The Brother P-touch Home Personal Label Maker PT-D202 ($44.99) is so similar to the Brother P-touch D210 (an Editors’ Choice award winner in 2015) that it takes some effort to find the differences. Both are standalone label makers with QWERTY keyboards, and they’re very similar in size and shape. The PT-D202 costs $10 more, but it comes with six AAA batteries, which are a separate purchase for the PT-D210, and the tape in the single included cartridge is twice as long. According to Brother, the most important difference is in the built-in templates: The versions in the PT-D202 are specifically aimed at home use. That’s just enough distinction to make the PT-D202 worth a separate look.
A Standalone Printing System
What distinguishes the PT-D202 from many printers for plastic labels is that it’s a completely self-contained system. Some label makers—including the Brother P-touch Cube ($59.99) and the Brother P-touch Cube Plus ($99.99), both Editors’ Choice winners—are just printers, requiring you to define labels and initiate printing from your PC or a mobile app. Others, including the DYMO LabelManager 500TS ($199.99), add a keyboard and screen so you can use them on their own in addition to printing from an external device. The PT-D202, like the D210, offers standalone printing only.
Designed for handheld use, but also suitable for the desktop or kitchen countertop, the PT-D202 has a nearly square footprint, at 6.5 by 6.1 inches (WD), and a 2.7-inch height at the back. The front is slightly less than 1 inch high, tilting the keyboard for ease of use on a desktop. The printer is also small and light enough, at 1.1 pounds, to hold comfortably in two hands, and the 5.5-inch keyboard width is suitable for thumb-typing even if you have large fingers.
Setup is easy. Turn the printer over, open the cover on the bottom panel, insert the supplied tape cartridge (or another of your choice) and six AAA batteries, close the cover, and turn the printer right side up. You can also skip the batteries and purchase Brother’s AC power adapter for an additional $23.49. Oddly, the adapter is mentioned in the User’s Guide, but it doesn’t show up under Accessories on either the printer’s own web page or its support page. If you’re ordering through Brother’s website, you’ll have to search by the adapter’s part number, AD24.
Lots of Choices for Tapes
Brother makes a total of 40 tapes for the PT-D202. The most obvious variations are in the combinations of print and tape color. The printer ships with one 26.2-foot-long laminated plastic tape that prints black text on clear labels. Other tape colors for black print include blue, gold, gray, pink, purple, red, silver, white, and yellow. Text in gold, navy blue, or white can also be printed on tapes of various colors.
About half the tapes are 12mm (0.47 inch) wide; the rest are 3.5mm, 6mm, or 9mm. In addition to standard laminated tapes, the PT-D202 can print on specialty tape with extra-strength adhesive or acid-free (photo-safe) adhesive, and also on non-laminated iron-on fabric tape. Prices on Brother’s site range from $10.49 to $22.99 per cartridge, depending on the tape type, width, and colors.
Unfortunately, the website doesn’t make it as easy as it should be to browse the list of tapes. In addition, the list Brother provided of compatible tape types is slightly different from the list on the website, which includes a 18mm tape cartridge that’s too wide for the printer. Shop with care.
Templates for Every Use
Creating and printing labels with the PT-D202 can be as simple as turning the printer on, typing in some text, hitting the Print button next to the 15-character LCD, and pressing the manual cutter to trim the label when it’s finished printing.
The keyboard includes both Shift and Shift Lock keys. Four buttons above the alphanumeric keys let you select fonts, add frames, insert symbols (from a menu of 622), and choose from six predefined text layouts called Templates. The choices include four with two lines of text, one with a single text line framed by decorative lines above and below, and one that prints the text in portrait orientation, to be read from top to bottom. Brother’s claim that the templates are of particular interest for home use is arguable; they can be useful both at home and in a small office.
Other controls include a Menu button, navigation buttons for working through the menus, and the Print button. Two notable menu choices are options to save up to 30 label definitions to reprint as needed, and 12 additional layouts in one-, two-, and three-line formats.
One potential issue for the PT-D202 is that the LCD lacks backlighting. However, it’s readable in most lighting conditions, and the lack of a backlight extends battery life. More annoying is that the only way to clear the current text from the LCD is by backspacing one letter at a time or using the menu’s Clear option, which takes a minimum of five button presses. A one-button Clear command would have made the device much easier to use.
Brother rates the PT-D202 at 20mm per second, or 0.78 inches per second (ips). I timed a 4.6-inch label with the text “PCMag: Label Test” at 6.4 seconds, or 0.72ips, not including the time for manual cutting. That’s effectively tied with the D210, faster than the P-touch Cube’s 0.46ips, and a bit slower than the Cube Plus’s 1.2ips. That said, print speed is not much of an issue for this category of label printer. When you’re printing just a few labels at a time, any speed that’s tolerable is good enough.
Anchoring the Low End of the Range
The Brother P-touch Home PT-D202 is fully comparable to the D210, but it’s not better in any noticeable way. And what earned an Editors’ Choice award when the D210 was introduced doesn’t qualify for one now. The P-touch Cube is slower and a bit more expensive, but it lets you create and print labels from a mobile device instead of being limited by a 15-character LCD without backlighting. The P-touch Cube Plus is pricier still, but it’s a bit faster, and it adds the convenience of letting you enter text on a full-size computer keyboard. If you’re doing any kind of bulk labeling, you’ll be happiest with one of these.
That said, if you don’t need the Cube models’ features, there’s no reason to pay for them. If you’re looking for an inexpensive standalone printer for occasionally printing a few laminated labels, the Brother P-touch Home PT-D202 will do the job, with as many color, label type, and format options as you could want.
