Brother MFC-6800 Laser Multifunction Printer, Scanner, Copier & Fax

by Brother

Product Details

Product Manual [4.71mb PDF]

• Item Weight: 36 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 34 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B00005RWGX
• Item model number: MFC-6800
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 2, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The MFC-6800 is a 5-in-1 flatbed laser multi-function center combining performance, connectivity, and reliability. This full-feature fax, laser printer, and convenience copier enables you to copy objects such as books and magazines with both reduction and enlargement.

The high-speed 14.4 kbps fax features a 30-page automatic document feeder for easy multipage faxes, support for 150-location broadcasting, and 100-station auto dialing. Store up to 500 pages in 8 MB of system memory. Dual Access lets you scan a fax into memory while another is being received. And for immediate faxing needs, Super Quick Scan technology can scan a page in three seconds.

Copying and printing proceed at a fast 10 pages per minute. Excellent text quality is produced with 600 x 600 dpi resolution. A 200-sheet cassette provides the support needed when printing large documents or up to 99 copies.

Also included is a 9,600 dpi color scanner with a "Scan-to" button on the front panel. PC Fax capabilities allow you to send and broadcast faxes directly. The MFC-6800 works with Windows and iMac/iBook or G3/G4 applications.

Product Description

Fax Modem Speed14.4 Kbps Fax Maximum Resolution203 x 392 dpi Grayscale Halftones64 Memory500 pages Auto Document Feed30 sheets Sheet SizeLetter/Legal Sheet Tray Capacity200 Copier Maximum Reduction25% Copier Maximum Enlargement400% LCD Display2 x 16 characters Broadcast Transmission150 locations Speed Dial Entries100 Extension Phone Hookup SpeakerphoneMonitor only Auto Fax/Telephone Switch Scanner Maximum Resolution9600 x 9600 dpi Caller ID/Call Waiting Printer Maximum Speed10 ppm Printer Maximum Resolution600 x 600 dpi ConnectivityParallel, USB Size18-1/10w x 18d x 12-1/2h Shpg. Wt.36 lbs. Manufacturers WarrantyOne-Year Replacement Toner CartridgeBRTTN250 Features delayed fax transmission, auto redial, distinctive ring detection and makes up to 99 copies. BRTMFC6800 BRT-MFC6800 012502565802 1250256580 BRTMFC-6800 BRT-MFC-6800 BRTMFC6800 BRT-MFC6800

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good value, some limitations, poor support, August 14, 2002

By 

W. D ONEIL "Will O'Neil" (Falls Church, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brother MFC-6800 Laser Multifunction Printer, Scanner, Copier & Fax (Office Product)

I've used mine for 4 months of constant office use and it's been to the shop once. It provides a good value for the money (and desk space) but has some important and needless annoyances and limitations that simply reflect lack of care on the part of Brother. Too bad.

While the fax, scanning, copying, and printing functions don't offer cutting edge resolution/speed, all are generally adequate for normal small-office needs, in my estimation. While it lacks a color printing capability, this was a good tradeoff for the better speed and economy of a laser for my purposes. It's not a particularly economical laser (due to small drum unit) but still costs a lot less to run than an ink-jet. If you do more than occasional printing/copying, it will quickly make up its slightly higher initial price through lower consumables costs.

Controls are somewhat complex just because it does so many things, but generally fairly logical. The 32-character LCD presents fairly helpful messages.

The printer's paper tray doesn't hold a lot, so you have to refill pretty frequently. This has not been a problem for me but be sure you have it in a place where you can easily reach the paper bin. It is necessary to be careful to remember to press the loading lever, and to be sure the paper stack is straight. Paper can jam in places that are very hard to get to, making it challenging to clear jams. It recovers gracefully from running out of paper.

The print software provides no help for duplexing (printing both sides). It can be done manually from applications such as Word or Acrobat that offer odd-even printing, or with some kinds of add-on software intended for making brochures. You need to be very careful, however, that the sheets have fully cooled from the first pass before inserting them for the second, and you have to anticipate that you may see some misfeeds even so. It's something I do sparingly.

The lid over the copier/scanner platen is hinged at the side and opens only about 60 degrees, which can be restrictive in some cases. You can get it to slide up a bit, but it's something of a trick.

