Having never used a Casio printer I wasn't sure what to expect. I have never heard any feedback about their printers so usually no news is good news. I wasn't disappointed with the machine but there are a few things I both liked and disliked about the printer. It's an unusual but neutral looking unit; very square, white and grey with a few blue buttons. Once you've inserted the 6x AA batteries it immediately becomes a nicer heavier weight than its otherwise light, empty feeling. The batteries are located right in the hand grip which is comfortable to hold. Before I switch it on and go through using the handheld printer I'll list the key features first.
Features
- 1 line 12 character display
- ABC keyboard
- Tape sizes 6 / 9 / 12 / 18 mm
- 10 mm per second print speed
- 200 DPI print resolution
- 8 fonts
- 9 print styles, effects and formats
- Manual cutter
- 667 characters
- 182 special characters / symbols
- 245 Illustrations
- 3 line printing
- 80 character input
- 60 pre-installed logos with text and icons
- 65 frames
Very much like any other printer, loading the tape was painless. It's a little stiff and awkward to remove the cassette though. They do give detailed instructions that you should pull at least 3 cm of tape out of the cassette first and while loading it feed it into the tape exit slot. They also explain how to tighten the ribbon should it be slack and doing so is very easy, not too dissimilar in fact to tightening a ribbon on a Brother TZe Tape. Switching the printer on it asks what size tape you've got installed. It doesn't automatically know what size tape you've installed but the fact it asks you what size tape is inside on every power-on is slightly better than say for example the Dymo printers. The keyboard is nice to use. It's the first keyboard I've seen on a label printer to actually have a number lock button instead of dedicated 0-9 buttons. To use this you press the number lock button and letters A through to J become numbers. Don't worry, each button has both the letter and number on it.
After having a play around with it I came to the quick conclusion that with all the frames, fonts, print styles, and options, this is certainly a good printer for its price. One of the more advanced settings is Print Density which I've never seen on a handheld unit before. This means you can adjust the darkness of the print it produces and it's very noticeable. Weirdly though, there's no option for the margin. Most Brother printers have a very useful option called Chain Print which allows you to print lots of different labels in one batch with minimal wastage between each one. Each label you print with this Casio, no matter how long or short, you will waste ~17mm at both the start and end of each tape. So unless the printed part of your label is going to be more than 34mm, you might end up cutting off and binning more than you stick.
Overall this is a great little printer. The tapes may not be the highest of qualities but they certainly are the cheapest. The tapes are perfect for offices and schools and similar environments. They won't hold up to weather, heating or freezing but for general office use they're perfect. However the print on the labels did withstand a light isopropyl alcohol and white spirit rub. The printer has great features and if you're happy about the wastage you can't avoid from each label you print then this printer is perfect for you. One of the features I didn't mention in the list is a copy and paste function that is listed on Casio's website I could not find this feature anywhere on the printer or in the manual so if you know how to do this then please contact me as I would love to know and share this information. It might just be a mistake on their website. It was a mistake on their website. As this is a quick review instead of an official one, I have no video of me using the printer and I wouldn't normally give it a score but If you twisted my arm and wanted a mark out of ten I'd give it a seven eight. It's certainly not the worst printer I've used. If it had a way to cut down on wasting tape then add another one mark on. Wasting 3 cm of tape on each label is unacceptable in my opinion. If the copy/paste function was documented in the manual or removed from their website (because it might be a mistake) then I would have given it yet another 1 mark.
Could have had 9/10 score but lost it. Still a great little printer though.