First off, obviously I'm biased here - been using Zebra products for 10+ years and I have nothing but good experiences of them. You can use the GK420d you have there for fan-fold printing, there's a slit in the back of the printer which you can feed labels through. I administer 200+ of these and that's how we use them, never with a roll. As for drivers, we use Seagull Scientific drivers or print straight to the printer with ZPL code. I've never had major issues with the GK420d printers or their successor ZD420d. There's very little maintenance to be done and you really only need to switch out the printer head, but with that said we've had printers running for 7+ years on the same printer head.
Hi Pontus, Thank you so much for your comments. I really appreciate it! I didn't know you could feed it through the back. This is big! That was honestly my biggest personal complaint about the printer because at times I run 1000+ label batches and the little rolls just don't cut it. I will also give you that the durability of these things is amazing. I have 5 year old zebras in our fleet here and I've never had to even replace a print head. We've been using Rollos with our more flexible/mobile stations as well as with in our offices and in about 3 years of using them we've managed to break just one. So both printers are pretty durable, but the Zebra is definitely king when it comes to taking a licking and keep on ticking! Thank you so much for your feedback now I got to try to see if I can run some batches in the FC with some of our Zebras and figure out how to amend this video :)
@@ShipmateFulfillment No problem, the fan-fold print is a must as it's too cumbersome to exchange rolls in production, and frankly more pricey. I'd also recommend looking into the Seagull driver for this printer model if you don't like Zebra's native driver, it's less feature heavy but does the job in most circumstances, and it's totally free. Just be sure to set the label format in the printer driver. If you have troubles just hit me up and I'll gladly help you out.
please help. I’m trying to print my Amazon label on a ZPL format but it doesn’t work I was asking if the reason for that it’s because my printer doesn’t not support that format? By buying the the Zebra printer I do not know if that will be compatible with the ZPL format and finally print my label please help.
There's a whole lot more to picking a printer. First, neither of these is really a commercial printer. Yes, both will work for a few hundred labels a day, but for industrial use, you'll want to step up to a larger Zebra, Sato, CAB or such. Also, per label, fanfold is more expensive than a full industrial roll. Lastly, especially in a dirty environment, you are going to destroy these little print heads much more quickly than an industrial printer. The assessment covers many issues for a residential user, but an industrial user needs to look at more.
Thanks so much for your generosity with providing this knowledge. Any specific model that you'd say would be the best to go for as investment for years to come so one doesn't have to purchase a new one every 2 years or so? Thanks in advance!
Rollo is great for beginners who have never owned a thermal printer before. But it’s hard to beat a zebra in reliability. A family member kept his zebra for 12 years before he finally replaced it with a newer one. He said he probably printed over 15k labels of different sizes.
We have used a Rollo for over a year. It was good for a while but later, the print quality just keeps getting worse. I've cleaned it thoroughly all the time and made adjustments to density and speed. Nothing helps. In addition, it is not network capable. I suggest to anyone not to buy a Rollo from our own experience. I messaged the company looking to get a new printer strip. They don't have parts! You've been warned. I'll be shopping around for better thermal printers.
Hi atvsinacadiana, I will say the network capability is the biggest drawback for me with the Rollo and is the update I'm hoping for most in future models, but I haven't run into any print quality issues. I highly recommend trying a Zebra as your next printer. We have about 10 rollos and 8 zebras and I've lost 2 rollos over the last 3 years just due to high millage and have yet to lose a zebra and we print literally millions of labels a year. The zebra is definitely the better quality printer. Its print quality is as sharp as it gets, you can even print black and white images off of google with surprising great quality (yes I've tried printing race cars and dinosaurs for fun), but you can buy 3 rollos for the price of one zebra so both printers I find have a role. Let us know what model you get and how you like it. Always excited to tryout new tech :)
@@ShipmateFulfillment Hi, for those 3 rollos you have lost, how many label did they print in average a day, and how long did they last? I am a very short budget guy I need to take off a store online, thinking of rollo or used Zebra GK420d. but I worried a prompt failure this last option.
If you start playing the Black Sabbath album "We sold our soul for Rock & Roll", at the same time as the start of this video and mute the video, you will start to notice that absolutely nothing lines up.
Thanks for the video I live in the uk and when printing the label On the ZPL formal it doesn’t work because my printer doesn’t support the ZPL format and I’m asking if the zebra printer will support that
I was hoping someone else would answer as I'm not 100% sure so don't quote me as I'm just looking at the spec sheets online and deducing my opinion from there (I'm not a big hardware guy). I'm pretty sure the GX series is newer than the GK series and comes with more optional features. The GK series is your regular old F150. The GX series is the King Ranch with the added features. The GX420d has a fast print speed and a few other superior specs and options. I would recommend the GX420d over the GX430t unless you are printing something that needs super high resolution as you gain dots per inch with the 430 but lose some print speed and pay more. all in all the speed difference is negligible, but if you are printing something super small, complex, and precise the dots per inch come into play and can effect readability and scalability but for 95% of sellers the GX420d with be just fine. Hope this helps
Both are pretty quite all things considered. The labels themselves hitting the floor or table or the sound of your label winder is probably the main source of noise, however I give the zebra a slight edge in less noise.
I have a rollo... does anyone know how I can print a one-off address label without shipping? Say I want to send my momma a letter and rather than write out her address on the envelope, I want to print it on my rollo? I know I can make one in Canva but I am looking for something I don't have to make... download... open... print. Just something I can type the address in the app, hit print and boom it spits out the rollo. Does anyone know of a way to do that?
Hi Nicole, I would recommend reaching out to zebra support if downloading a driver off the website is not allowing you to connect. Ive never printed from a cell phone and it sounds like that is what you are doing. It would also depend on the printer you have as only some of the zebras can be used wireless or be networked. Hope this helps guide you a bit, but Zebra would be the best source of info good luck!
I had the same issue and had to pay $100 for a private party driver since Zebra didn't have any. If it started printing fuzzy again, I would have had to pay for an updated driver. I since sold it and switched to the wireless Rollo. Best choice ever.
Hi Ed, Zebra makes good printers in general so its hard to go wrong with whatever you choose. I personally use a GX420d, but you should really read the specs on these before you buy. The biggest thing people overlook is network connectivity some people need it some don't but not all zebra printers come with it.