I love that Amazon is doing a "basics" line because that is exactly what this product is. I lovethe look and that it will fit almost anywhere to store. This is nothing fancy it does exactly what is states without any of the frills and confusing messes that are a lot of machines these days.
I was making quite a few things for the boy scouts and I wanted to make sure that what they had was something they could always keep with them no matter the weather. They do a lot of camping, fishing, hiking just a lot of outdoor activities and it is nice to have their paper items that they have to have on them be protected against all the elements.
The laminator does a great job, I didn't have any problems with bubbles, paper jams, or any of the other things that my old one gave me problems with. It does a great job with the most basic and simple instructions.
I did notice that if I left it on for a long period of time that it did not want to accept the page but if I unplugged it then plugged it back in it seemed to work just fine, I did well over 150 pages in one sitting back to back and only had to reset it once and that was about 45- 50 pages in and then after that it was fine so that would be my only complaint and I really cant justify taking a star away just because of the very small issue that I had.
Over all this is a very well made item that is inexpensive for the common person to grab for whatever the reason they need it for, I am about to laminate the directions on our favorite games so that I never have to go on a hunt to find them online!
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Great Buy
Ordered this for a project I'm working on. For the price of the unit and the laminating sheets, it just made more sense to purchase my own machine - taking them to an office store can get pretty pricey per sheet, adding up in cost very quickly. I don't intend to use it much beyond this project but it will be nice knowing one will be here and readily available in case something else does come up. I'm sure I'll find random reasons to turn it on and laminate. Here are some PRO's and CON's that may help.PROS▪ Cost of unit is very reasonable▪ Sleek, clean design. Not an eyesore if left out unless you're opposed to the color white.▪ Compact size - easy to put away or store in small spaces▪ Very lightweight, easy to move around▪ Very simple to operate▪ Has the option for 5mil and 10mil thermal laminating sheets▪ Has a jam release lever▪ The outside of the machine (bottom/top) only gets warm, not hot to the point of being unable to pick-up, move or cause damage to surface of desk, table, etc.▪ Operates quietly▪ Heats up and ready to use in about 5 - 7 minutesCONS▪ The unit ONLY comes in the color white▪ Does NOT have "guides" to help when feeding the sheet into the machine - as a result (if you're not careful), sheets can enter in at an angle and cause crumpling and folding while going through the rollers - which may potentially and permanently damage your document/photo/etc.▪ Has a particular scent when initially heating up - nothing too strong or unbearable, but a slight "burning plastic" smell none-the-less▪ Takes about 5 - 7 minutes to initially heat up. Apparently other brands are competing with a 1-minute heat-up▪ Does NOT shut itself off automatically if you happen to forgetThe box includes 2 sample sheets to test out the machine. It was with one of those sheets that I realized I was going to have to be more careful when feeding it through, it entered misaligned and one of the corners folded over and began crumpling the rest of the page. I grabbed what had already gone through from the back of the machine and pulled very lightly from one side in an effort to realign the rest of the page. That worked, just remember the plastic coming out will be hot to touch, make sure you have enough to pull on that has already cooled. I turned the sheet around and ran it through again beginning from the side that hadn't crumpled to smooth out the folds. That did help some. Since it was a test sheet it didn't matter, but I probably would have been upset had it been the only copy of something important. The machine tries to reheat itself to maintain the temperature after every sheet so the red light will come on. If I'm only doing a couple of sheets or a small few - I ignore the light and continue laminating, the machine is still hot enough. More than that will require some patience between each sheet or a full 5-10 minute break to let it completely reheat. Neglecting to do so will result in "foggy" looking lamination that hasn't completely bonded or sheets that will begin to bubble and peel open.In all, I would recommend this to someone who desires to laminate small jobs at a time or infrequently.The temperature on this unit isn't high enough to allow for a faster pass through so larger jobs will take more time.I am satisfied with my laminator. Thank you to those who submitted all the other reviews, they helped me in deciding to purchase this. If my review has also helped you, please let me know.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2018
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Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2016
I have an Etsy shop and one of the products I carry is gold foil prints. I purchased this laminator after I got tired of dealing with the "professional" laminator I had been using for the past 9 months, which incidentally, I also purchased from Amazon, for nearly 7 times the cost of this one. I was tired of the noise, not only from normal function of the rollers turning, but also from the squeaking, as well as the occasional "grinding" noise that would occur whenever the rollers got stuck. I was tired of having to keep the machine on for what seemed like forever to let the rollers cool down afterward. I was tired of it taking up so much precious real estate in my work area with its gigantic foot print. Not to mention the fact that getting a good, solid, gold foil print would almost always take me dozens of tries before I could get one without a lot of black spots (if you've ever tried foiling, you know what I'm talking about!).
