LABELWORKS Epson LW-Z5010PX Industrial Label Maker - Complete Printer Kit with Accessories, PX 147' Bulk Label Rolls, Desktop Printer

I was tired of my Dymo Rhino 6000 and wanted to find something more capable. I looked hard - really hard - at the Brady BMP61 - a modern platform, WiFi connectivity, 2” tape, lots of materials, etc. But then I started looking at the material costs. The lower-end Brady BMP21 cartridges are reasonably priced, but for some reason, as you go up the Brady line, the material cost INCREASES. I could swallow the price of the BMP61, but not the consumables.I started looking for alternatives, and ended up back with Epson/K-Sun. I have and still use a K-Sun 2001XL from circa 1996, and had lost touch with recent products. Looking at the materials on the Epson side, they were really reasonable - often less than half the Brady equivalent. I landed on the LW-Z5010PX after looking at the 900 model (I liked the 2” tape option and depending on your circumstances, the 5010 really isn’t any less portable than the 900), and boy is it cool.This is a 300DPI printer and you can do some cool things, including quasi-grayscale as shown in the second picture as well as multiple font styles and font sizes on the same label. The first picture was done on the pc software, the second label was done on the 5010 built-in screen.If you look really close you can see some print artifacts, but keep in mind the above pictures are zoomed way in on a 1” tall label. In real life they look really nice.The printer has a half-cut feature (shown in second picture) where it cuts through the label but not the backing tape, which means you can actually get the label off without spending 5 minutes trying to peel a corner.The included PC software and mobile apps are pretty useful. The mobile apps work over WiFi to the printer either in infrastructure mode (you connect the printer to an existing network that your mobile device or PC is already on) or stand-alone mode where the printer acts as a wireless access point. I wish it could do Blue Tooth so I don’t have to switch off my live internet connection to print to the printer at a job site wirelessly, but it’s a lot better than nothing.This printer doesn’t seem to have the tape rewind feature that the 900 has, so you end up with about 1/2” of wasted tape on the front of every print job. That surprised me. Also, though there are several different font styles and a huge range of sizes, there is really only one font in the printer (PC software and mobile software can do more). At least one of their other models has more font choices.There are a couple other things that I wish were a little different- a few minor firmware and software things that are funny, but overall this is a great printer, and the Amazon bundle with the bulk box is a great value compared to Brady.Brady has the edge on Epson in material selection - there are things Brady has that Epson doesn’t, but Brady’s mix and match deal of having to choose the right ribbon to go with the media (on the BMP61) and the super high cost of the consumables means that if you’re looking for more normal labeling work for telco (3rd picture is their 36mm self-lam on a Cat5e cable) or general labeling, the Epson is a lot easier and cheaper, and good enough.