The DYMO LabelManager 420P ($110 street) falls in the rarest sub-category of label printers. To begin with, it doesn't print paper labels for envelopes and the like. Instead, it prints plastic (and other) labels suitable for computer cables, outdoor labeling, or for things like your stapler so it doesn't wander from your desk. Most printers in this plastic labeler category (for lack of a better term) are self-contained labeling systems with their own keypads. A few can connect to and print from a PC. Fewer still give you the choice of printing labels either way. The 420P is one of those few.

In many ways the 420P is a close cousin to the Editors' Choice DYMO LabelManager PnP ($60 street, 4 stars), which prints only from a PC and is limited to tape that's a maximum 0.5 inches wide, compared with a 0.75-inch maximum for the 420P. In particular, the two share the same easy-to-use software for printing from a PC, and both get points for being easy to set up.

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The Basics
The 1.1 pound 420P's overall size is 2.2 by 4.4 by 8.5 inches (HWD). However, it's smaller than the numbers make it seem, because the maximum width includes only part of its length. For 5 inches of the length, it is about 3.1 inches wide, making it easy to hold in one hand. It widens out on one end to make room for the 3.25-inch monochrome LCD screen.

To set up the printer, you snap in the tape cartridge and rechargeable battery it comes with, then plug in the power adaptor. Once the battery's charged, you can print in either of two ways—or three, depending on how you count.

One choice is to create the label using the keypad on the unit itself, then hit the print button. The second choice is to connect the unit to a computer, and print from the computer. If you like, you can use the software that's stored in the printer itself. Connect the printer by USB cable and it looks like a USB drive to Windows or Mac OS X 10.5 or above. When I plugged it into a Windows Vista system, for example, an AutoPlay window opened as promised, asking whether to run the program. You can run it at that point (without installing anything on the computer), define a label, and print.

The third choice also involves connecting to a computer. Instead of using the program that's stored in the printer's internal memory, however, you can download a more sophisticated version of the label program from DYMO's Web site, and use the downloaded program to define the label and print.

Printing
Regardless of which route you take for creating and printing labels, the process is simple. I found all three straightforward enough so I was able to print labels immediately, without any false starts. Simply define the label, print, and hit the button on the side of the printer to cut the label when it finishes. The only complaint I have is that the keyboard on the unit is arranged alphabetically rather than in a standard QWERTY layout. For anyone who's used to a QWERTY keyboard—and in the age of the smartphone, isn't everyone?—the alphabetical layout is harder to use.

Print time for this kind of printer varies with how long the particular label is. For example, printing a roughly 2-inch label with the text, This is a test took 4.2 seconds. Printing a roughly 3.5-inch label with the text, PCMag: Printer Speed Test took 6.5 seconds. Both times were about the same as for the PnP printer. As another point of comparison, the Brother PT-2430PC ($80 street, 3.5 stars) was far slower, taking about 13 seconds for a 2-inch strip.

DYMO offers 40 choices of tape cartridges for the 420P in an assortment of colors, widths (from 0.25 to 0.75 inches), and materials, including a flexible fabric for curved surfaces. Direct prices range from $18.80 to $26.50 per roll, with most rolls offering a tape length of 23 feet.

If you need to print on wider tape, you'll want to take a look the Brother PT-2430PC, which can print on tape as wide as 1 inch. On the other hand, if you don't need to print on tape wider than .5 inches and you don't need to print without a PC, you might want to save a little money and consider the DYMO LabelWriter PnP. If you need the ability to print with or without a PC, however, the 420P is your printer of choice.

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the DYMO LabelManager 420P with several other printers side by side.

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