain to headed paper for example. In short, I found this a very easy printer to set up and operate.

Brother MFC-L8970CDW: Performance

Image 1 of 2(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)

The Brother MFC-L8970CDW printed promptly and without any jams or misprints throughout the tests and yielding consistently crisp and colourful documents. It can pump out professional-looking pages of black and white text in duplex mode with characters that are always clearly legible right down to the smallest point sizes. You’ll need a magnifying glass to fully appreciate the neat delineation.

And it can turn out color documents that are just as crisp at the same rate. Brother’s toner looks slightly less vivid than that of the HP Color LaserJet Pro 4201dw for example, but it’s also more natural, which makes the overall effect closer to the original source document.

This strong color balance works well when printing photos too. The test photos I printed on laser photo paper look sharp and colourful enough, although, as with most lasers, you can still see the dots that make up the 600dpi image.

Scanning and copying is a strong point for this multifunction device, thanks to its single-pass duplex scanner and fast scan speed. You can load 80 double-sided sheets into the ADF and have them duplicated in minutes and the duplicates are often hard to tell apart from the originals.

Brother MFC-L8970CDW: Consumables

(Image credit: Future)

Brother is generous with the toner in the bundled setup cartridges. The MFC-L8970CDW ships with enough to print 5,500 black, or 4,500 color pages, while the otherwise identical MFC-L8930CDW ships with enough for 3,000 black and 1,800 color pages.

Ultra high yield cartridges are also available that will give you up to 10,000 black and color pages and these expensive but economical carts bring the cost per page down to a highly competitive level.

Brother MFC-L8970CDW: Maintenance

With more user-serviceable parts readily available for this model, than for the previous one and most rivals, it should have a longer lifespan. And if you purchase the MFC-L8970CDW through Brother’s MPS (managed print service), your machine will be serviced for you as well as being topped up with discounted toner.

Brother MFC-L8970CDW: Final verdict

Image 1 of 3(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)

The Brother MFC-L8970CDW proved a pleasure to print with and performed very well in all of my tests.

It’s a pretty high-spec multifunction device with all of the features I would want to see in a premium office printer aimed at a large or growing business. With such speedy duplex printing and duplex scanning, a huge touchscreen and scope to expand the already generous paper and toner capacity, this hardworking machine could serve a busy workgroup very well.

I found it easy to set up and operate and I appreciated the seven-inch touchscreen and prompt first time out speeds. The print quality proved crisp and consistent with both monochrome and color documents, while my test photographs looked surprisingly realistic for a laser printer.

Brother’s reasonably priced cartridges don’t contain the brightest toner around, and I’ve made slightly sharper prints with the Xerox C325, but overall, this well-equipped and future-proofed all-rounder will be hard to beat.

For more top-performing models, I've tested out the best home printers and the best laser printers.

Brother MFC-L8930CDW: Price Comparison No price informationCheck Amazon Singapore No price informationCheck Lazada SingaporeWe check over 250 million products every day for the best pricespowered by Jim HillSenior Editor, Printers

Jim has been evaluating printers for more than twenty years and has, to date, written over a hundred reviews for TechRadar Pro. From pocket printers to industrial dye sublimation, Jim has been there, run the tests and printed the t-shirt. His expertise extends to consumables (paper, ink, toner) and his printer buying guides make it easy to compare these essential peripherals.

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