The MUNBY P401BT is a cute little thermal label printer that's ideal for small businesses, ... [+] especially those that ship products.
Do you have a side hustle making money selling on eBay or Etsy? Or perhaps you run your own business selling spare parts for computers? If so, you may spend a lot of time printing labels for the courier. While this can be done on plain A4 paper with an inkjet printer and then cut to size and stuck on with sticky tape, using a dedicated label printer makes much more sense. Label Thermal Printer
MUNBYN is a company that manufactures a selection of thermal label printers that can handle rolls or fanfold labels up to 4 x 6 inches, which is the standard size for shipping labels. The printers use a thermal printhead that requires no maintenance or expensive ink cartridges. You just need to buy thermal labels for printing on.
This month, I’ve tested a couple of printers from MUNBYN: the 941B and the RW401AP. The first model is a USB and Bluetooth printer, while the second offers USB and Wi-Fi connectivity using Apple’s AirPrint protocol. Both printers can handle labels up to 4 x 6 inches and the RW401AP includes a built-in speaker and microphone to receive voice commands.
The cute MUNBYN 941B is an affordable thermal label printer that accepts a wide variety of media up ... [+] to 4 x 6 inch shipping labels.
Let’s look at the MUNBYN 941B first. This cute little printer is available in black, white, pastel pink or pastel blue. The 941B is designed to appeal to the Hello Kitty generation and, as well as printing regular fanfold 4 x 6-inch shipping labels; the printer can handle different shapes of labels on a roll, although you will need to buy a roll holder. There are plenty of holders on Amazon and the labels come in a wide range of shapes and colors, including gold and silver.
The labels used on most thermal printers are available in gap or black versions. Gap labels have a set space between each label and the gap is read by a light sensor. The sensor helps to place the label in just the correct position, ready for printing. Black labels have a black stripe on their reverse side, which can also be picked up by the light sensor for correct positioning.
An adjustable set of guides keeps the roll or fanfold of labels running in a straight line. The printer can be opened to deal with tangles, or to change to a different label size, by pressing a button on the top of the printer so that the top hinges open.
The 941B from MUNBY is available in four attractive finishes.
The 941B works with Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. The MUNBYN smartphone app has many pre-designed templates for printing labels directly from your phone. You can design your labels by adding a company logo, a return address or anything else you want.
Most people will probably use the printer for shipping labels with software or websites for eBay, Etsy and any of the major courier companies like DHL, UPS or FedEx. The 941B works with them all; you can even batch-print multiple labels. The printer can connect via USB or Bluetooth from a smartphone or tablet. The printer provides a resolution of 300DPI, which makes it sufficiently detailed for printing shipping barcodes.
The RW401AP offers USB and AirPrint connectivity. The printer is finished in a metallic paint and ... [+] can handle labels up to 4 x 6 inches.
The second printer I tested was MUNBYN’s flagship RW401AP model. This printer is ideal for using wirelessly from anywhere within range of a wireless network. For example, your computer could process the shipping labels in the accounts office while the printer could be in the dispatch department or mail room. It’s a nice bit of flexibility if you use macOS with Apple’s AirPrint protocol. As well as wireless printing, there’s also a USB port on the RW401AP for direct connection to a Windows or Mac computer.
The RW401AP is also designed to work on a smartphone running the MUNBYN app. Unfortunately, I encountered a few issues when printing from my iPhone SE running iOS 17. Apple appears to have changed the AirPrint protocol, so the MUNBYN app doesn’t work correctly with an iPhone running iOS 17. Hopefully, this will be addressed soon in an update to the app.
This RW401AP label printer also features a built-in speaker and microphone. You can give the printer commands, but it’s a bit of a gimmick, and, after a while, I became frustrated with the printer going to sleep and telling me that it would see me later. I turned the speaker off and we got on just fine after that.
The MUNBYN RW401AP printer is available in Blue or Pink metallic finishes.
Verdict: These two compact label printers from MUNBYN make an ideal Christmas gift for anyone with a home business who ships out products or maybe needs to produce name badges for conferences or even sealing parcels. The 941B works well with smartphones and functions perfectly with Windows or Mac computers using a USB connection. The 300DPI thermal printhead produces crisp and detailed output and doesn’t require any expensive ink supplies. The MUNBYN RW401AP is potentially the better printer because it has more bells and whistles, such as voice control and AirPrint support. However, I couldn’t get the RW401AP to work correctly with my iPhone SE running iOS 17, but it did work perfectly over AirPrint and USB from my Mac mini running macOS Sonoma.
Thermal Printer 4x6 Pricing & Availability: The MUNBYN 941B and MUNBYN RW401AP are available now. The MUNBYN 941B costs $199 from Amazon while the RW401AP costs $279.99 from Amazon.