DYMO LabelWriter Twin Turbo Review

I've been a fan of the DYMO brand of Label Printers for years. I can't really remember a time when I didn't own one. If you ever saw my handwriting you would understand why I don't handwrite address labels. My packages would never get there. 🙂 I had been using the LabelWriter Turbo 400 for over a year and I absolutely love it. However, when I saw that the LabelWriter Twin Turbo had been marked down to less than $100 I couldn't resist! That was less than I paid for the single LableWriter Turbo 400. I had always wanted the Twin Turbo, but couldn't justify the price. Why so cheap? Dymo introduced a new model: Twin Turbo 450. Now you can save on the older model while supplies last. That's exactly what I did.

 

How does it work?

Forget about buying toner/ink. The DYMO printers use a technology that has everything you need in the actual labels themselves. So each label prints as crisp as the first. There is no inkjet to dry out or clog. I wanted the Twin Turbo so that I could have the larger shipping labels that I use all the time AND the smaller single address labels loaded at the same time. The printer is a standard USB printer and therefore can be printed to from just about any app. Since I'm using this primarily for address labels I just use the app that DYMO supplies.  DYMO makes a wide variety of different labels for these printers.

Version 8 of the software for the Mac finally brought the ability to do a search for a contact AND select multiple contacts at once. You can either use the app's built-in contact list or it integrates directly with the Mac Address Book (yes of course there's a Windows version too).  I have to say that I've never been impressed with the supplied software. It always seemed kinda clunky. For example, I would expect that if I choose either a shipping label format or a single label format that the printer would detect that and print on the appropriate label. Nope! No matter which label you choose you have to also choose the appropriate label in the printer to print on. It's a minor thing, but it would be nice to have auto detection. You can also print multiple copies of the same label which came in handy when I was shipping a bunch of packages to the same person. Print time is very speedy. It prints a full shipping label in about 3-4 seconds.

 

Going Postal

As you can see in the screen shot above the software can automatically add the USPS barcodes to your labels for faster routing of your mail. That's cool!

However, what's even better is that you can print your own postage using this printer. If you sign up for an account at www.dymo.com/stamps and you're ready to go. Just put your Stamps roll in and print the exact amount of postage you need each time. The best part is that there is NO MONTHLY FEE! You can buy postage as you need it and not pay any fees to do so. Time to say goodbye to my postage meter and the monthly fees associated with it. Granted the Free DYMO stamps account is limited to First Class, Priority Mail, Postcard and International Air Mail, but on those rare occasions that I need to ship something odd I'll head to the post office. I ship First Class and Priority Mail 99% of the time anyway.

 

The Bottom Line

The DYMO printers have been very reliable for over the years and I have no problems recommending. While the software could be a bit better feature wise, it does work. Since you can get the Twin Turbo for less than a single printer it's a no brainer for anyone that needs to print one-off labels or postage labels. You can get the DYMO LabelWriter Twin Turbo here for under $99 while supplies last.

I wanted to share this printer with others in the house so that anyone could print a label when they needed to. So I attached it to my NEW Mac mini Mac OS X Server and used this tip to share it using the standard printer sharing. Works GREAT!