Product Review of the Battery-Powered Brother P-touch Label Machine

I'm a slob by nature, and finally decided that one thing to help me get--and stay--organized was a way of print-on-demand labeling what should go where (a place for everything, and everything in its place, as they say). Since I do a lot of crafts, this is particularly the area in which I needed organizational help. So, I splurged and spent about $70 on the Brother P-touch portable (runs on batteries) label making machine. I had fun labeling my craft containers, my mom's wood shop drawers, some of my kitchen and linen closet shelves, some tools, my laptop and its power supply, cords and power supplies for my various electronics, my camera, stuff I lend out like DVDs and games...

This label machine is easy to use for basic stuff yet has tons of features if you want to get fancy including borders and several fonts and font sizes; for example connect it to your computer to create images and text in any font. It works very easily and there's no "trick" to it so you won't waste yards of label stock getting the results you're looking for.

That brings up the subject of labels. I don't like the $20-$40 price tags on the cartridges of labels of various types. Then again, once labeled, the labels don't peel off unless you peel them off, are water-resistant (the ones I've tried), and don't leave a film behind or shred like most labels (price tags!!) when you do want to remove them. Plus, there are many more options for colors and sizes and widths than you could get with your old-fashioned select a letter-press-turn labeler (Dymo), including address labels. It also accepts some label cartridges from Avery.

I even labeled my dog: her brass collar tag, engraved on one side with details, has a big white label with her name on it in black letters on the flip side--it's clearly visible from 6 feet away or more. That label has survived completely intact (no edges peeling) for about 2 years now, including getting rained on and snowed on and romping at the dog park, puppy play dates and puppy piles, and so on. Note that I did round off the corners of the label slightly with a sharp pair of embroidery scissors to prevent the corners from pulling up. I did that because sharp corners are the usual culprits that lead to the downfall of most normal labels, so I figured I'd round them off on these labels, too, just to be safe.

And, the best part is that you can create very customized labels in any font with images, logos, and different borders by simply connecting your P-Touch label machine to your computer and printing something from your computer that you have designed. Totally fun, easy, and cool! So, the somewhat high price tags are, I admit, earned since this appears to be the best product on the market for all of my purposes.

My first concern, upon purchasing the P-touch label printer, was the battery life. I figured it would eat batteries for breakfast. Not so, I've found: I haven't needed to change the batteries once and I've been through probably 20 label cartridges. I am careful about turning off the printer every second I'm not using it, but even so: I was pleasantly surprized to find epic battery life, in my experience. If battery life were a concern, and if I weren't in need of carrying it around the house (and everywhere else), you can buy a power supply and run the machine off of a normal household/work outlet at your desk, for example. Happily, that hasn't been an issue for me.