Epson LabelWorks LW-PX800 Review | PCMag

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The Epson LabelWorks LW-PX800 offers solid performance and capabilities similar to the Epson LabelWorks LW-PX900, our Editors’ Choice for heavy-duty standalone label printing up to 36 millimeters (mm), or 1.42 inches wide. But where the LW-PX900 is a portable model meant primarily for use at work, the $379 LW-PX800 is a desktop model meant for the office. It lacks the LW-PX900’s screen, keyboard, battery and handle, but adds the ability to share the printer over a network and connect to mobile devices. And while it may not be, and needn’t be, as rugged as its portable cousin, it’s also backed by a lifetime warranty. The differences and similarities combined are enough to earn it an Editors’ Choice designation, in this case for a networkable desktop printer for industrial labels up to 36mm wide.

The design: black box label printing

Measuring 5.5 by 4.8 by 6 inches (HWD), the LW-PX800 is an almost cubic black box with rounded edges and two splashes of color across the front. Lime green marks the output slot. A red section on a small protrusion indicates the slot for inserting a pre-printed label to round the corners (more on that later). On the top front are four buttons: for power, for advancing the tape, for switching between the Wi-Fi settings (Infrastructure mode, Access Point mode, and disabled), and for opening the top cover to insert or remove a tape cartridge.

The physical setup is simple. Place the 2.4-pound printer on your desk, plug in the power cord, open the top to insert ribbon, snap it shut, and connect to a single PC or your network. In addition to Wi-Fi, connection options include USB and Ethernet ports on the rear of the printer.

(Credit: Epson)

Installing the software isn’t much more difficult. The setup manual (actually a one sheet fold out that’s more of a quick start guide) talks about a CD that doesn’t actually come with the printer. However, there is also an insert page with links to download Epson Label’s programs, drivers and network utility.

As with Epson’s other desktop label printers, including the LW-PX400, for example, the LW-PX800 offers more than one way to print from both PCs and mobile devices. For Windows, the latest version of Epson Label Editor, version 2.10 as of this writing, is the recommended choice and the one I used for most of my testing. However, you can also download the older Label Editor Professional, if you already know it and don’t want to learn a new program. For macOS, there’s Label Editor Lite. And all three of these programs also come with a standard driver, so you can print from virtually any other app via a print command.

(Credit: Epson)

For phones and tablets, you can download the Label Editor Mobile, Epson iLabel and Epson Datacom apps. All come in Android and iOS versions and are suitable for basic text labels. Besides that, iLabel and Label Editor Mobile are designed for printing logos, security labels and barcodes and both offer a built-in function to connect to Dropbox and Google Drive to let you share and store label files. Among them, however, Epson recommends the new Label Editor Mobile as the most capable and easiest to use program. The Datacom app focuses on cable labels, patch panels, faceplates, and the like. It also includes a link to LinkWare Live, which will be of interest to professional installers using Fluke Networks Versiv cable test equipment.

Take your pick – ribbons of all kinds

As of this writing, Epson offers over 200 tape cartridge choices for the LW-PX800 in an assortment of sizes, colors, and types. About 140 of these fall into Epson’s industrial tape category. The rest are home and hobby supplies, which were recently introduced for Epson’s new line of home label printers, but are also compatible with the LW-PX800.

About half of the industrial supplies are standard 30-foot plastic (polyester) tapes in various background color and print combinations, and in widths from 4mm to 36mm (0.16in to 1.42in). Prices per cartridge right now are $22.10 for 0.5″ (12mm) and smaller widths, $26.34 for 0.71″ and 0.94″ (18mm and 24mm) widths, and $36. 57 for the 36 mm width. They are all continuous rolls which means the price per label will vary based on the size of label printed.

(Credit: Epson)

The rest of the industrial cartridges offer specialty tapes, including dull silver tapes; tapes with strong adhesive; vinyl tapes; magnetic tapes; Tubular heat shrink tapes for cables; fluorescent tape; extra strong nylon tape; removable adhesive tape; and self-laminating cable wrap tapes, with a clear, non-printable area of ​​the tape to overlay printed text. The length, prices, ranges of widths and number of choices vary from one specialty category to another.

The 60+ home and hobby supplies fall into six categories. The only one that is solely for home and hobby use is a printable tape. Three of these, matte, pearlescent and muted design colours, are variations of Epson’s standard plastic ribbons. Fluorescent tapes are the same as industrial tapes of the same name, but in shorter lengths at lower prices. Gold imprint metallic tapes are the same as a single color variation of dull silver industrial tapes. Details such as available lengths and prices vary by category. In general, however, home and hobby cartridges tend to be less expensive and shorter than industrial tapes.

