DYMO Label Writer 450 Twin Turbo label printer, 71 Labels Per Minute, Black/Silver (1752266)..
Special Price DYMO Label Writer 450 Twin Turbo label printer, 71 Labels Per Minute, Black/Silver (1752266) By DYMO
Most helpful customer reviews
98 of 100 people found the following review helpful.
By A. Taylor
I Just received an email from DYMO, that effective June 11, 2013, I will need to enter an activation code present on each roll of DYMO brand labels to continue using their online postage program for free. If I choose to use a third party label manufacturer, it will cost me $9.95 per month to use my printer. Way to go and ruin a great product by only making it compatible with your own seriously overpriced labels. My new advice on this product is... If you are going to use this as a printer, fine. But do NOT buy this if you are going to use it for internet postage.
MY PREVIOUS REVIEW:
I was quite skeptical when purchasing this product. Usually hardware that says it's PC & Mac compatible falls short on one of those platforms. Not so here... this little printer works like a charm on my iMac. It's a breeze to install, paper is easy to load, and the software is both graphically pleasing and incredibly easy to use. You can copy and paste addresses right into the program and it will check to see if it is a valid address, add the +4 to your zip codes automatically, and even print the USPS barcode on the label for faster sorting. It even integrates with Mac OS X and allows you to print labels by selecting anyone in your Mac's address book. Also, printing your own postage is a huge convenience. There is no extra cost for buying postage online, just the cost of the label, which if bought in bulk or manufactured by a third party, is really quite cheap. For the convenience of not having to go to the post office to buy stamps, the cost of the labels is a fair trade-off. It makes addressing packages and envelopes a total pleasure instead of a hassle. You can also use a USB scale to automatically calculate postage based on weight. This will calculate shipping for first class, as well as priority and express mail service. All around an excellent product and well worth the price.
Two Important Tips: 1) When installing a new roll of labels, there will be some sticky residue left from the glue put there to keep the spool from unraveling. Peel off the label with the sticky stuff on it before feeding it through your printer to prevent the residue getting on the paper feed roller. If the glue gets on the roller, it is likely to cause paper jams. 2) This printer uses thermal paper, not ink. The labels are best used for shipping, or things that require temporary labeling (less than six months). These labels WILL fade after time, and will fade very quickly if left in direct sunlight or in an overly hot environment. This is not a shortcoming of this printer, but of thermal paper technology in general. If you are looking to use this for long term labeling, I would recommend using a different labeler like a Brother P-Touch.
UPDATE: This first one of these worked so well at work, I have purchased a second one for home and added a USB scale to each. Very Very happy with this purchase. Highly recommended!
72 of 77 people found the following review helpful.
By John Hossbach
I was really excited when I first purchased this, the 25lb USB scale, and a pack of extra labels. I thought -- no more lines at the post office: Great! On Dymo's and Endicia's web site, they made sure to point out that I could print postage from home for FREE and expressly indicated "no monthly fees." Again, I was very excited. I'm just a casual shipper -- couple packages a year, so a monthly fee (like with Stamps.com) is not worth it in the slightest. Plus, a lot of the stuff you can do for free already anyway; just not First Class stamps.
So first I'll cover unboxing and setup: it was breeze except for some sticky labels. Instead of using the CD that came with the printer, I always download the latest version from the web. That installed very quickly and painlessly. Then, I connected the printer and followed the Quick Start guide which was surprisingly well written. I installed the address labels first and completed that in under 30 seconds! Moved onto the stamp labels which proved to be a little trickier. The labels kept feeding in crookedly. The first time I pulled it out, the label peeled off inside the printer and I couldn't get it out. I called tech support and to my surprise, the designers thought about this already and the front panel pops right off easily and the print mechanism separates in two places to get the labels out from where ever they are stuck! AWESOME! I finally figured out that the reason they were feeding crookedly was because of the glue leftover from the sticker that held the roll together. So, throw away the first two labels and you'll be fine. Creating the Endicia account was also quick and easy as well as the Endicia software installation.
Now onto the not-so-good...
