Brother MFC-J4335DW: Specs, Features, Pros & Cons
Two Brother inkjets share one engine here, and this is the cheaper of the pair, which Brother has now marked as discontinued. The J4335DW uses reservoir cartridges that look like ordinary ink cartridges and feed an internal tank, so running costs sit much closer to a supertank than to a typical inkjet, and the box arrives with a large supply of ink.
The official specifications for the model disagree with each other. Brother's US product page lists a lower resolution and leaves out the speed rows, while its support datasheet and its Canadian listing match the sibling on both counts. By the datasheet, the two models print at the same speed and to the same standard.
Color pages come out almost as fast as black ones, and the monthly duty cycle is rated for steady office use. A fax modem is included, a part that many home all-in-ones now leave out, along with automatic two-sided printing and a paper tray that holds 150 sheets.
The office basics are thinner. There is no Ethernet port, so the printer joins a network over Wi-Fi only. The document feeder holds fewer sheets than most and scans one side at a time, and the control panel uses buttons with no touchscreen. Wi-Fi and AirPrint handle laptops and phones, so most homes will never miss the cable.
It suits a household or small home office that prints steadily every month and wants the ink bill to stay low. Next to the current J4355DW, the page that comes out is the same, which leaves the price gap between the two as the deciding line.
Category strengths
Where the Brother MFC-J4335DW beats the median
- A much higher print speed (color) ?19 ppm vs 9 ppm (median)
- A much higher monthly duty cycle ?30,000 pages vs 10,000 pages (median)
- A higher print speed (black) ?20 ppm vs 16 ppm (median)
- Has fax ?
- A much higher output tray capacity ?100 sheets vs 67.5 sheets (median)
Where the Brother MFC-J4335DW trails the median
- No ethernet ?
- A lower ADF capacity ?20 sheets vs 35 sheets (median)
How this VS Score was computed
Score 60: each known spec is measured against the median of all printers (65 products), then weighted; 50 means level with that median. In classes of six or more, a value beyond the class’s 10th–90th percentile range counts as that limit, so one extreme product cannot set the scale. 66% of the scoreable weight could be used; unknown values, features not applicable to this class and proxies (battery capacity where a rated life exists) add or remove nothing.
| Specification | This product | Cohort median | Score weight | Points moved |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Print speed (color) | 19 | 9 | 1 | +50.0 |
| Automatic duplex printing | Yes | 73% of the class have it | 1 | +50.0 |
| Automatic document feeder | Yes | 55% of the class have it | 1 | +50.0 |
| Print speed (black) | 20 | 16 | 2 | +26.0 |
| Supertank / refillable ink | No | 30% of the class have it | 0.5 | −24.0 |
| Duplex scanning | No | 23% of the class have it | 0.5 | −24.0 |
| Ethernet | No | 54% of the class have it | 0.5 | −24.0 |
| Touchscreen display | No | 45% of the class have it | 0.5 | −24.0 |
| Monthly duty cycle | 30,000 | 10,000 | 0.3 | +15.0 |
| ADF capacity | 20 | 35 | 0.5 | −10.5 |
| Fax | Yes | 35% of the class have it | 0.2 | +10.0 |
| Output tray capacity | 100 | 67.5 | 0.3 | +7.2 |
| Print resolution | 4,800 | 4,800 | 0.5 | +0.0 |
| Input tray capacity | 150 | 150 | 1 | +0.0 |
| Weight | 8 | 7.98 | 0.3 | +0.0 |
Not scored: Color printing (standard for the class (88% have it)); All-in-one (standard for the class (85% have it)); Wi-Fi (standard for the class (97% have it)); Wi-Fi Direct (standard for the class (90% have it)); USB (standard for the class (100% have it)); Apple AirPrint (standard for the class (97% have it)); Mobile app printing (standard for the class (100% have it)).
Editor’s note
The J4335DW is the entry point into Brother's INKvestment Tank idea, and that idea is worth understanding before you shop on sticker price. These are still cartridges, but each one feeds an internal reservoir, so the printer ships with roughly a year of ink in the box and the replacement economics look more like a tank printer than a normal inkjet. Brother's own list prices work out around a penny and a half per black page, which is the number that matters if you print regularly.
What you give up is almost everything around the printing. There is no Ethernet port, which is a strange omission on a machine aimed at home offices. The document feeder holds 20 sheets and scans one side only, so double-sided originals mean flipping the stack by hand. The display is a 1.8-inch panel driven by buttons. Its fax modem is the slow 14.4 kbps type.
One thing to watch if you compare specification pages. Brother's US table for this model lists 1200 x 600 dpi and omits the pages-per-minute rows entirely, which makes it look markedly slower and coarser than the J4355DW above it. Brother's own support datasheet and its Canadian listing both put this machine at 1200 x 4800 dpi and at the same 20 ppm black and 19 ppm color as its sibling.
The part that would make me hesitate is that Brother has marked this one discontinued. It is still widely stocked and the LC406 supplies are shared across the family, so ink will stay easy to find, but you are buying the older half of a two-model pair.
That also makes the real gap to the J4355DW narrower than it first appears: dual-band Wi-Fi and more onboard memory, rather than speed or print quality. If the two are close in price, take the newer one, which is still in production. If this one is clearly cheaper, you are not giving up output quality to save the money.
Specifications
Quality bars show where each figure sits between the lowest and highest of the 65 printers this VS Score is measured against.
Printing
Scanning & copying
Paper handling
Connectivity
Design
Sources and verification
Where the specifications come from
- Official product pagebrother-usa.com
- Independent testingrtings.com
Verification
- First published
- Specifications last checked
- Sheet completeness
- 24 of 24 specifications verified; the rest show as Unknown and are never estimated or scored
- Page type
- Product specification page — Compiled from the manufacturer’s published specifications and the cited sources; this is not a hands-on test.
- Basis
- Research-based: specifications and editorial text were compiled from the documents listed here and the manufacturer’s published data. We have not tested this unit ourselves; where independent measurements are mentioned they belong to the linked publication.
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The bottom line
The Brother MFC-J4335DW earns a VS Score of 60, above the median of the 65 printers it is measured against (a score of 50 is level with that median).
- Who it’s for
- Home offices that print steadily every month and care more about cost per page than about features. The reservoir ink system is the whole reason to buy it.
- Who should look elsewhere
- Anyone who needs a wired network connection, duplex scanning or a touchscreen. It also makes little sense if the J4355DW is only a few dollars more where you shop.
- The trade-off that matters
- Tank-like ink economics in a body that skips office basics. You save on every page, then flip your originals by hand and connect over Wi-Fi only.
- The main alternative
- Brother MFC-J4355DW prints at the same speed and resolution, so the extra it costs buys dual-band Wi-Fi, more memory and a model still in production.
The VS Score is calculated from the weighted specifications above, each measured against the median of comparable printers — a shortlisting guide, not a substitute for your own priorities. See how we score.
