Brother PT-D600

I tried one of the less expensive Brother label printers, but returned it because I could not read the non-backlit LCD. It was very low contrast, and I was very disappointed. I searched for one with a backlight, and ran across this one - with an LED screen - in full color, and graphical user interface. I have to say, it is almost an Apple experience using it! Very very nice interface, once you figure it out, and extremely easy to use. I love the fact that you can have ½", ¾" and 1" tape from the same machine, and that it automatically detects the tape and the color of the tape and ink, so the display looks exactly like what you will see. With the option for close cut, you only lose about ¾" of tape for each label, which is very good. I have poor eyesight, so their thick font on 1" tape works great in my lab - I can read them without having to get up close and put on my reading glasses. In theory, the unit runs off of 6 AA batteries. However, I would say only if they are very fresh. The printer draws too much juice if the batteries are not in absolutely great condition. My first effort with the printer was a small disaster. I did not know how the cartridges worked, and the first cartridge had the tape coming out wrong (not going around the little corner). So, instead of the tape going thru the cutter and out the side of the printer, it was going back into the printer! And of course - what a mess! I managed to get the cartridge out, and remove the tape - I had the tape loop out about 6" with separated clear tape, the backing tape, and the ink tape all out in loops. So, I called Brother for help. Frankly, the guy answering the phone was of absolutely no help, and could not think - he had to follow a script. One element on the script was "Is this a genuine Brother tape?" No. Sorry, can't help you. Not what I would call great customer support. So, I went on YouTube and looked for "what is inside a Brother tape cartridge" and "how to fix a Brother tape cartridge." Once armed with that, I realized I only had to pull out the excess tape and cut it off, making sure it came out where it was supposed to. Lost about 10" of tape, no big deal, and it worked fine. While I cannot recommend their technical support, I can certainly recommend the machine! It does a fantastic job, with all of the options offered. It also can be connected to your computer as a label printer, and you can download software to make even fancier labels with that - so far, I have not needed anything I can't do right out of the machine. LED display with graphical user interface, multiple tape size support - a great product!

This printer replaced a 12 year-old Brother P-Touch printer that died. I like that fact that this one can be hooked up to a computer, and, by way of included software, and an included USB cable, can print labels by using my computer keyboard. The software allows the user to see how the label will look when printed. The user is able to select from about 10 fonts, font size, multiple borders, and even the ability to print UPC and EAN product barcodes, as well as other industrial barcodes. The printer also has the capability to print multiple lines of type, such as an address label., depending on the size of tape cartridge installed into the printer. The printer also has a relatively large color screen for easy reading, when the printer is not hooked-up the a computer I am a huge collector of movies on DVD and Blu-ray, and have run out of storage space, so I have to stack the movies in their factory cases, in alphabetical order, cover-side down, to make more room on the shelves. Originally, when video discs first were released , the plastic cases were all labeled across the top edge with the title and other information, pertinent to the movie, such as whether it was a "director's cut," or "widescreen," etc., but, I suppose, to save on production costs, more and more discs have been released without a title sticker attached to the top edge of the plastic case. So, with this Brother label printer, I am able to put titles and UPC barcodes on all of my movies and other videos in my collection, so I can find a particular video when i want to play it. The printer comes with a starter 11 millimeter tall TZe white tape cartridge (which is what I am using for my movie case tagging project), that is plenty big for most other projects around the house, such as labeling the contents of tool drawers and cabinets, etc., and a taller, 24 mm TZe tape cartridge that can print larger labels, such as tagging the individual circuit breakers for the house, or labeling storage boxes and crates. The version I bought, the PTD600VP, has a nice, heavy duty, black plastic carrying case that hold the printer, several printer tape cassettes, the USB and power cords, which is nice to have, should I ever need to use it away from home. Oh. and BTW, as much as I like this printer package, I have found that the aftermarket TZe-compatible tape cartridges, sold in bulk, here on Amazon, from various vendors, are just as high quality as those made by Brother. at a much more economical price. Except, maybe, for the cartridge color, and the omission of the Brother logo, they look and perform the same as the OEM tapes. I bought several 10-count packages of the Zencoma compatible TZe tapes for $28.99 each, compared to a 4-package of Brother tapes, which I bought at Costco, for over $45.00, or even more, bought individually at Office Depot or Staples.

