Primera LX500 Color Label Printer - Print Full-Color Product Labels On-Demand

We have had this printer for a few years. We rarely use it, but when we do, it takes multiple times of having to install, re-install drivers and software to get it to work. It wastes 2 very expensive labels for each label that actually prints. The print quality of each label is extremely poor and ink cartridge seems to need replacing after only maybe 50 labels. I would NOT recommend buying this printer.

I now own 2 of these. One for daily ops and one as a back up. As we build everything to order (600 labels aday) and have over 120 varients of our products we need to constantly be printing labels for our products.Everything about this printer is great, its super easy to use and when I need support, Primera is always there. Do I wish the cartridges were cheaper? Yes.. but they really do seem to last..I do really like this printer alot!

Lets talk honestly. Ive owned a number of printers, from 52" photo plotters, to flatbeds, to lasers. This thing... I had some hopes, but thats why I bought through Amazon after reading the reviews. Also having an extensive IT background, as well as robotics and CNC, I figured a lot of these issues could be fixed via settings. Hmm.First, lets talk hardware. Its ink thirsty. After about 130 labels (most being 4x3, at mid quality) the ink cart is at 60%. Thats 40% of ink gone in 3 days... with a tiny $60 ink cart. Perhaps Im spoiled by my Roland printer's carts that cost $100, but are as big as the LX500's footprint. Perhaps they are over-priced rebadges of lexmark or HP tech. The loading and unloading are OK, and the unit has a pass through in the back where you could load labels from a larger core roll from a stand. The first label will be a waste, as it scans for gaps and edge. That is also nice, it uses an optical sensor to check for the edges and gap, which you can fine tune in the driver. It also seems that the unit is short on internal RAM, with large or complicated graphics taking a while to go from spool to print, and often losing objects on the print (and wasting more ink and media). No sleep mose which I have seen. The printer doenst seem like it could use much power, and have only had to power cycle it about 5 times in the first few days. (yeah... )Which leads us to software. 90% of our workflow is in CorelDraw (currently 2017). Out of the box, it will not work right with basic windows programs, and will only work with Corel if you modify a corelprt.ini file via text editor, to accept multiple copies. Printing from Corel with an sRGB color space gan get you really nice color. Without, from any other program we tried, you get dull, lifeless, CMYK processing, worse than most other printers. While we are talking dull... the only real way out of the box to work with this thing is Bartender. You get the ultra-light version... you know, since you only spent 1200 on a printer. The software will take forever to import, and while it runs in a 64bit OS, it will not use more than 1 core, nor more than 300mb of ram when importing or processing. Bartender has a look and feel of a Win 2K program thats been ported way too many times with no improvements. Ive talked to other users, and none of their software will function with the Primera machines, and they all hated Bartender. If you are a designer, stay very, very far away.When it comes to the driver, you are limited to very basic print options. 5 speed/quality settings, 2 rendering intent options. I have a $100 color lexmark printer here that has 10x the options and settings as the LX500.Lets talk print quality. Its acceptable for a 2005 machine. Having printed on 3 kinds of media... its OK. Just, OK. Does not live up to the price tag. Prints seem splash proof, and dry fast. The sample prints you get with the machine mostly come from their much higher priced units. So you get a feeling of what you could have done, if you only spent 3-5000.Support is so-so. I contacted the manufacturer, and they will not support anything dealing with the printer and how it works in the OS. Only Bartender. Support was condescending and I ended up getting frustrated and hanging up on them.. reflecting on what I have seen in reviews. Dealer support (who sells it here on amazon) is much better. Top notch, which I would say is the ONLY 5 star point about this machine.All this being said, if you have 1 kind of label, and rarely change, and need them fast.. this is the printer for you. Otherwise, spend a few dollars more and hit another brand. Software complacency and overpriced ink is so 2000's its not funny.

I like the color output, I like the fact I can order a glossy paper. Don't like: I print round, 3X2" etc and setting up for different papers takes a bit of time and effort. Once it's set, it works as it should

Printed gobbly gook. I am a technical person, this printer was beyond help. Amazon took it back no problem.

Ok so I used my lx500 today for the first time, print quality looks pretty good but could not get a full print there was always some type of margin line.Ended up on the phone with primera for over a hour & could not get it figured out, so I am sending back for another one fingers crossed it was just a bad one I received.I have to say primera made it right & took care of the issue. It was a simple fix that was overlooked. Thanks guys !

$1200 is a lot of money for a printer of such poor quality. My $50 EPSON prints better than this thing.1. The color is poor quality. Bright colors are a piece of cake on this thing. BEWARE if you have dark colors to print. It takes a boat load of ink to print in black because there's only a color cartridge. Poor design.2. The printer alignment isn't consistent. Even after a painful 30 minutes spent aligning the printer just right. When I come back later to print on the same paper, I have to re-align the printer all over again because the previous settings are not working. WHY? If everything is the same, including the paper, why on earth do I have to re-align it every time I go to print something? It makes ZERO sense.3. It wastes your paper. My advice, only continuous prints until either you run out of ink or paper. This machine is horrible and stop and start again printing. Know everything you need to print and get it done in one session. Every time you start again, it skips AT LEAST one label before it begins to print. In practice, I've wasted a good 30% of my labels trying to get this damn thing on a continuous stream of useful prints.4. The software/support is terrible. The Bartender software interface feels like it was created in the 80s and never updated. It's slow and unintuitive. You can create better looking labels using microsoft print or powerpoint. Useless. Not to mention slow.5. Cost. Thank GOD, I got this thing for free. My brother-in-law gave it to me after leaving a job who had supplied him with the machine. I cannot imagine if I had paid $1200+ dollars for this thing. I probably would have sued this damn company for my money plus my time.JUST DON'T DO IT.