****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Excellent printer, works well and is fast, but if you want to share it on a network, it’s going to take some additional hardware and software configuration. I have Dymo (and Brother) label printers that are still going strong after years of frequent use in an office environment. You may need to clean the rollers every few years depending on use. Some of the complaints I see in the reviews may have to do with networking this and not setting the print server to have a fixed IP address. (See details on that below.) Also, there are a lot of mistaken claims that you can’t print on much-less expensive generic non-OEM labels. Not true, see details below.CONSIDERATIONS BEFORE YOU BUY A LABEL PRINTERI have managed several networked/USB thermal label printers of various brands on corporate and home networks (Mac, PC, and Linux) for about 30 years, so here’s a bit of advice on how to get the most for your money with these things. If you do not need compatibility with postage software or network ability, any good USB Brother or Dymo label printer will do, check reviews on Amazon. If you have a home or business network and would like to share a label printer with several computers, Brother has good Mac and PC compatible label printers with networking built in, but generally the hardware will cost more than buying an inexpensive USB-only label printer and connecting it to your network with a USB print server. (The IOGear GPSU21 Print Server, for example, works well on Macs and PCs but documentation is a bit poor so configuring it can be a bit tricky for non-techies; tips on that for the Dymo LabelWriters to follow below.) I’ve found the Brother network label printers are more turnkey and just work without any fussy setup.YOU DON’T NEED THIS PRINTER TO PRINT ADDRESS LABELS AND STAMPS AT THE SAME TIMEThe ads for this printer make it look like a great way to print an address label and a stamp at the same time, and it is. But you can print an address label, return address label, and stamp all at the same time with any label printer that can use the Dymo 30383 label (or better yet, the MUCH cheaper compatible from House Labels). So you can either use a much cheaper printer to do that (and only that), or use those labels with this printer and have another type of label in the other slot. House Labels Dymo 30915 (700 Endicia stamps per roll) brings he cost of the stamp label to about 0.6 cents per stamp, as opposed to 10 cents each for Avery or Dymo laser labels. That adds 21% to the cost of a 47 cent stamp!CAVEATS WHEN PRINTING POSTAGEBefore buying any label printer or labels, if you’re using or going to use postage software like Stamps.com or Endicia, check their compatibility not only with this printer, but also with the labels you’d like to use. For example, both Stamps.com (PC only) and Endicia (Mac and PC) both only print to certain labels, so check those services label compatibility for this printer.SAVE HUGE, USE COMPATIBLE LABELS, NOT OEM, BUT WATCH FOR A FEW CAVEATSYou can also save a ton of money on labels by using generic compatible labels from manufacturers like House Labels. For example, their Endicia and Stamps.com stamps thermal roll labels are 1/10 the price of the Dymo or Avery laser labels (per label), and are generally significantly less and more convenient than even generic laser labels. So compare thermal and laser labels for your needs and buy generic compatible labels, they work just as well as name brand for a fraction of the cost. Also note, you can buy “removable” and “non-removable” labels. The removable will tend to peel off over time, so if you’re labeling, for example, parts bins, you’d probably want to use the non-removable labels. I’ve seen some people think that the labels were defective because they were the removable type and not appropriate for the application.In late 2012, DYMO/Endicia implemented a new security feature to force customers to buy their relatively expensive 30915 labels. They started printing activation codes on their 30915 labels. People using the FREE DYMO/Endicia stamp printing service will be prompted to enter an activation code every 200 labels. If you are using Endicia’s FREE service, you cannot use non-OEM DYMO 30915 compatible labels. All customers with DYMO/Endicia paid subscriptions are NOT IMPACTED by these security features.POSTAGE PRINTING TIPS FOR MAC AND PCThese days it’s ridiculous to stand in line at the post office to ship stuff, even if you rarely ship things. You can print your postage or shipping labels to plain paper or labels (free from UPS and Fedex), so it’s beyond me why people would bother to stand in line. If your package(s) already have printed postage on them, you can drop off the packages at the post office counter without going through the line. For those who rarely ship, USPS.com is free, and for those who ship via USPS regularly, postage software makes the process much faster and easier. Printing postage from a web browser interface is generally significantly slower than using a desktop app, and issues with printer compatibility and formatting tend to be greater with a browser interface. So if you ship much via USPS, Stamps.com (PC only compatible), Endicia (Mac and PC compatible) are the most affordable way to go. (A little tip, Fedex and UPS free half-sheet laser labels also work with USPS shipping.) Pitney Bowes PB Smart Postage is clunky, generally more proprietary and expensive, but if you’re a high volume shipper, their hardware/software makes more sense. For higher volume shippers, ReadyCloud ReadyShipper (Mac and PC compatible) allows you to ship via USPS, Fedex, and UPS through one interface and get better pricing per shipment since they aggregate shipping.TIPS FOR CONFIGURING WITH A PRINT SERVER (Mac and PC)You do not need to buy the expensive Dymo print server to network this printer on Macs and PCs. I use the IOGear GPSU21 print server and it works fine, but the documentation is poor, so if you’re not a techie, here are some tips to get it working. Note for the instructions below, the print server should be connected to your network and powered on.The user manual doesn’t go into enough detail on how to properly configure. The print server uses DHCP (from your router or cable modem) to assign it a network IP address. The problem with this is, that address is not fixed and can change, and then your printing stops working. So you need to configure the server to have a static (fixed) IP address. To determine what address to set it to, once you have the print server connected to your network and powered on, your router or cable modem will assign it a random IP address. You can then check your router or modem configuration to find the assigned address; somewhere in the config settings you’ll find the IP address. (If this is too technical for you, get a techie to do this.) You can change the print server config to make that IP address fixed.On a PC this is fairly easy, you just follow the instructions for setting a fixed IP address during installation, an enter the device’s current IP address.On Macs, there is no IOGEar installer, so you must first configure the static IP address of the device in a browser by entering the device’s current IP address that you got from the router or modem config into a browser. That will bring up the print server’s config page. Click on the “TCP/IP” link and change the TCP/IP setting from “Automatic” to “Manual:” then you can then enter the fixed IP address. The subnet mask and gateway address should already be there, but if not, you can get it from your router or Mac OS network control panel (Apple Menu>System Preferences>Network). Click the Save button at the bottom of the screen to save the settings.Once you have the print server IP address set to fixed, you can then add the device as you would any printer via the Mac OS Printers & Scanners control panel. Go to Apple Menu>System Preferences>Printers & Scanners. Follow the instructions in the IOGear install instructions and enter the server’s fixed IP address in the “Address:” field as directed in the IOGear instructions.If you have a router or VPN modem, you may need to set port forwarding (port 631 and 9100 for this printer) to allow the printer’s data packets to travel across your network. If you have a router and don’t know what this means, get a techie to do so IF your printer doesn’t work after all other setup has been done.