This is a great label maker with lots of functionality. It automatically cuts the label for you, but be aware of a couple of things. First, there is a minimum length of the label so if you want to make a label with one short word, there will be a gap at the end and the word won't be centered. Second, it will almost always cut anbout an inch off the tape before it prints and cuts the actual label, so you have to factor in some product loss as a result. There's another issue I discovered. When I downloaded the printer driver and software to my laptop, it completely reset not only my default printer to the label maker, but it also completely reset the printer properties and preferences (print quality, etc) so that I had to redo my printer defaults in order to print docs from my laptop to my regular printer. Just be aware of that. The carrying case is handy, but the first few times it takes a bit of an effort to open the case. It gets easier each time you open and close it. Major flaw in my opinion is that, while there is a recessed area in the case for the cartridges, it does not fit one cartridge of every size that the label maker can use. I like to have every size available to me, and it would be convenient to be able to put all the cartridges inside the carrying case for safekeeping and ease of use. Instead, I'll have to keep all but 3 or 4 cartridges (depending on the width) in a different place. It is convenient that there is automatic detection of the width of the tape, so you don't accidentally try to make a label bigger than the cartridge that's in the label maker. I use this label maker mostly to label my binders and folders of sewing patterns and recipes, and to label objects in Polish so I can remember vocabulary words in my efforts to learn the language. Very convenient that I can use the unique letters that are part of the Polish alphabet!

Love my label maker! I especially appreciate being able to use many types and widths of ribbons. I also like being able to change the size, font, and style of the letter in my labels. The screen is very clear and easy for my aging eyes to see. The size the words look like on the screen can also be adjusted and made larger if you need it. This doesn't effect the actual font size on the label when it is printed. The case is very sturdy and easy to use. I love having an AC adapter to power up my label maker when my batteries die. It's a very usable size and light enough to cart around. When I set the machine to use a short tab cut, it shortens the amount of tape wasted on the last end. It seems very reasonable the amount I loose on the front end of the tape every time I make a new label. Like others have suggested, I try to make several labels at a time and then cut them apart myself. This allows me to control the margins on each label. What I wish for: cut and paste option and slightly better navigation tools when moving around on a long label. I can move from the beginning to the end, but if I have two lines on a label, I can't move up a line while retaining the same position with respect to the beginning and end. I haven't figured out how to use the computer label generated option yet, but that's me, not the machine. It is more complex than just opening a document and typing. I would definitely recommend this to a friend.

This device is a delight to have around and to use. It makes home, garage, and office organization such a breeze. The variety of tape and font colors on the market is amazing, giving you infinity possibilities of how and where you can use these labels. Highly recommended! One of the best features of the device is that you can remove a tape cartridge and replace with another at any time. No need to cut off tape or re-feed anything. All of the work is done inside the cartridge, so everything is super simple and allows you to get creative on the fly! Wonderful design. WASTED MARGINS However, as others have pointed out, there is one design flaw in this device: there is ALWAYS a 1" wasted margin of tape every time you print a label. Brother gives you 2 "Cut Options" in the menu: 1) Large margins - this adds 1" blank margins on both the left and right ends of your label, in case you want blank spaces (why anyone would ever want this is kind of confusing to me, but it's the default option if you need this) 2) Small margins - although this does eliminate the extra 1" of wasted tape on the right end of your label, it will still ALWAYS waste an extra 1" of tape on the left side and simply cuts it off for you to discard EVERY TIME YOU PRINT A LABEL. I've noticed that my average label length (other than the margins) is about 2-3", so what all of this means is that the wasted margins will end up wasting 25-33% of the tape. So keep this in mind when you purchase new tape cartridges. Thankfully there are lots of 3rd party tape suppliers now that offer similar tape options as Brother but at a fraction of their prices, so the wasted tape isn't too costly to your bottom line. But still, do yourself a favor and collect all those wasted margins the printer chops off. You can write on them with a permanent marker and use them as little hand-written labels. That's better than just tossing them in the garbage as Brother seemingly intended for you to do. Other than the wasted margin design flaw, this is a fantastic device and well worth the price. You cannot go wrong.

