Home > Consumer Reviews > Microtek ScanMaker 6800 with Digital ICE for Photo Prints

Overall, a good scanner. Digital ICE is great at removing scratches and such. Primary drivers provide enough manual controls to do what you need. (Unfortunately, it doesn't remember to keep the 'preview' button checked to see the curve changes, etc.)

Drivers only go up to Windows XP. No Vista or Win7 drivers. Ever.

Only buy this if you plan on keeping an XP box around to connect it to.

All operations of the scanner work well with the exception of the feature to scan positive slides and negatives. These are of poor quality.

Although my scanner is a 5900, which will not work with my new Mac (G4, running Tiger 10.4.2), this one uses the same "ScanWizard 5" software package so the odds are pretty good that the 6800 won't work on current Macs either. This failure is after numerous contacts with their tech support and repeated downloads of drivers, but for some reason it will not load the "scanner finder" - obviously a critical component. I have given up and will upgrade, probably to a Canon, but what a waste of what SHOULD be a still-functional item.

Read a lot about the 6800 and was looking forward to using it. After hours of trying to install the drivers, both the one included on the CD and the update on the Microtek website, I finally gave up. The computer would recognize the scanner if I was using Photoshop but not if I was using it as a stand alone. Big problem since the Digital Ice feature (the reason I bought this scanner) only works through their proprietary software. I compared the scans in Photoshop with others I had done with an inexpensive HP All-In-One. There was basically no difference. Not wanting the headache of endless time spent with tech support, I packed it up and sent it back. Now looking for an alternative.

I bought the 6800 after using a lower grade Microtek scanner for 9 months. The old one kept locking up after doiong a scan directly to the printer. The 6800 did the same. I contacted Microtec and they walked me through a down load (via e-mail and a printout) from their site. Still had same problem after taking same steps 3 times and the fourth time I tried to reload the disk that came with the scanner. Still same problem. I again contacted Microtek. This time no responce. I retured the scanner to the store. However, if don't use the direct scan buttons, and go through the program steps, it does scan well. Tired to do a few slides, and only got a black square. People at store said maybe I had a bad light in the 35mm adapter. Anyway, for a new scanner that I paid $150.00 for, I guess I expected everything to work!