Testing LabelWorks LW-PX800, using Epson’s Label Editor

As I’ve pointed out in other Epson label printer reviews, the Windows-based version of Label Editor is easy to use and easy to use. It also comes with all the features you could ever need, from conveniences like automatically setting to match the width of the tape in your printer, to generating barcodes, to printing a series of labels with variable data stored on a sheet of calculation.

By default, the program is set to cut the tape at the end of each print job and perform a half cut between labels, which cuts the label leaving the backing intact. If you prefer, you can set it to only cut after the last label in a print job, which speeds printing, or for full cuts after each label. However, either of these choices will end up costing you extra time overall. Cutting the backing after each label makes it harder to find the label you need in a batch when you stick them on, and if you skip cuts between labels, it will take more time than you saved manually cutting them later.

(Credit: Epson)

One notable feature is the ability to round the corners of the labels, as mentioned earlier. Epson calls it PeelGuard because rounding the corners helps minimize the chances of something accidentally snagging a corner of the label and partially peeling the label. One particularly nice touch is that you can use it in conjunction with kiss cut, folding the tape at each half cut, inserting it into the PeelGuard slot and rounding the corners without cutting into the backing. The downside is that since you have to enter each label manually, rounding takes longer. However, the printer does a great job turning right-angle corners into rounded arcs smoothly while also leaving the labels in place on the substrate.

Epson rates the LW-PX800 at 35mm per second, or 1.38 inches per second (ips), the same as the LW-PX900 and more than double the LW-PX400, at 15mm (0.59in) per second. Of all the label printers we’ve tested, only the much more expensive Epson LabelWorks LW-Z5010PX has a faster rating, at 50mm (1.97 inches) per second.

(Credit: Epson)

In my tests with Epson Label Editor, the LW-PX800 turned out to be essentially the same when printing over a network or USB connection. In both cases, it printed 10 copies of a 4-inch label with the text “PCMag Label Printer Test” at a measured speed of 1.2 ips. (The auto cut between labels was turned off to give maximum speed, and the time doesn’t include the final cut at the end.) When I set it for half cuts between labels, the speed dropped to 0.9 ips. For comparison, the LW-PX900 tied in with auto-cut off, while the LW-Z5010PX clocked in at a slightly slower 1.0 ips, and the LW-PX400 managed just 0.4 ips.

Also note that the 360dpi resolution, which the LW-PX800 shares with the LW-PX900, is double (or more) the resolution for many label printers, and even slightly more than the LW-Z5010PX’s 300dpi. For most labels, high resolution doesn’t matter, but if you’re using text in the 5-point range or complex graphics, you’ll notice a difference.

Verdict: The best choice for heavy-duty label printing on your desk

Each of the printers mentioned here is the best choice for the right application. All come with a lifetime warranty, all can connect to a Windows PC to print using Epson Label Editor, and three have earned Editors’ Choice designations for their categories. The LW-PX400 is the least expensive of the bunch, and our top pick for a moderate-duty label printer for labels up to 0.94-inch (24mm) wide. The LW-Z5010PX is the most expensive and offers a wealth of features for extremely heavy desktop printing, including the ability to print on labels up to 50mm (1.97in) wide. It also supports bulk rolls so large they have to fit behind the printer, with much longer ribbons than you’d get with standard cartridges (and therefore a lower cost per inch).

If your label printing needs aren’t robust enough to consider the LW-Z5010PX, but are more than the LW-PX400 offerings, the LW-PX800 and LW-PX900 are somewhere in between, in what’s probably your curl zone golden. Both share many of the same features, including the ability to print to the same maximum tape width. However, the LW-PX900, our Editors’ Choice for heavy-duty standalone label printing, is the only portable printer in this group. The LW-PX800, by contrast, is designed to sit on a desk and can connect to a network as a shared printer. That’s enough of a difference to earn its own Editors’ Choice designation for heavy-duty label printing on the desktop.

Epson LabelWorks LW-PX800

Professionals

Print on a variety of tape types, up to 36mm wide

Downloadable apps for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS

It can cut labels and rounded corners without cutting the backing strip

Lifetime Warranty

View more

The bottom line

The Epson LabelWorks LW-PX800 can connect to a single PC, network or Android or iOS mobile device and print on a wide variety of labels up to 36mm (1.42in) wide.

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