3.0 out of 5 stars
Easy setup, network ability, shipping labels, be aware of required label costs
Reviewed in the United States on 29 October 2021
The Dymo LabelWriter 5XL is an easy to use thermal label printer with useful features such as network connectivity and full 4x6” shipping label print capability, but might end up being costly to operate due to Dymo’s new sales model.
IN THE BOX
In the box you’ll find the printer itself, the power adapter and cord, a USB-A to USB-B cable, a small sample roll of labels, and an instruction booklet.
DESIGN
The printer is essentially an enclosed spool with the actual printing and feeding mechanism on the front. The back of the printer has ports for the power, USB, and wired network connections, while the front has buttons for power, feed forward, and feed reverse. There are also indicator lights to show if the printer is connected via USB or over the wired network. The front also has the slot where the labels come out and it’s associated cutting edge for manually tearing the labels off (there is no automatic cutter).
The top of the printer flips open to reveal the spindle for holding the labels. The top seems to be there just for aesthetic purposes as you can operate the printer with the top open.
SETUP
Setting up the printer only involves a few steps. The first one is to download the Dymo software from their website. It is stated in multiple places (including a sticker that blocks the ports on the back of the printer) that you need to install the software first before you ever connect the printer to your computer, so it seems like a good idea to follow this advice.
Once you have the software installed you plug in the power and connect the printer to your computer’s USB port or into your wired network. If you connect the printer to your network it will obtain an IP address via DHCP by default, making the network setup super easy. If you need to manually configure the IP settings you can do so by connecting the printer to your computer via USB first. Note that this printer only has wired network connectivity (no wifi) so you’ll have to place it near a network port (either a wired wall jack or close to your router/switch).
One tip is that in order to find the network-attached printer using the software you’ll need to go up to the File menu in the Dymo software and choose “Add network printer”. This might not be readily apparent if you missed that detail in the instructions.
To load labels you remove the spindle, slide off one end, slide the roll of labels on, then slide the end of the spindle back on, pressing it all the way against the roll of labels. You then drop the spindle back into the printer and position the end of the labels into the feed slot at the front of the printer. This part is a little tricky and isn’t as easy as I’ve seen on other printers. Once you have the labels fed into the slot you push the feed advance button on the front of the printer to position the labels for printing.
IN USE
The included Dymo software has lots of useful features and shows you a visual representation of the label on the screen. You can choose from address imports, clip art, images, text design, automatic sequential serial number setup, bar codes, QR codes, etc. Each element that you can add to your label has a whole list of customizable values (such as defining what you want in the QR code, setting up serial numbers to begin at a certain number with a prefix, adding in the current date, etc.).
The printer will automatically detect the label type and report that back to the software so the software can present you with the correct label size on the screen. Dymo has gone out of their way to advertise that the printer both has this automatic label recognition feature, and that this printer can only use authentic Dymo labels. This seems to be a case of having to invent a “feature” to sell people on the fact that they won’t be able to use generic labels in the printer. In reality the automatic label identification is just a way for the printer to reject any non-Dymo label rolls. The Dymo rolls have an RFID tag attached to the inner cardboard roller. If the printer doesn’t sense this RFID tag then it will say the labels are not compatible and will not print.
The auto-detection also indicates how many labels are remaining on the roll. I’m not sure if this is done by simply starting each new RFID serial number with a specific count of labels and then keeping tracking of it within the software, or if the RFID tag communications with the printer and the printer is able to reduce the label count stored on the RFID tag. The latter would make more sense as it would prevent people from simply sticking the same RFID tag on generic rolls of labels forever. Either way it doesn’t seem like the included roll is calculated correctly as my roll indicated that it had over 100 labels remaining even though there were far less than that on the roll. It may be that Dymo uses the same RFID tag for these starter rolls as they would use on a full size roll.
The printer will also show up as a regular printer so you can use it in your other programs. When you are using another program you’ll need to manually set the label type, but this is easy since the printer driver comes pre-filled with all the Dymo label sizes and you can easily tell what label type you have as the label style number is printed on the back of every label. This further reduces the value of the automatic label detection since setting the label type manually only takes about 5 seconds.
PERFORMANCE
This label printer produces great results. The printing on the labels is nice and dark and exactly matches what you see on the screen in the Dymo software.
It should be noted that the printer requires a larger margin on the left side (or bottom of the label depending on the orientation) than on the other side (see my photo showing the max printing area with a black box). It seems that the label starts in a position where the front of the label is already past the thermal print head, so that first few millimeters isn’t printable. The Dymo software accounts for this and won’t let you put anything outside of the printable area, but if you are using another software package then you’ll need to manually setup your margins to account for this, otherwise your print will get cut off.
Label print speed is not crazy fast but is still fast enough for most jobs. You can easily run labels off at around 10-20 per minute once things get started.
SUMMARY
This is a full featured label printer that is very easy to setup. The included software has lots of useful features to cover most of your label printing needs. The network connectivity is a welcome feature although the lack of wireless networking limits where you can place the printer, especially if you don’t have any wired network connections in the area where you want to keep it.
I suspect that most people looking at this model will be using it to print the standard 4x6” shipping labels. The biggest downside is of course the inability to use labels from anyplace other than Dymo. This means you’re stuck buying the Dymo labels and also are limited to whatever colors and styles that Dymo offers. Dymo does make this very apparent on all the product marketing though, so you should definitely know about this by the time you make a purchase. Considering that many shipping services will provide you with their own branded labels for little or no cost this may be a major factor in your decision to get this printer or not.
PROS:
- Easy to use printer with minimal setup (basically just plug it in)
- Good quality print and fast printing
- Handles standard 4x6” shipping labels
- Wired networking built in
- No need to buy paper and ink separately
- Easy to print a single label rather than needing to print a sheet in a regular printer
CONS:
- Limited to only using Dymo brand labels
- Network connectivity is wired only, no wifi
- Label loading can be a little finicky
- No automatic cutter, will likely need to use two hands to tear off larger labels (one to hold down the printer and one to tear off the label)
- Large unprintable margin on front end of label
