Brother P-Touch PT-1280 Label Maker

The P-touch PT-1280 is a seriously useful piece of office automation that's compact, versatile, and does way more than it should. You'll want to invest extra in the AC cord if you plan on using it a lot, but otherwise this is an excellent little gadget.

The new Brother PT-1280 P-touch Electronic Labeling System is no little toy; it's a seriously useful piece of office (or home) automation. It's not big (you could probably get four of them into a shoe box) but it has a large, easy-to-use keyboard and a 15-character LCD display. The printer can create vertical or horizontal labels on four sizes of tape, using dozens of symbols and in nine different type styles (bold, shadow, italic, and so on).

A labeler should be simple and intuitive, and this one certainly is. Choose your style, type your label, press the large "Print" button, and the label emerges. A one-touch manual cutter ensures a clean cut and a centered label. I've used them on some unusual surfaces--curved jam bottles in the refrigerator, for example--and the tape curves and sticks without any lifting edges. Iron-on fabric tape, extra-strength adhesive tape, and cable/wire wrapping tapes are available as well. The labeler runs on six AAA batteries or using an optional AC cord.

The LCD screen is black on green and it isn't the best for previewing what you want to print, so in some cases the label's appearance was a bit surprising. Once I had tried all the options, though, it was a snap to use.