Brother QL-820NWB Professional, Ultra Flexible Label Printer with Multiple Connectivity options

We are running 8 of these printers (QL-720NW) for printing product labels and shipping labels. The printers work flawlessly in both XP and Win7. There are however some things to be aware of... 1) if you print to the printer with the wrong label setup (printer has 1.1" labels installed and you print a 3.5" label) the printer goes offline (red power led). So watch your printer setups. All you have to do is tap the power button to reset the printer. Be very aware that the printer knows exactly what size of label is installed. 2) printing Barcodes at 300dpi (fast mode) can create barcodes that "less expensive" readers wont read. If you have a non-name brand barcode reader print at 600dpi. We use Metrologic MS1690s and they read everything. But some of the less expensive "off shore" versions cant handle a "noisy" barcode. 3) make sure you have the most current firmware in the printer. Some of the older firmwares had problems with gigabit networks. Its easy to update with the BRAdmin program. 4) get the Brother BRAdmin Professional (free download from brothers site). Its easier to use that the "Lite" version that ships with the printer and it works for ALL brother networkable printers, and some HPs. You only need the BRAdmin software on one machine to do setup. All the other machines only need the printer driver. 5) dont install the Brother "add-on" software, its horrible. Toss the CD. Download the printer driver from the website, it works without problems. There was a learning curve for me in getting these working the way we wanted, but now they just run. Labels are easy to load, the printers are inexpensive compared to others, and having the options of hardwired ethernet, wireless, Serial, or USB, is amazing. The only complaint I have is that there is no Receipt paper option for these printers. Other than that I cant complain.

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I would give it five stars, but it took longer to install than I would have liked. Granted, I was going for a more complicated installation then just push and play. It is now up and working seamlessly on both my Windows 10 machine and my Galaxy S8 plus phone over my home wifi system. I will be using it to label the tops of cans of food in my cupboard. I have them in Ben boxes that I can slide out of the shells, and I want to put the name and the total calories on a sticker on the top of each can so I dont have to pull them out and look. I am also going to put little round. Stickers on the top of all of my spices so I can see at a glance what they are.

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This is a great little printer, but network setup on a Mac is poorly documented. In fact, Ive only been able to get mine to work via its USB port. While Im certain I will be able to access it via wired Ethernet or WiFi from my Mac, the setup wizard available from the Brother website does not work as advertised, and the OS X software on the CD that ships with the product does not work at all. For computer savvy types, the MAC addresses for wired and wireless connections are not listed on the unit itself, making things difficult to figure out, even with the aid of a network sniffer. The "whats in the box" contents listed on Amazon are also incorrect. There is no Black on White laminated "TZ" starter tape, a good thing since this printer isnt compatible with Brothers TZ tapes. There is no AC adapter, just a detachable AC power cord, (NEMA 1-15 to IEC 60320 C7 on my US model). This is also a good thing, no wall wart to clutter your power strip. There is no carry case. There is a USB standard A to USB standard B cable. There is a paper Quick Setup booklet, and additional documentation on a CD-ROM. The applications on the CD-ROM were worthless, clicking on Start Here OSX.app yeilds "This OS version is not supported." Mine came with a sample (partial) roll of 2.4" continuous tape (a full size roll is DZ 2205) and a sample (partial) roll of 1.1" x 3.5" standard address labels (a full size roll is DK 1201). Overall, I give it 4 out of 5 stars because it is a great machine. However the poor documentation and downlevel software could render this thing a paperweight for a non-tech savvy Mac user.

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I use this to print badges for conferences. We use the clear DK2113 clear labels which are very expensive compared to the white paper adhesive labels. This printer is VERY fast and the print quality is excellent. My only complaint is that this one particular machine will not cut between the labels when we print multiple badges at a time. I have another 820NWB (as well as QL800) which does cut between the labels. I have checked multiple times to ensure that auto cut is on and compared settings and they are set up the same so it must be this particular printer. Other than that it is a great printer.

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I have this set up to work wirelessly with my computer and Bluetooth with my iPhone. Works Great. I can easily make labels of icons I save to my phone. Im using the P-Touch label editor, which isnt great. I wish there was an easier, more productive app for this. So, Ive created a correct size print template for a mailing label and I copy and paste the info that I need for a mailing label... pretty easy.

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Brother generally makes pretty good products I have a networked laser printer and the QL-720NW from them. The QL-720NW is fairly easy to setup I used the ethernet connection as opposed to the wireless connection. Plug it in your DHCP router assigns it an IP my Mac picked up the printer as a Bonjour printer. Youll need to download 3 pieces of software from the Brother website: [...] - Stand alone drivers - Software updater which gives you firmware updates and more label templates for free - P-touch editor which is the software for printing labels. (Youll need the last 9 digits of the serial number for your printer which is located on the bottom of the printer) You need the drivers the software updater and P-touch software are optional but Ive never tried printing labels without P-touch. Theres also an iOS app from the App Store you can download on your iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch. Once youve installed the drivers if youre on a Mac you can install the printer under system preferences, theres one small catch. Make sure you select the CUPS driver instead of the AirPrint driver because P-touch wont work with that AirPrint driver, if you make a mistake just remove the printer and re-add it with the CUPS driver (both drivers are installed when install the driver package). The P-touch software isnt very user friendly and I wish Brother spent as much time documenting how to use P-touch for Mac as they do for Windows. One of the things you probably want to do with this label printer is print mailing labels, P-touch can use the address book on your Mac. Heres where it gets confusing, if you want to make custom formats for your labels for example selecting certain fields from your address book or even combing fields you need to select Address book as the database than click "Connect Fields". Connect Fields lets you combine fields together and add any necessary punctuation for example commas and spaces in your addresses. After youve created your custom layout, you need to click database "Merge into Layout" scroll to the bottom of the list and select your layout. Great so now you see your custom layout on the label size it to what you want. Youre probably wondering how you actually see a label with an address before you print it. The only way you can do this at least on a Mac is in print preview, the annoying thing is that you cant adjust any font sizes or resize anything in print preview you have to go back out and adjust it than print preview again until you get it right. BUT... you can in the iOS app, the downside to the iOS app is that there arent as many layout options and the editor isnt as full featured but ti does get the job done for mailing labels. Brother please give the Mac and iOS app more attention. The printer is fantastic its very fast.

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It really was a pain to get set up for printing eBay shipping labels. Their tech support isnt good. Once you get it working, it works great. For anyone looking to work with this for eBay shipping labels youll need to set up the formatting through a laptop first before you can print from a mobile device like a tablet. Once you have the formatting set up through a laptop you can print in the right format through mobile devices using the eBay app which is great!

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Docking one star for the size, this thing is huge. The OEM red-black labels are costly, but third-party black-only rolls are inexpensive. Unlike Dymo printers, swapping rolls is easy as the feed doesn’t grip the paper. The continuous rolls mean less waste, and you can make quite long banners if you want to. The software for iOS and MacOS takes some getting used to, but is functional and I love the QR code support.

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