Customer Reviews

Brother PT-1600 P-Touch Label Maker Portable TZ Tapes

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This is a wonderful label printer. The included case holds the printer, manual, and spare tapes. It is very durable. The label printing features are excellent, offering most of the options that you would ever want. I use it for labeling in data installations and automotive electronic installations, as well as around the house. The super adhesive TZ labels stick to wires very well when wrapped around. The regular AA alkaline batteries last quite a long time, but it takes six of them, so be sure to have some spares. My two complaints are that the unit is rather large (doesn't fit well in my small hands) and every once in a while there is a "Cutter Error" if you cut the label before it tell you to. However, overall, it is a great unit.

I've been using one of these printers for several years. It has the basics for labeling cable installations, such as patch panels, wire wraps, etc.

My biggest complaint is that I routinely get a "cutter error" when cutting the tape - even when waiting long after the tape advancement has paused for cutting. This isn't really a problem when printing a single label, but when you're printing multiple labels, this causes the printing process to be aborted, meaning you have to start over, or figure out how to edit the label so you can "reprint" only the missing portion.

My second biggest complaint is that when preparing labels for patch panels, you can only specify the spacing to the nearest 0.05 inches. This may not seem significant, but over 6 or 8 ports the accumulated error (compared to the actual spacing) causes misalignment of the label and ports, resulting in an unprofessional appearance.

On the plus side, the printer itself is less expensive compared to similar Rhino Pro models, and tape costs are much lower too, since the Brother tapes are about 50% longer than the Rhino Pro tapes, and the price is equal to or less than that of the Rhino tapes. Also, the Brother tapes are more readily available than the Rhino Pro tapes, and can be found at most office supply stores.

The Rhino Pro printers offer features that the P-Touch printers don't, including patch panel spacing down to 0.01", many more options for label formatting (110 blocks, terminal blocks, multiple serialization, etc). That said, the appearance of the Rhino Pro labels isn't up to par with the P-Touch. Sorry Dymo.

In the end, if you buy a P-Touch or Rhino, you'll have your complaints, and the decision comes down to which issues you'll find the least annoying.