I spend much of my life doing paperwork as I work in an office and I find myself doing a lot of jobs for people outside work too and I do a hell of a lot of computer work for my sons football team. We have a laminator at work which I use when needed but I found myself using it more and more for personal reasons and decided it wasn't right to keep using company resources for personal use so I decided to invest in a laminator for home.

My sons football team offered to fund the laminator for the work I do and in return I offered to purchase the pockets out of my own money as I use it for other things as well as the football team. As the money was coming from my sons team, I didn't want to spend a fortune on a laminator so purchased the cheapest one I could find at the time which was the Tesco Value Laminator, which I purchased for around £15.00. As this is a Tesco Value Laminator, obviously it is exclusive to Tesco Stores, though if need be you can purchase it online from Tesco Direct.

You have to purchase the pockets separately, but these are pretty cheap and you can get a pack of 25 for £2.00 in the Tesco Value range and these are what I use on a regular basis.

The laminator doesn't warm up particularly quickly, though I have found this seems to be the case with most laminators I have used over the years and I find it is ready to use in around 5 minutes and you must wait until it has reached temperature or else the edges of the pockets just won't seal properly.

This is an A4 laminator and I have to say for a cheap and cheerful laminator it works well. Once it has reached temperature you simply place your work into the machine carefully. You must make sure that the paper inside the pocket is in properly with edges all around the paper visible as if the paper goes over an edge, the edges won't seal together properly so you must make sure that the paper fits within the edges, leaving a small border on all edges so the edges can stick together to form a seal around your paper. You must also smooth down the pocket before inserting it into the laminator to get rid of any air or creases so your work dispenses smoothly with no bubbles or creases in.

The laminator takes the pocket through quite slowly, but smoothly and I have never had any issues with the pockets getting caught or not feeding through the laminator properly. When your work is dispensed the other end, you find you are left with perfectly laminated work, provided you take the above steps before laminating.

The laminator gets to the perfect temperature as I have never had any problems with the laminator not sealing the edges properly, but nor does it get too hot that it burns or melts the plastic at all.

I have owned this laminator for a good while now and it still works perfectly. It has never failed me (touch wood) and couldn't be easier to use. There is nothing fiddly about it at all, you simply switch it on and let it warm up. There is an indicator which shows you when the laminator has reached temperature and is then ready to use. It is worth taking the time when inserting the paper into the pockets to ensure the pocket is smooth and the paper is in straight and correctly ensuring the edges encase the paper, otherwise you won't get a good seal, but apart from that, you can't really go wrong with this laminator and it comes with a recommendation from me.