I attempted to print my first First Class stamp -- $0.08 to make up the difference of an old $0.37 stamp. I played around in the software for a while and could not figure out where to type "0.08." I chatted with Endicia support and they told me that the "free" account only permits a small subset of USPS postage. $0.45 and $0.65 first class stamps, postcards, additional postage of $0.01, and flat rate postage for packages. In order to print an $0.08 stamp, I would need a paid account at a minimum of $9.95/mo. At first, I didn't believe this. All their web site talked about was being able to print postage at home for free. Nothing about restrictions. Not even footnotes, asterisks, or fine print. Well, turns out it's true. So, I'm returning everything to Amazon (who is awesome at returns by the way).
Bottom line:
Great printer and well-thought-out design. DECEIVING ADVERTISEMENT. The only "FREE" postage you can print is the same stuff you can do for free without the printer: buy First Class stamps (any Walmart or other grocery store) and print Flat Rate postage (you can do that via USPS.com). Even PayPal allows you to print First Class Parcel and Media Mail postage on their site for FREE to a regular printer or a label printer (although not this one yet).
Suggestion for Dymo/Endicia:
Please don't misunderstand, I'm not unreasonable. I fully expected there to be some kind of limit on the free account like: you can't print more than $500/mo or something like that. You have to have something that prevents abuse or use by a business that does a lot of shipping. But having what you've done is simply unforgivable.
I would suggest that you change your free account to have a monthly or annual limit of some sort. Something to separate the personal/casual shipper from the business users. Granted very small businesses would fall under the $500/mo idea, but that should be just fine (IMHO) -- they are starting out anyway, why burden them with more expenses? It's really a good business plan anyway. Get someone in on a free limited spend account and as their shipping needs grow, they're already in with you and you get the business because that's what they're already used to and like.
31 of 31 people found the following review helpful.
By Robert Paterson
I've had very positive feelings about the printer. It seems to work flawlessly, especially with generic stamp and label rolls, which are much, much cheaper than their name brand labels, like 10X cheaper. It's not that I wouldn't buy their labels if they were even reasonably priced, but at 10X the cost of generics, sorry, but buying their labels means an extra 9 cents is tacked onto the cost of a stamp, which defeats the purpose of using postage at home, at least for me.
Everything was going fine, and I was recommending this printer to people left and right, but on April 9 they sent me the following email:
We wanted to let you know that beginning on June 18, 2013 we will begin enforcing the requirement that users of the DYMO Stamps no-monthly-fee service use Genuine DYMO Stamps label rolls (#30915) in order to continue printing postage. DYMO brand labels are the only USPS approved labels that are also approved and supported by Endicia for use with our no-monthly-fee DYMO Stamps service.
There is no action required on your part at this time. You can continue using your no-monthly-fee DYMO Stamps service without an activation code until June 18, 2013.
At that time, you may choose to continue using the no-monthly-fee service plan and purchase genuine DYMO brand labels that contain an activation code. Alternatively, if you currently use non-DYMO Stamps label rolls, you may choose to continue doing so with one of our monthly-fee service plans (Endicia Standard or higher), which start at $9.95 per month. Visit our website for more details on the available service plans. While you are under no obligation to continue using Endicia services, we hope that one of these choices will meet your needs.
DYMO brand labels are available [on our site],or at many popular office supply stores.
If you would like more information about the activation code requirement, please visit our Activation Code FAQ page.
Thank you for using DYMO Stamps
Your Endicia Team"
I am strongly for a free market, but am also strongly against bait and switch tactics: I believe that after customers have purchased a printer, like I did from Amazon, they should not be forced to use wildly overpriced labels (ten times the cost of generics, in this case), or forced to pay a fee if they don't use the overpriced labels.
Obviously, generic labels and stamps work fine with these printers. Endica is just trying to extort more money from customers. It's a classic case of bait and switch.
I think someone should start a class action lawsuit if Endicia doesn't get rid of the fee altogether, or include a grandfather clause that allows people who already purchased Dymo Stamps printers before April 9 to use generic labels without signing up for the monthly fee, or lower the cost of their Dymo brand labels to match the cost of generic labels.
BTW: there's a petition on Petition.org, just type Endicia and it should come up.
What an awful company. I hope they backpedal on this and mend their ways, or they are going to have a lot of angry customers, including me.
Works just fine