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| Posted by | Dennis |
| Posted on | 08/01/04 14:08 |
Positive:
- Nice looking label printer
- Very easy to install and use
- Good software package, easy to use
- Printing is of good quality and done fast (40 seconds max.)
- Ink on printed discs doesn't smudge
Negative:
- Package does not include any colour ink ribbon cassettes
- Print area is limited
- Printer tray is noisy
- Expensive
Conclusion:
The TDK LPCW-100 label printer does what it
promises. It can print directly onto discs and the ink doesn't smudge, even if
you touch it right after it has been printed on the disc. One thing that will
displease a lot of people is that the printing area on the disc is limited to
two 74 x 16mm squares. This means that you can only add a limited amount of text
to the disc. Generally speaking though, the LPCW-100 label printer will be used
for archiving discs and for this purpose, the printer works very well, also
because it's very fast (printing only takes around 35 seconds).
The quality of the printed text and images was very good. The smallest text could be read perfectly and images also turned out very well. It was too bad the package didn't include any colour ink ribbon cassettes. Another negative point of the label printer was its noisy tray. When opening and closing the printer the tray makes a loud grinding noise which is something not everyone will appreciate.
So, what does the TDK LPCW-100 printer cost? Well the recommended retail price is 159 Euro (US$ 199) but the printer can be found online for around 130 Euro (US$ 163). The ink ribbon cassettes have a recommended retail price of 9 Euro (US$ 11). We feel that these prices are quite high, especially when you consider that for this price, you can also buy inkjet printers that can print full coloured discs. On the other hand though, the TDK LPCW-100 does have its advantages. It's smaller than an inkjet printer, its ink doesn't smudge and it's fast. Ideal for people that need to archive discs fast and who don't like to write on discs. We'll leave it up to you to decide if you are willing to pay the high price.
You can print on any CD or DVD you want to but, as said in the review, it's best to use discs that have a smooth surface. Inkjet printers often (always?) need special discs which this TDK printer does not.
I'll stick with printing on nice shiny CDDVD labels...much better quality...
The only difference is you have to turn the disk yourself.
LPCW-50: 150 dpi
LPCW-100: 300dpi
Soz for being an ' armchair critic ', but the review examples were particularly unadventurous! if you threshold an image in Photoshop and-or tweak the levels a bit, this is perfect to drop into the printer software and works a treat. I'll be back to this review with a URL for samples from my LPCW-50.
Also, I feel this complements a good sleeve.. some people don't want full coverage of a DVD or CD with an inkjet, simplicity sometimes suits a situation.
I'm working on rewinding the cartridge, but TDK have made this difficult.. a pity, as a blank space the size of the print area is left on the ribbon in between every used part of the cartridge, which, when you think about it, is madness, I'm working on an idea.. this will hopefully double the capacity of the cartridges, lowering the CD print-ratio for this rather clever machine.
[edited by mea_culpa on 17.02.2004 11:38]
I have several recorded DVD's I would like to label but don't want to corrupt the data.
Also you can print on HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray too!
In fact you can use it to print at any 120 mm disc that exists or it is going to exist at the future.
YOU SEND FOR ME? HOW MONY PAY?
THANKS.. Mike...
This message was edited at: 31-03-2008 02:11
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