Small and light enough to hold comfortably in one hand while entering text and commands with the other, the Dymo LetraTag 100H Plus ($29.99) standalone label printer can print labels on paper, plastic, iron-on fabric, and metallic tape. If you have the occasional need for label printing, whether at home or at the office, it's an inexpensive solution that may provide all the capability you need. The Dymo LetraTag 100H ($17.99), is the same printer, but comes with one label tape rather than two, and without the magnetic holder you get with the 100H Plus.

The 100H Plus ($25.98 at Amazon) , is in the same category as the Brother P-touch PT-H100 , the Dymo LetraTag Plus LT-100T ($21.00 at Amazon) , and our Editors' Choice low-cost standalone label printer, the the Brother P-touch PT-D200 . All of these models run on batteries, are completely self-contained, and lack any way to connect to, much less print from, a PC.

One important design choice for each of these printers, and a primary reason for choosing one over another is the combination of form factor and keyboard arrangement. The Brother PT-D200 and Dymo LT-100T are both meant to sit on a desktop, with a nearly square shape that offers enough width for a QWERTY keyboard. The 100H Plus and Brother PT-H100 are both designed to hold comfortably in one hand, which makes them longer (or deeper) than they are wide, and forces them into using an ABCD-style keyboard.

The 100H is shaped a little like a small shoe, at 3.1 inches wide by 8.3 inches long, with a rounded front and back. The height varies from about 1.5 inches at the front, which is the lowest point on the gently-slopping keyboard, to 2.6 inches at the top of the 13-character LCD screen.

There are several buttons, including a Print button, between the top of the keyboard and the base of the LCD that let you use the built-in menus and give commands. The LCD is mounted at an angle to make it easy to read, whether the printer is sitting on a desktop or in your hand. Instead of separate number keys, the numbers are available on the top two rows of letter keys, with a shift key switching between numbers and letters. There's also a separate shift for upper and lower case.

One welcome additional touch is that the bottom is contoured, rather than flat, to make the printer more comfortable to hold. At 14 ounces, complete with four AA batteries (which aren't included with the printer), the 100H Plus is light enough to hold for an extended period.

Setup and Basics

Setup is as simple as snapping in the batteries and the supplied tape cartridge. Alternatively, you can use an optional AC power adapter ($26.99), but that will limit your ability to move around freely to use the LT-100H as a handheld printer.

Dymo offers the same tapes for the 100H Plus as for the Dymo LT-100T, with the various types of labels overlapping with, but not matching, the types available for competing printers. There's no equivalent, for example, to Brother's labels with acid-free adhesive that let you label photos without damaging them.

The options for the 100H Plus are plastic, paper, fabric iron on, or metallic labels. All of these come in 0.5-inch widths only, with colors limited to black on white for paper and iron-on labels, black on silver, pink, or blue for metallic labels, and black on white, blue, red, yellow, or transparent tape for plastic labels. Prices range from a low of $8.39 for single cartridges of most tape choices up to $22.99 for a three pack of metallic tapes.

Creating and Printing Labels

Creating and printing labels isn't as easy as it would be with a QWERTY keyboard, because you have to spend time searching for the right key. However, it's fairly straightforward with the ABCD layout. Most of the control buttons are clearly labeled with text, and the few that use icons are obvious as well. The Save button, for example, is marked with a floppy disk icon, which will let you save up to nine labels in the printer's memory.

To print a label you type the text, or retrieve a label from memory, and hit the Print button. When it's done, you can press the manual cutter.

Dymo rates the print speed at 0.5 inches per second (ips). In my tests with both plastic and paper tape, it printed a 3.125-inch label with the text PCMag: Printer Test at 12.2 seconds, or roughly 0.25ips.If you're printing just one or two labels, speed doesn't matter all that much, but note that the Brother PT-H100 was about three times faster on our tests, at 0.74ips, and the Brother PT-D200 essentially tied that, at 0.73ips.

If you don't need a printer you can hold in your hand easily, or if you insist on having a QWERTY keyboard, you'll be better served by the Dymo LT-100T or the Editors' Choice Brother PT-D200. If you need a handheld printer, however, the Dymo LetraTag 100H Plus and Brother PT-H100 are the obvious choices. The Brother model delivers better speed, but the determining factor may be what types of labels the printer can use. In particular, the label types for the 100H Plus include paper, which isn't available for the Brother model. If you need paper labels—for file folders for example—that could make it your preferred choice.

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