On top of the lid is an automatic document feeder (ADF) so you can put a stack of up to 25 or so sheets in to be copied, faxed, or scanned. This is a useful feature that I use all the time, but it's also pretty frustrating. It's very prone to jamming and if you don't catch a jam instantly it can shred your input. It is also quite tricky to clear a jam, even if the sheet isn't shredded. (If it's not shredded by the mechanism, it may still be impossible to remove it intact.)

Scans and copies are stretched a little lengthwise and compressed just a bit widthwise. Note that even though the printer is strictly monochrome, the scanner is color. The scanning software is extremely basic and not adequate for serious graphics work. For OCR of documents (for which the ADF is nice) the scanner will work fine with the excellent ABBYY FineReader software package. What comes with it, however, is much less capable.

The print manual is useless and the electronic manual not much better. Both focus primarily on the fax functions. There's virtually nothing about the ADF and its tricks -- you're on your own there.

The ADF finally stopped working altogether -- it jammed on every sheet. I looked on the Brother Web site and could find nothing helpful. I sent them an e-mail and got an answer that addressed some of the ADF issues, but not what I was having trouble with. I called their phone help. Hold time was about 25 minutes (late afternoon -- the help operates normal weekday business hours, East Coast time). The person who answered seemed very, very poorly trained. It was apparent that she was entirely unfamiliar with the machine and was reading from a script. From the wrong part of the script (maybe there wasn't a right part) because she did not understand the difference between the printer paper feeder and the ADF. When I tried to point this out she became extremely defensive and unpleasant. No help from her whatever except that I finally got her to tell me where to find an authorized repair shop. They fixed the problem under warranty (and I presume charged Brother a hefty sum to do so). I would bet that I could have fixed it myself if Brother had provided adequate guidance in its manual or Web site, but they didn't.

If they had a decent manual and support I'd rate it 4/5 overall and 5/5 for value. But as it stands I can recommend it only if you are willing and able to put up with some unguided efforts at care and feeding, and have an authorized repair shop nearby for the problems you can't figure out on your own. You probably should figure that it won't last too long after the warranty runs out, since the first problem you can't figure out how to fix will be very costly to get help with. Don't count on Brother for anything at all, if my experience is any guide.

100 of 109 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars WARNING: Big Brother means excessive toner bills $, December 16, 2002

By 

"[e-mail]" (West Warwick, RI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brother MFC-6800 Laser Multifunction Printer, Scanner, Copier & Fax (Office Product)

If I could do it all over again, I wouldn't buy this unit, or anything Brother for that matter. I bought it because I began working remotely from the office and needed, well, a fax, copier and scanner. I'm here to say, if it sounds too good to be true, it definitely is. I see all of the other gleaming 5-star reviews and think, "wait until they experience their first forced toner change, lose a fax in the process and realize they've got to figure in an additional $90/year in toner expenses, (at least) for MODERATE use." That's the part the teenager at "MaxOfficeDepot" forgot to tell you about.

Fax & Copier: work great.

Laser Printer: reasonable quality for the price, although on the dark side, patterned and often with random dark lining. But my main complaint is that you can only print using the handful of fonts included in the MFC software, which pretty much renders the unit useless for most of my needs. My low-end Lexmark laser printer produces amazing results compared to this thing without the font problems.

Scanner: ever placed your photos on the laser copier at work and gotten those dark, fuzzy results? That's what you get here. Unless you're scanning black and white clip art and text, don't buy this expecting to scan color photos to email or to print on your color inkjet. Scanning takes forever and creates a digital image not far from garbage. I ended up buying a real scanner in the end.

Brother customer service: non-existent. I emailed them in June '02, and asked, "I just bought my MFC in February '02 and the original toner cartridge is still producing solid black, streak-less results, but the unit refuses to print until I change the cartridge." Two weeks later, their response was, "When did you put the cartridge in?" Apparently "February '02 and the original toner cartridge" was so coded and vague that they had to ponder over it for two weeks...