Brother at least for MacOS drivers, obsoletes the driver and with it the supported label maker. Thus I have now purchased three label makers not because they broke, only because Brother does not support newer operating systems. Note this does not appear to apply to Windows where Brother support is very good. This label maker requires newer label cartridges, but there are third party alternatives sold on Amazon where the results are just as good as OEM Brother label material. The label maker supports BlueTooth, though can use USB. With BlueTooth and the included AC power supply, as well as the fact that the software reads the label size from the cartridge making the label maker largely mindless to use. Note there is a minimum length of the label with the internal cutter. For smaller label lengths, cutting the labels by hand is required.

Update Sept. 2020: Although it's been a while since I wrote my original 1 star review, it's worth updating based on the manufacturer's handling. Brother sent me a replacement unit under warranty. The replacement has been working fine, and I've printed hundreds of labels ever since. I probably just ended up with a lemon initially. I'm upgrading to 5 stars despite the hassle of having to replace the original defective unit. The software for this label printer is compatible with Windows 10 and can be downloaded from Brother's web site. It's well worth the effort to install and configure the software because it makes this label printer even more functional and easy to use. Using the software, it's easy to queue up multiple labels to print in one pass (which not only saves time, but also saves tape since you don't have to waste tape on the leading edge of each individual label when printing). Brother also offers firmware updates for this label printer on their web site. I was surprised to see that, but it's a nice touch that they bothered to provide that level of technical support for this device. Original review: I wanted to like this label maker, BUT.... It suffers from a serious flaw that makes it extremely frustrating to use on a regular basis. The label maker does not eject labels properly when printing small labels (less than 50mm). Therefore, when the automatic cutting mechanism cuts the label, the label gets stuck on the inside of the label maker instead of ejecting properly. Even when printing longer labels, this is a problem because the label maker feeds a small segment for the leading margin of the label to be printed and cuts a small amount of the label prior to printing. So you end up with lots small bits of label that accumulate and further jam the printing of your labels. It's very annoying to constantly have to fish out bits of labels from the inside of the label maker. If this was a rare occurrence, it would not be a problem. But it happens more than 50% of the time. Furthermore, after a couple of months of usage I started noticing a rattling sound coming from inside of the label maker. I suspect that a screw has come loose, but I don't want to open up the label maker and risk damaging it. The label maker is still working (other than not ejecting labels properly), but at this price point I'd expect better quality control than what this shoddy product offers.

This is overall, the Best Label Maker around. I have had different ones from Brother, Dymo, Casio, etc. Yes, it is pricey. BUT, the Features available on it are awesome. Everyone is complaining about "wasting" one inch of tape on each label. Have you looked at how the tape cartridge is made? All of the different brands suffer from this in some way. There is no way to get the print head closer to the cutter and still have room for the rollers needed to pull the waste inked portion of the tape away.. The only label maker that I have ever owned that didn't waste any tape was the old Dymo label makers that embossed the tape instead of printing on it. Even with those, you had to manually backspace the tape to start embossing at the very beginning, and you had to know how many spaced to add after embossing to cut. I have mine set for "narrow margins". It cuts the start of the tape as it prints, then finishes printing , then cuts the tape just past the last letter. No manual cutting involved. yes, the first cut drops an inch of waste tape. I am OK with that. When I can, I try to print more than one label at a time. That way, you only loose 1" of tape at the first cut, and get a perfect cut between each label with no waste. I also use the generic, non branded tape because it is a lot cheaper than the genuine Brother brand. It also seems to work just as well. It is a little difficult to find the correct settings and features that you want in the manual. I just fold the corner of the various pages that have what I want. easy to find then, and with time, I seldom have to refer to the manual anymore. Trying to create labels with the software is more difficult to me than doing it on the machine. The software is good for downloading more icons, borders, fonts, etc. and adding them to the machine. That is all I use the software for anymore.