DYMO LabelWriter 330 Turbo product reviews

i talked the boss into buying one of these after reading the review and we are using it in our commercial operation. we use it to send out our monthly newsletters to all our members and without the labelwriter it would have taken a lot more effort to do such a good job. we were able to merge our existing database into a template in publisher 2003 and just print it out, no need to waste 3 or 4 sheets of labels trying to get the printout properly aligned with the pre-printed labels. we made the whole thing in one step, and just hit print. the autonumber feature was very handy, saving us over 30 manhours per week in wasted time, as so was the barcode features, as it helps us keep track of returned newsletters and database maintenance. this is a great product and i am really happy to have it as part of our operation.

Recently I was given the job of doing the monthly mailouts for our promotions firm. This meant around 200 envelopes needing stuffing, addressing and stamping, every week. I had read the reviews on here about this printer, and after printing them out and showing them to the boss, he was convinced it would be a viable investment to buy one.
With the template for a prepaid stamp from the postal company, a pre-prepared database of mailing details, and a bit of finessing with Publisher from the Office Suite and I was ready to give this printer a run for it's money. After setting up the mailmerge, it was a simple matter of selecting the printer from Publisher's printer options dialog, going into settings and telling it what labels were in the machine, and hitting the PRINT button. A few minutes later and I had 200 address labels, with postage stamp printed.
After a further 10 minutes, the envelopes were all ready to fill and post. The boss was highly impressed, as this printer has easily cut 2 hours off the job minimum.This equates to a saving to our company of around $1,000 per annum, easily justifying the cost of this unit.

As a home user I found this printer to be kindof handy but without much cost-saving. Time-saving however was very noticable.
I found the variety of labels to be quite extensive, but within a series of narrow size-groups. I would like to see more exotic shaped labels appearing or a continuous-label version allowing me to print whatever I wanted, and cut it to shape as I saw fit.
In summary I would still say this is a great machine, but probably isn't for the home-users as much as small-business and up. We home-users would only find it worth using only in occasional bursts similar, perhaps wedding/birthday-video labels, christmas time, moving house, that sort of thing.

Wow, what a delightful printer to use. Just load the software, plugin the printer and go. And the Word integration is just brilliant, I just wish more devices did this with such ease.

The avaiable label options was just mind boggling. To be honest I could never come up with a use for each and everyone of them, but some are especially handy. The CD labels were of great use, and the address labels were very handy as well.

Print clarity was just great and print speed couldn't have really been better if it tried.

And to be honest there was no way I was ever going to need all the templates that were supplied.

So all in all. This is one great little printer for all your label needs.

A courier parcel turned up. It was the unit from Esselte NZ. I had been anticipating this arrive for a few days and was itching to try it out. However, due to a small electrical problem, I was delayed for a week. All that time, I just couldn't stop wishing it was working. This unit had a reputation to live up to.

After a successful power-up and install, I started to give it a whirl. Start off with what comes in the box. The software was basic, to say the least, but had some very interesting and functional tools, such as auto-counting fields that were highly customisable. Great for sequential labels, such as Archive or Compilation CDs. This would be a great tool for a library or DJ. Printing direct from Publisher and even PhotoShop was easy, and created a very impressive label in no time at all. Mail-merge was also a breeze, so smooth and clean... the only problem I had turned out to be with Publisher, not the DYMO LabelWriter.

The print quality was very impressive, 300dpi for text, and an effective 200dpi +/- when dealing with imported artwork. Though it didn't handle more than about 8 shades of grey in effect, due to the grainy nature of the printhead, it still gave reasonable images and lineart worked a treat.

Changing labels was simple, however loading a roll of labels wastes a label each time, with form-feeding being required to align the labels with the head. No auto-feed-in on this little baby, just pull a lever to release the pressure on the feeder wheel, slide the end of the roll in, release pressure lever and hit the button on the front. It feeds out until it reaches the cut-off hole in the roll, signalling the feeder to stop. Now, ready to print. You would NOT want to be changing labels a lot... one label per swapout, that will add up over time for regular users. However, this is still not too bad if you compare the wastage on form-feed pages of labels used by the larger-volume agencies.

Another little niggle, the supplied software doesn't ship with all of the possible templates for the labels available, meaning that a few approximations were required. I couldn't find anywhere to download other label templates, and there was no obvious way to create custom-sized labels. A process I ended up bypassing by simply using Publisher to perform many of the tests.

I even printed the first paragraph of this very review, using up 2 labels. It was easy as pie, once the Print Prefs were configured correctly. This would be invaluable to those wanting clean labels for mounted displays, for example photographers or historical/geneological displays.

Overall, so highly impressed with this unit I really would love to be able to keep it. Alas, the price is still out of the meager budget, but for any small business this is a wise investment indeed. Personalised labels for internal and external use is now well and truely within your fiscal grasp. And with the generous supply of labels from Esselte, we were able to really put it through it's paces. Most impressive unit.