Epson LabelWorks LW-PX300

Epson sells its LW-PX300 label printer for $59 alone and for $89 as part of the Epson LabelWorks LW-PX300 Full Printer Kit. (The kit, which we reviewed, is well worth the extra $30, for reasons we'll get to shortly.) It capably handles a variety of media, including standard plastic labels for home or business use, heat-shrink tube tape for labeling cables, and magnetic decals that make excellent promotional fridge magnets. The level of capability for the price makes the LW-PX300 a clear Editors' Choice for low-volume printing of industrial labels.

You Probably Want the Kit

The cheaper option includes the label printer, one tape cartridge, and an owner's manual. The $89 kit adds an AC adapter, a hard-shell carrying case, and a removable rubber case cover—Epson calls it a bumper guard—to help protect the printer against damage. All the additions are well worth having, and each costs more when purchased alone than the added price of the kit. You can power the printer with six AA batteries, for example, but odds are you'll at least sometimes want to plug in the AC adapter ($59.95 sold separately).

Similarly, if you need to carry the printer to a job site or want to store it away safely, the hard shell case ($79.95 sold separately) is a must. And the rubber guard ($49.95 sold separately) can help keep the case from cracking if you drop it. The only good argument for not choosing the Full Kit is if you're absolutely sure you will never need any of these three extras.

In contrast to the more expensive Epson LabelWorks LW-PX750PCD Kit and Editors' Choice award-winning Brady BMP41, which can both be used as standalone printers but also let you print from your PC, the LabelWorks LW-PX300 is a strictly self-contained printer, like the Brother P-touch PT-D202 reviewed here recently and the 2015 Editors' Choice honoree, the Brother P-Touch D210.

Sitting on a flat surface, the printer ranges from 1.2 inches high in front to 2.25 inches at the back, giving the top panel a slight tilt that make the keys a little easier to use and the 140-by-80-dot, two-line backlit LCD a little easier to read. But the physical design is most appropriate for handheld use. The printer measures 4.5 inches wide by 6.5 inches deep and offers nicely rounded edges on all sides. I found it comfortable to hold for thumb typing and could conveniently hit the manual cutter with my right index finger after printing. It's also light enough to hold easily at 1.1 pounds (1.8 pounds with six penlight batteries).

Setup consists of little more than inserting a tape cartridge and the batteries if you like. The printer turns off automatically after five minutes without a button press, so the LCD backlighting won't drain the batteries unnecessarily if you forget to turn the device off.

Lots of Tapes and Tape Types

As for tapes, you can choose among 45 varieties of standard industrial plastic in 30-foot rolls with widths of 6mm (0.24 inch), 9mm (0.35 inch), 12mm (0.47 inch), and 18mm (0.71 inch). Each comes in various colors or clear and costs $24.85 per cartridge for the largest width and $20.85 for the others. All are continuous rolls, so your price per label will vary with label size.

In addition, Epson offers six types of specialty tapes in a variety of widths and colors, bringing the total number of tapes to 81. Silver matte, strong adhesive, and vinyl tapes are priced like standard tapes. Fluorescent tape, which is available in five colors, is a bit pricier at $30.95 per 30-foot cartridge.

Two of the specialty tapes are thicker, resulting in shorter rolls. The heat-shrink tube tape for labeling cables, available in six colors, comes in 96-inch rolls ($31.90 each). The magnetic tape cartridges, available in five colors, are 4.9 feet and cost $10.15 or $10.49 depending on width. Given the short length, however, that works out to a little more than twice as much per inch compared with the standard plastic.

All the Label Creation Choices You Need

The LW-PX300 offers easy label creation. You can simply type some text on the QWERTY keyboard, start a new line by hitting the Enter key, and read up to two lines of 15 characters on the backlit LCD. When you're finished, hit the Print button, wait for the label to print, and press the manual cutter. The printer's 180 dpi resolution, typical for this class of device, delivers crisp edges and highly readable text.

Buttons below the keyboard include Shift, Shift Lock, and a context-sensitive accent button that lets you add your choice of accents to the character you just entered. Other buttons let you choose a font, adjust font size and style, add a frame, or enter one of eight bar codes or 859 symbols chosen for industrial and professional use.

Other options let you specify the label length and overall format, including vertical, mirror image, and several variations of flag format (which lets you wrap the label around a cable and paste the ends together to leave a little flag sticking out). You can preview the current label before printing, and save up to 50 labels in memory to print as needed.

Print options include printing up to nine copies of a label, with the choice to pause after each one for manual cutting or add barely visible tick marks to let you cut them with scissors later. A particularly nice touch is that if you set the printer to cut each label after printing, it automatically prints the next one after each cut. If you realize you made a mistake, you can easily cancel a print job by hitting the Backspace key or turning off the printer.

Epson rates the LW-PX300 at 6mm or 0.24 inch per second (ips) with AC power, which is slow enough to feel sluggish when printing even a one-inch label. More expensive industrial label printers tend to be faster; the Epson LW-PX750PCD is rated at 1.18 ips while the Brady BMP21-Plus and BMP41 manage 0.4ips and 1.3ips respectively.

In my tests, the LW-PX300 took 16.4 seconds to print a 3.8-inch label (0.23 ips). I didn't notice any speed difference when using batteries rather than AC power, but saw some minor variation with different types of tape—magnetic tape, for instance, was infinitesimally slower. If you're printing just a few labels at a time, the LabelWorks' slow speed should be acceptable.

Top Marks for Everything But Speed

The wait for labels to print is the only real negative about the LW-PX300. If you need to print lots of labels for, say, labeling cables on a daily basis, you'll be better off with the Brady BMP41 or Epson LW-PX750PCD. Each has a different mix of label types, so check to see which is the better match for your purposes.

If you need only occasional label printing for cables and other items in your home or office, the Brother P-touch PT-D202 offers slightly more speed than the LW-PX300, along with some tape choices such as photo-safe (acid-free) and iron-on fabric that extend its capabilities for home use.

For light-duty industrial-style labeling, however—whether for a small business identifying cables, pipes, and bins; a hobbyist straightening up a workshop; or a small retailer or kitchen-table-based online shipper adding bar code labels to merchandise—the Epson LW-PX300 is close to ideal. It will even let you print refrigerator magnets to promote your business or turn your kitchen Frigidaire into a message board. Getting this much capability for so little cost—with a lifetime warranty, to boot, which covers accidental breakage—makes the LabelWorks LW-PX300 an easy Editors' Choice winner.