Customer Reviews

Brother PT-1010 Handheld Labeler with Rubber Grip

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I first purchased the Brother PT-1010 thinking that I would try it out with batteries before I committed to buying the adaptor. The thing absolutely, positively would not run with BRAND NEW BATTERIES! Every time I tried to print, I got a low battery message.

Once I purchased the A/C adaptor it worked like a charm. Thus far the labels have been exactly what I was looking for - crisp printing, easy peeling and sturdy.

Besides the batteries, I have two other criticisms. First, the User's Manual is confusing. It's far easier to just start pushing buttons. Second, each label has about 1/2" wasted space on either side of the letters. I've taken to printing several labels at one time using 3 spaces to separate them. I then print as if it were one long label and cut them apart with scissors. There's much less waste that way!

I needed a no-frills labeler. This item has been great for me. You can print several different font sizes, basic text formatting (bold, italics, underline, outline, shadow, etc), and even a few border styles (candy, wood, round, etC).

Loading and unloading tape cartridges is every easy. Battery life has been good too.

It does waste quite a bit at the ends of the labels. If you can print more than one at a time, do it. Separate text by three or four spaces then use scissors to cut apart your labels. Do not press the label cut button while printing, or it will stop printing.

This labeler met my expectations! I would give it 5 stars if it did not waste material at the ends of each label.

Ok, the labeler itself prints great labels, but everything about it is geared to sell consumables.

1. It eats batteries, printing maybe 50 labels on SIX AAA batteries.
2. It adds almost an inch to each side of the printing which is a total waste of tape, and so far I have no idea how to shorten it. (Don't you think one of the menu items would be "how much space do you want around your printing?" or something like that.)
3. It defaults to the largest font so that it uses as much tape as possible. Even after setting it to "medium" font it goes back to "large" for the next label. There is no way to save settings.
4. The menus are VERY confusing.

I have a large supply of AC converters from old electronic devices and have tried a number of 9V and so far I haven't been able to get the printer to work with any of them.

So, yes, it works, but, damn, is it expensive.

The Brother Labeler is a good product. Quick and easy to use. Alphabetical keyboard takes a little getting use to. Has very convenient date & time stamp function. Easy to change tape cartridge.

Brother PT-1010 Handheld labeler with Rubber grip

As mentioned in another review, this device does print labels clearly (they even last through the dishwasher). But. It's secondary purpose is to waste tape.

Label tape is very expensive, and each label is printed with 1 inch of blank tape for absolutely no reason other than waste it.

Also, it takes 6 AAA batteries. This just annoys me.

I thought this Brother Labeler was too good to be true..and I was right!

It came without batteries or a power adapter. I opened it, excited to use it and...nothing. And the power adapter is $21.00, it costs more than the label maker itself!

Maybe I'm old fashioned. I've been buying electronics of all kinds over the past thirty years. I've seen items come with the batteries and adapter, and I've seen them come with the adapter only and you must get batteries if you want them.

But to sell an item without a power adapter? I've never, ever heard of this practice. This thing is a complete rip-off. I bought a Brother similar it for $95.00 for work, so I thought this would be a limited home version.

No, it was a total rip-off. The higher priced on is excellent. It has more tape width and customizing possibilities, and it is a heavier, studier printer. It also comes with the power cord to run it.

You truly get what you pay for.

I bought this product only to find out that it has a bunch of really stupid "features".

For one, the default text is REALLY BIG, and the default label size includes about two inches of blank label tape on either side of the label text.

If that's the kind of label you want to produce, then it's fine. But if you want labels with smaller text and smaller margins, you have to go though a very complicated and user-unfriendly menu system to change the font size and to reduce the label margins so you're not printing out 6 inches of label tape with each label.

Here comes the good part: once you've changed the above settings for a label, you get pretty much the results you want. But when it comes time to print another label, THE STUPID PRODUCT FORGETS THE SETTINGS FROM THE LAST LABEL. You have to re-enter the settings to change the font size, etc ALL OVER AGAIN. Now, is that idiotic, or what??

In addition, the non-qwerty keyboard (where buttons are arranged in ABC order instead of QWERTY) is surprisingly cumbersome to use. And if you want to enter some punctuation, like a hyphen, comma, ampersand, or dash, there's just ONE punctuation key, then you have to scroll through the available punctuation marks using arrow keys to select the one you want. That really sucks.

Don't waste your time with this crappy product.

This is a basic entry level labeler with a low price that will entice people to purchase one. In fact, the price was so good I didn't know what to use this for at first but then realized I had several tasks in mind:

- Labeling my garden veggie tags
- Labeling my containers in the storage shed

I label my veggies in the garden because I forget what they are sometimes (I grow many different varieties of the same stuff). I disliked hand writing since it's a pain. Labels came out looking really neat and are totally waterproof making it ideal!

For my storage items, I hate digging through my containers to see what's in them. So I wanted to label them out. Sure, I could have a computer and type things out then print on my home printer, taping it on or whatever but that's too troublesome. This Brother unit is cordless so makes things ideal to "type and print" right in the shed itself.

So far I can only say that it would've been nice if this had a qwerty keyboard but I can live with the alphabetical order type. Print is kind of slow and you need to make sure to wait for the unit to completely stop printing before cutting off the tape, else it will show an error message!

Battery life seems fine for me. LCD is a little dark with no backlight. Course, can't expect a blacklight at this price!

Tape loading is super easy. Rear cover moves out easily so even an old person with arthritis can do it. Brother has done good on changing the tapes out. As for the tapes itself, they are rather pricey. As mentioned, the tapes cut off easily with the built-in cutter. You need to manually peel off the backing on the tape which was a little hard if you got short fingernails.

Overall, I'm happy since I got this at a good price. Would be hesitant to purchase at its full retail price though. As I don't do a whole lot of label printing, the deficiencies are fine to live through. But you'll definitely want a qwerty keypad and faster printing otherwise so.

Makes nice clear and legible labels. New tapes are easier to peel. Costs of batteries and tapes can be high if you do not hunt around. Adapter is over-priced.

This does the job! I've had it for two months now, and the 6 AAA batteries it takes are working just fine. I considered buying the power adapter right away due to the reviews here, but held off due to its cost. I see no reason to do that in the near future, thus far. It powers itself off as well. We had a lot of AAAs around the house, so I'll use them up and then do a cost analysis when (if!) we ever get low, but don't be scared away from using good AAAs from the reviews here, so long as you are using standard alkaline batteries and not the cheapo dollar store or 'heavy duty' brand, which are often not alkaline. 2 months and so far so good with regular usage.

I've not used more complicated and expensive labelers from Brother and other companies, so I'm not comparing to other models. It does waste about an inch every time you start a new label, which makes sense if you understand the design and how far the printer part is from the cutter. I don't loose sleep over it, but I try to print multiple labels with a few blank spaces between them all in one shot when possible and cut them by hand. This just makes sense anyhow.

I'm a casual user, using it to label things around the house as needed. I like the white letter on small 1/4" black labels quite a bit, personally, which I purchased as a separate item. If basic usage is what you are looking for, and affordability is the chief issue (that is, you'd rather just not have one or use an embosser than pay $50 for one) than you should be fairly pleased with this. If you are picky and will use it frequently, than please spend a few more bucks on one that will be less likely to annoy you. This is a budget model, so you save in cost but loose features, otherwise it would be a replacement for the higher priced models, not an alternative.

When you consider that the labels themselves are rather expensive, almost as much as this labeler, than if you are doing casual labeling and price of the unit is the major issue, don't fear going with this one.