Brother MFC 4800 Multifunction Printer, Scanner, Copier & Fax

by Brother

Product Details

Product Manual [4.87mb PDF]

• Item Weight: 23 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 23 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005O3VH
• Item model number: mfc4800
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 25, 2001

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Brother contributes another smart machine at a smart price to the multifunction market. The MFC 4800 offers a five-in-one combination of laser-based fax, printing, copying, scanning, and computer-based fax capabilities.

As a printer, the 4800 can produce 10 pages per minute (ppm) at 600 x 600 resolution. As a fax machine, the 4800 has a 14.4K modem and a 2 MB memory buffer. The scanner offers 1,200 dpi resolution. When it comes to making copies, the 4800 can print up to 99 at a time at 600 dpi.

Additional features include a 200-sheet letter cassette that helps you avoid frequent refills. With both parallel and USB computer interfaces, the 4800 is cross-platform compatible, working with Windows 95/98/2000/Me/SE /NT 4.0 as well as the Apple iMac, iBook, G3, and G4 operating systems.

Product Description

With laser print speeds up to 10PPM, the Brother MFC-4800 dramatically changes the performance bar on affordable MultiFunction office machines. This versatile robotic Man Friday operates a a plain-paper fax, printer, copier, scanner and PC Fax. A compact footprint and integrated folding trays make the MFC-4800 perfect for the SOHO (Small Office / Home Office ) environment. 20 page auto document feeder 200 page paper cassette 20 Scanning resolutions to 1200 x 1200 (interpolated) Three easy Scan To buttons (Email, Image and OCR) Includes TN-250 toner cartridge, which yields about 2200 pages at 5% coverage, and DR-250 drum unit, which yields about 12,000 pages Compatibility - Windows 95/98/2000/Me/NT 4.0 and Apple iMac, iBook, G3 and G4 Actual print speed will vary according to use

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Rock-Solid Laser Printer/Fax, May 16, 2003

By 

Marshall Goldberg (Alameda, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brother MFC 4800 Multifunction Printer, Scanner, Copier & Fax (Office Product)

There is no multifunction machine that does everything as well a collection of individual machines. The MFC-4800 is advertised as a 5-in-1: Fax/Printer/Copier/Scanner/PC-Fax. Here's how it performs at those tasks:

Fax: At its heart, this product is Brother's well-regarded PPF-2800 laser fax machine. It does not require a computer connection to work as a fax, and it has the robustness to serve a medium-sized office. Its TAD/Distinctive Ring feature lets me use the machine to automatically receive faxes on my standard telephone/answering machine line. As a fax machine, it's a 10.

Printer: USB and parallel interfaces, as well as Mac and Windows drivers, make this a good, 9 PPM laser printer. Text printing is very crisp, and the paper feed works well. Two downsides: First, graphics aren't printed as well as other laser printers. They appear to print using dithered black and white, rather than grayscale. Secondly, this printer doesn't have any built-in networking features, although it can be shared using Windows printer sharing or a hub.

Helpful Printer Tip: If you use Windows XP and you only want to use the printer feature (without the scanning, OCR and PC-Fax), simply plug the USB cable from the printer into your already-running PC. Windows XP will automatically install its built-in driver for this printer - great for those of us who are wary of installing loads of software on our computers.

Copier: I purchased this machine because I needed a fax machine, and happily paid a little extra for the laser printing capability. I'm delighted that it has a handy and useful standalone copy feature -- simply load a stack of originals into the fax feeder and press the "Copy" button, and out churn your copies. As with the fax feature, no computer connection or software is used. However, if you're looking for a "real" copier, you'll want a color, flatbed unit. Using the fax paper feeder means you can't copy books, small, or fragile items. It also tends to twist vertical lines a little. For record keeping, it's terrific, but if you want to make 20 copies of a 20 page document that look as good as the original, you'll probably be disapointed.

Scanner: I didn't even bother. The scanning and OCR software it installed on my Win ME system has a distinctly Windows 3.1 appearance. There are loads of [$$] color flatbed scanners that can run circles around this unit. If black and white, fax-quality PC scanning is useful to you, well, go for it.

PC-Fax: I haven't tested this feature.

Summary: I'm completely satisfied with my purchase. At its heart, this unit is a fax machine with a very good laser printer engine. Within the limitations of its fax heritage, it's a useful copier, but those fax limitations are significant in terms of its scanning capability. Two last comments - no USB or parallel cable was included, and the toner cartridge is a 1,000 page "starter" cartridge.

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great value for the price, April 19, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Brother MFC 4800 Multifunction Printer, Scanner, Copier & Fax (Office Product)

Considering that the street price on this machine is under $...(plus a... rebate) you are getting a lot of bang for the buck. What I was looking for a was a reasonably priced multifunction laser printer that would be used primarily for printing text, occasional faxes, and document imaging. I found what I was looking for in the Brother MFC-4800.

Looking at it function-by-function, the laser printing quality is excellent (and fast) when it comes to text, but achieves only average quality when printing graphics. For my fax needs the MFC-4800 fits the bill and even provides features that I'll never use (broadcasting, and fax forwarding, come to mind) .

The quality of the scans is acceptable for my uses (archiving phone, cable, and credit card statements, etc.) However, the document feeder does seem to be overly sensitive to slight misalignments, thus creating a scan that is at a slight angle. Copy quality is significantly worse than average, but acceptable for making copies for archival or backup purposes. If you need to make copies where appearance matters, e.g., of handouts for a presentation, definitely consider going to a copy shop, or even a convenience store.

As far as installation goes, I'm using Windows XP Pro SP-1 and installation was uneventful. XP drivers and software were included on the installation CD-ROM that was included in the package. Buyers of units that have been on store shelves for a long time may need to download the XP drivers from Brother's web site. The included OCR software works with XP. In a review on another site, and even on Brother's web site, I read that the OCR software was non-functional under XP, but I am able to scan a document and edit the resulting text with no problems.

Even if all you need is an inexpensive laser printer, the MFC-4800 should be considered especially since it is in the price range of most other single function printer only units. If you decide on buying it, you will probably find its additional functions to be icing on the cake.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Prepare to get frustrated!, October 27, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Brother MFC 4800 Multifunction Printer, Scanner, Copier & Fax (Office Product)

Indeed, it is an "all can do" machine. At least during the first months. We are a small business and use the machine only a few times a day. But after a few months we had a problem with ink lines being spread out on each page we printed out. The Brother people (help line) were very helpful but couldn't find a solution. I eventually came up with the idea to replace the Drum Unit. The problem was solved but two weeks later, we had the same problem all over again. Now I wouldn't mind that this Drum Unit was just a few bucks...the problem is that one of these Drum Units costs you A LOT MORE than the purchase price of the Brother MFC-4800. ............In a perfect world, you can take it to a service center that Brother suggests. But who can live without a fax, telephone and copier for a week? Not a normal business! !! Do yourself a favour, calculate your time, toner and drum unit costs into the price of a machine.
A more expensive one might actually be cheaper in the long run.