Enter the AmazonBasics Thermal Laminator, which just arrived today. I had my doubts because of the incredibly low price tag, but I was ready to try something else and couldn't wait to give this one a try.
THE FOOTPRINT:
The first thing I noticed is that this thing is really, really small. It has such a tiny footprint (about 13" wide by 4.5" deep), I'll definitely be able to find a permanent place for it in my workspace.
HOW LOUD IS IT?
The second thing I noticed is that it's SO quiet! I was worried at first that it wasn't working because all I could hear was a very quiet hum after I turned it on, but as I discovered, it works perfectly fine.
THE S.L.O.W. FEED
It really does feed very S.L.O.W.L.Y., as others have pointed out. Much, much more slowly than the other one I have. I'll comment more on that later.
HOW DOES IT PERFORM (specifically for gold foiling):
I haven't tried it yet for laminating, so I can't speak to that, but as far as the foiling goes, I put it on the 5mil setting, as recommended by others, and let it warm up for about 15 minutes. The first couple of prints came out beautifully, except for a few black spots here and there. Probably my fault, because I was relying on some tricks I had learned from my previous laminator (use sticky notes at the top of the print to hold the foil in place). The black spots occurred only over the sticky notes. So the third time, I ditched the sticky notes and tried one of the other tricks I learned, which is to fold a narrow strip of paper (about 1" in width) in half and place it over the leading edge of the print, sandwiching the print and the foil together so they feed into the laminator evenly. This time, the results were perfect. No black spots whatsoever. Not sure if I just got lucky, but I'm very optimistic, given the way the two previous prints turned out. I suspect that because the print feeds so slowly through the laminator, the toner reactive foil spends more time under the heat, and seems to adhere better to the print. It may take it longer to feed a single print through than my other laminator, but if I only have to do it once, then I've definitely saved a considerable amount of time. Also, I'm thrilled to be able to just turn it off when I'm done, instead of having to wait for it to cool down. I'm still going to have to keep my other laminator for wider prints (Amazon, please make one that will accommodate widths up to 18"!) but I am so happy I gave this one a shot. It will be the only laminator I'll use from now on for smaller gold foil prints. And if it quits working in 6 months, I can buy another one (or two, or three!) and I'm still way, way ahead on the price of the other one. Oh, and I'll come back and post an update if I discover that the perfect print I achieved was just beginner's luck.
Enter the AmazonBasics Thermal Laminator, which just arrived today. I had my doubts because of the incredibly low price tag, but I was ready to try something else and couldn't wait to give this one a try.
THE FOOTPRINT:
The first thing I noticed is that this thing is really, really small. It has such a tiny footprint (about 13" wide by 4.5" deep), I'll definitely be able to find a permanent place for it in my workspace.
HOW LOUD IS IT?
The second thing I noticed is that it's SO quiet! I was worried at first that it wasn't working because all I could hear was a very quiet hum after I turned it on, but as I discovered, it works perfectly fine.
THE S.L.O.W. FEED
It really does feed very S.L.O.W.L.Y., as others have pointed out. Much, much more slowly than the other one I have. I'll comment more on that later.
HOW DOES IT PERFORM (specifically for gold foiling):
I haven't tried it yet for laminating, so I can't speak to that, but as far as the foiling goes, I put it on the 5mil setting, as recommended by others, and let it warm up for about 15 minutes. The first couple of prints came out beautifully, except for a few black spots here and there. Probably my fault, because I was relying on some tricks I had learned from my previous laminator (use sticky notes at the top of the print to hold the foil in place). The black spots occurred only over the sticky notes. So the third time, I ditched the sticky notes and tried one of the other tricks I learned, which is to fold a narrow strip of paper (about 1" in width) in half and place it over the leading edge of the print, sandwiching the print and the foil together so they feed into the laminator evenly. This time, the results were perfect. No black spots whatsoever. Not sure if I just got lucky, but I'm very optimistic, given the way the two previous prints turned out. I suspect that because the print feeds so slowly through the laminator, the toner reactive foil spends more time under the heat, and seems to adhere better to the print. It may take it longer to feed a single print through than my other laminator, but if I only have to do it once, then I've definitely saved a considerable amount of time. Also, I'm thrilled to be able to just turn it off when I'm done, instead of having to wait for it to cool down. I'm still going to have to keep my other laminator for wider prints (Amazon, please make one that will accommodate widths up to 18"!) but I am so happy I gave this one a shot. It will be the only laminator I'll use from now on for smaller gold foil prints. And if it quits working in 6 months, I can buy another one (or two, or three!) and I'm still way, way ahead on the price of the other one. Oh, and I'll come back and post an update if I discover that the perfect print I achieved was just beginner's luck.
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SR
Fantastic, exactly what I wanted, highly recommend!
Reviewed in Canada on April 23, 2022
