*** More Than Manages! *** (Dymo Labelmanager 150)

Member Name: malibu_jenny

Product:	Dymo Labelmanager 150
Date:	06/03/09 (141 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A handy bit of kit for home and office with all the right features.

Disadvantages: Occasionally you get duff tapes!

We squabble bitterly over the Dymo 150 Label Manager at work; there's only one between three floors of offices and it's guarded jealously by the facilities manager who now locks it in a drawer. However, I am in possession of this precious jewel today because our team paid for the most recent roll of tape.

It's a nice looking machine with a curvy navy blue exterior and silver trim, a red button to switch on and off and a scissor button to cut the tape as it curls out. Not only is it light enough to carry around labelling things, but the four little rubber feet prevent it from sliding around on the desk. Labelling stuff with this is a far cry from the 80's version where you had to literally force it to indent the letters and numbers on the tape; now you input your label on a qwerty keypad, choose your font, font size, underline, insert all the usual symbols.... On top of this it carries borders, pictures, smileys, arrows and a variety of less likely skull and crossbones icons. You then print your label (as many copies as you like) and it slides straight out to be cut off using the scissor button.

The labels have amazing sticking power and instead of breaking nails and teeth trying to pick the end, you simply bend the label vertically and slip the backing paper off in two little halves like an elastoplast.

You can even use the Enter key to make a label over two lines, although this will obviously shrink the writing to get the two lines onto the same width of tape. It gets even more advanced with extra features such as language. There are seven different print styles and you can produce horizontal or vertical labels. Although I rarely make vertical labels, this is useful for printing numbers for contents lists inside ring binders.

In terms of intuitive use, I'd rate this far higher than most mobile phones. The instruction book is long since lost, but I've never had to ask anyone how it works. Much like an old-skool Nokia, everything is where you expect it to be and adequate for the purpose. This is one of those great bits of kit where you fully accept the limitations and instead of getting frustrated, you're pleased with what it can do. If you wanted super fancy labels with colours and 400dpi graphics, you'd use the computer. If you want a quick and easy way of labelling a drawer or a folder, a little black and white sticky backed label fits the bill.

What's not so great about it? Well.... The amount of space it leaves at the beginning and end of each label is a bit of a waste of tape. Also, the rolls of tape (despite their high price) have occasionally been faulty. It should be a simple matter of loading it by taking out the old cartridge and just clicking the new one into place, but sometimes you get one where the carbon tape on the back comes out along with the label, or worse still gets screwed up inside the machine, jams it and has to be unblocked.

It wasn't cheap when it was initially purchased (probably why we only have one) but I've noticed that you can pick it up for less than £30 on eBay now, complete with case. Irritatingly, the initial outlay is not the last of the costs as it takes an excessive amount of batteries, needing five AA alongside a £4.00 roll of tape.

I've looked at the newer versions which followed this, but got the same feeling I get when using a scientific calculator for really basic sums. The features on these seemed overwhelmingly advanced and just too over the top for the purpose. Also, I don't like the shape, size and design of the more recent models, which are longer and bulkier to accommodate those extra features.

Things I've used our Dymo for:
Relabelling MyDog's collar when he moved house.
Labelling names onto waterproof jackets
Writing insults to stick on people
Putting my name onto books
Labelling drawers, files and other office stuff (supposedly the 'correct' use)
A whole lot of uneccessary stuff such as labelling the dymo itself with the the word "Dymo".

Really, the only limit is your imagination. However twisted that might be....

Summary: If there's one piece of stationery I'd like to take home, it's this.