Labels, Stamps, Fast
The US-based Dymo seems to have taken a page from Avery, and taken a huge slice of the once-king of their market as well. For fast, advanced, easy-to-use label printing, you can’t do much better than Dymo’s latest model, the Labelwriter 400 Turbo. It’ll set you back around $130, but if you plan on printing batches of labels, it’s an excellent deal.
Label printers haven’t changed much in the last few years- they still print thermally (which means no smudging ink, no cartridges to replace)- but they are much, much faster than before. The Labelwriter 400 is able to churn out basic labels at 40-50 per minute, and features easy integration with ACT, Word, QuickBooks, and Outlook. It’s PC and Mac compatible, and we found it easy to share on our network (as simple as any regular printer).
One of the best ways to use a label printer is as a stamp machine- for a fairly exorbitant monthly surcharge, one of the several post office-approved vendors will help you print your own stamps. Dymo’s printers work well with these services- despite attempts at misaligning and misfeeding labels, not a single stamp failed to print. The included software is a snap to use, and the additions of automatic barcoding and address checking make the labels professional-looking and accurate.
And, of course, there are a wide variety of label types that work with the machine- but you’ll have to buy compatible labels, which run from 5 to 25 cents each. You can occasionally find deals on labels on eBay or at various office supply stores- it makes Christmas much easier when you can just print your address book to labels.