Finally, the whole reason why I'm bitter: the MFC has been programmed to CEASE FUNCTIONING when the unit "believes" it is out of toner--not if it's actually out of toner, only when it believes it is. I've only owned the unit for 10 months and already I'm on cartridge #3. On average, I print about 20 pages per week, extremely moderate office use if you ask me. And yes, if a printer is starting to produce grayed or streaked print outs, then it's time to change the toner cartridge. But this unit has never shown those tell-tale signs. This leads me to believe there is still ample toner left in those "empty" cartridges sitting in my office. Most importantly, I have never worked with a machine that completely CEASES OPERATION UNTIL YOU REPLACE THE CARTRIDGE, which it not only ridiculous, but unethical. I don't appreciate being forced, especially when the "final print out" before final shut-down is as solid and dark as the first. Somehow the unit marks the toner cartridge so that it knows "used" from "new", so don't plan on refilling any cartridges yourself using one of those needle & toner kits. You can coax about 30-40 extra print-outs from the unit by turning in on & off, opening and closing the unit door or removing & replacing the drum. But it'll eventually stop falling for those tricks and you have to replace the cartridge. I realize with laser printers, toner is more expensive than inkjet, but Brother charges on average $30 per replacement, (office depot $29, office max $30, staples, $32), and for a replacement that doesn't last more than 4-5 months. My Lexmark ran for over 2 years before needing a toner cartridge replacement ($60). I've also worked with Xanté, Apple and QMS laser printers with similar results, which is why I find this Brother so deplorable. And no, there aren't any better deals on the internet once you figure in shipping. No refurbished cartridges, either. The only promising lead is at inkfarm.com, where they offer generic-brand cartridges for $18 + $3.85 shipping. But given the attention Brother paid to its "Toner Low" aspect of this unit, I'm not sure I want to put a non-Brother cartridge in this thing. It might self-destruct!

For sale: slightly used MFC 6800.

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars PowerMac 8600, FW/USB2 card, Mac OS 9.2.2, January 23, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Brother MFC-6800 Laser Multifunction Printer, Scanner, Copier & Fax (Office Product)

I just bought the Brother MFC-6800 about two months ago for my mom. It met many of her requirements:

pros:

it has a flatbed scanner AND an automatic document feeder
it's a laser printer
it doesn't take up too much desk space
and at $..., it didn't cost an arm & a leg.

Ink cartridge lifespans are usually measured in hundreds of sheets while laser toner cartridges are measured in thousands. So for a lawyer who doesn't need color printing, a laser printer is both higher quality for black & white and far more cost effective. The Brother MFC-6800 replacement toner cartridges are available for as low as $.. (even cheaper than ink cartridges) and they last 2500 sheets. Laser printers are also generally quieter, and once they start printing a job, a little faster than inkjets.

While there are many multifunction laster printers, the ones with flatbed scanners are few, and even more rare with both the flatbed and auto document feeder. HP sells one for $.., and it's a foot taller than the Brother MFC-6800.

And in response to whoever said it's better to buy these items separately, ok, maybe. But if you're seriously cramped for space, on a budget, and don't really need the best scanner or fax machine, it's good enough. The Brother MFC-6800 is suprisingly compact for all its features. I was impressed.

Oh, and it's also one of the few to support PC faxing from OS 9. In the print dialoge, you can send the document as a print or fax job. That's sweet. Most of the others say "PC Faxing not available on Mac".

cons:

Although, having said all this, the negative of going with Brother is horribly poor documentation. Also, this is connected to a PowerMac 8600 with a VST FW/USB2 card. Communication between the Mac and the printer was painfully slow for both scanning and printing. And after an extension juggling marathon, I pinpointed it down to a conflict with the "Firewire Support" extension. While there aren't any FW devices currently connected to the Mac, this isn't a problem yet. But disabling that extension accellerated scanning & printing significantly, enough so that it convinced my mom not to return the printer.

The scanning software is on the weak and spartan side. Maybe it's because I'm used to more powerful software like Microtek's ScanWizard (great software, horrible support), that allows multiple scan zones each with their own criteria, but the PaperPort software for the MFC-6800 was just plain basic. The scan quality was fine, no problem there.

The scan button on the printer isn't supported on Macs, you have to initiate the scan command from the Mac itself (no big deal really). And I couldn't get the single touch F4 - F8 keys to do anything other than produce a "click" sound.

I'm still not sure if it came with any OCR software, but since the F4 - F8 keys around really doing anything, I have no way of testing that. I wish OCR software let you manually process images... maybe it does, I just haven't spent enough time with it yet.

Bottom line: with all its problems, this is the ONLY option available at its price point. So take it or leave it and pay hundreds more. My mom recently walked into a Staples to compare it to some newer products and the salesman told her to return it because all of the MFC-6800's functionality is on a single PC card. If one feature dies, the whole thing dies. Assuming this were true and the warranty did NOT cover it, again, it's the only option. Good or bad, this is the only Mac-compatible option, at that price, and that small.