TDK CD/DVD Label Printer 200dpi

It cannot be really 200 dpi - it pixelates plain text. You can't print in shades of colour. It doesn't look professional.

I had to order another black ink ribbon as the 1st one become loose however much it wound on. I then discovered that the printer couldn't print on the white top discs that I had purchased in bulk, but I wasn't forewarned of this by TDK.

I'm now writing on my CDs delicately with a pen.


Does (most) of what it says on the tin   January 13, 2005
Steve Benner (Lancaster, UK)
50 out of 50 found this review helpful

As a basic CD labeller this little box from TDK performs reasonably well. The bundled software for laying out the two print areas is easy to use and flexible (although it works only with Windows; no Mac support, which is a pity) but potential buyers should be aware of a number of little things that caused me to withhold a star overall: first, the description of the printer as 'colour' is misleading; the printer is single-colour only. TDK supply additional (optional) ribbons in a choice of red, blue or silver, so you can choose to print your labels in one of four available colours (including black). Secondly, the available print area is confined to a narrow strip of 16mm width and 74mm length; the bundled software lets you lay out two such strips per CD, one above and the other below the central area of the disc. This should be fine for most applications, but anyone wanting to design a full CD/DVD label will need to look to other technology to achieve that. Thirdly, the printer has no turntable to rotate the disc, so if you're using both upper and lower print area on a CD you have to manually rotate your CD/DVD between each printing operation. The operational software walks you through this, though, and while it is a little fiddly, and you do have to pay attention to the orientation of the disc each time, it is really no big deal. And finally, the ribbons are all single-pass ribbons and are good for about 40 print runs (ie. 20 CDs if you're using both print areas) so if you want to print a lot of discs, you'd do well to lay up a stock!

Incidentally, the LPCW-100 300dpi version of the printer is much the same as this one but does not suffer from the need to rotate discs manually, as it features a powered turntable; it also offers Mac OS X compatibility too.


TDK CD Printer - Should you buy one?   July 6, 2004
Juan Santos Jr (UK)
30 out of 31 found this review helpful

The answer, if you are fiddling about with sticky CD labels, is yes.

Not only does this look better, even with mono-color printing and limited print area, but it is so easy to use.

If you are feeling particularly saucy, go for the 300dpi version! I have this 200dpi version and you can see a little bit of pixelation on the more elaborate typefaces.

... ...

Addendum: It didn't last as long as I hoped, the printing bit seemed to lose it's ability to get the text on the CD, leaving only a faint print even with a new print-cartridge. I probably got about 100 CD's printed over a 12 month period before this happened.