I can definitely attest to 300dpi making a huge difference for labels. I use a Brother QL-1100 (very happy with it by the way) which is same DPI and around $200 US. Zebra are mostly for industrial use as they usually have support for really old systems and embedded devices like WinCE based kiosks, ATM, etc. Vast overkill for home use, even by price alone.

I bet it's a software scaling issue in addition to the reduced dpi.

@@Okurka. I disagree. It might be the software scaling issue, and also the reduced dpi. :-)

Thanks. Yes I suspect it's a driver scaling issue. Silly me for using the official Zebra drivers and expecting them to just work and print nice crisp labels.

One Hung Low hahaha

I have worked with Bartender a fair bit, and while it is decent, I would much rather use Clarisoft. Also Bartender requires a connection to the seagull server, which is fine if that is installed on the same PC as Bartender, but if you have a seperate server and if your connection goes down for any reason, you are unable to print, which is something that I haven't come across with Clarisoft as it isn't a server/client program.

Silly me is using the Zebra driver.

Agree, I'm using 200dpi too and small text is very dark and sharp. You can see dithering in the zebra printout, even though its disabled. Although it may not be easily fixable, so if the new printer works out of the box its worth it to not screw around.

I had the GK420d and it had the same issue.

In this case it's not a cleanign problem, it's a problem of processing and rendering of the image and the print resolution.

@@EEVblog2 the Zebra 2844 is still a 203 dpi printer, although discontinued in 2012. Maybe the linux CUPS driver is better than the Windows driver?

​@@hallcrash I was almost gonna say, the quality can definitely be better than what was showing up here. I would lean strongly on the side of a combination of the print software's label generation technique AND badly written drivers AND the lower resolution working together to make that an issue. But my method of printing doesn't use drivers, and directly generates the ZPL code of the labels and sends it off to the printer, either over Bluetooth, WiFi or RS-232. It exclusively uses the printer's built in font and barcode rendering, instead of sending a image or raw pixel data. That DOES make a difference. But, if Dave found a cheaper device that works perfect for what he needs, it's probably the easiest way to fix that problem. Source(s): I made a app that prints notes and custom labels on Zebra thermal printers, and can navigate the label programming manual fairly thoroughly.

Got 2 of them for free, and yes they work on linux, though there are caveats on that.

@@hallcrash I feel like CUPS drivers are almost always better than Windows drivers.

Yep, I've got two different models Zebra's with the same 203dpi and the same issues. Interesting about that Aus Post requirement, and yes I mostly having issues with Aus Post. Completely gone now with the 300dpi.

i got the smaller brother label printer and wrote a converter to convert dhl labels to fit the smaller ones (moving the barcodes to the right, address on left etc.) dhl is just fine with a different layout as long as everything is visible.

Yes, it's not just the DPI, but the software scaling.

Silly me for using the official Zebra driver and expecting it to work.

@@EEVblog2 it wasn't a criticism. Those Zebra printers have their own language and when you use them directly with the shippers own software (UPS etc), it uses that language to describe the label to the printer - they print instantly because only a few hundred bytes of data are being sent, and the quality is razor sharp (even better than with the Seagull driver). Because you're using a third party shipping company, they are rasterising all the labels. The Zebra Windows driver really is terrible - it uses really crappy interpolation. Ultimately the remaining issue you have (I've watched your second video) is with your third party software sending those 2D barcodes as images to the printer. I don't know why they're rasterising, rather than keeping things as vectors. I guess it was easier... But it makes it absolutely crucial as you've discovered to fully disable dithering. Your higher resolution printer is masking this issue. For all the lines to be wavy though, it means they're sending a greyscale image rather than a monochrome bitmap. They ought to fix that. We accidentally discovered the improved performance on the Zebra printers using the Seagull driver. We bought some new (non-Zebra) printers and they actually came with Seagull drivers in the box - there were no manufacturer supplied drivers at all - and this prompted me to wonder if there was any point in trying them on the Zebra printers. Lo and behold, a massive improvement.

Brother also has their TD lineup some of which have wifi and ethernet and they can use any label like rolls or fanfold fed from the back allowing you to use the free UPS labels.

Yes, and on two differnent model machines.

They are generated by my shipping software.

If you can scale it to a 4x6 paper then yes. They won't last as long as ink or toner but they last a fair amount of time if you store them correctly.

I struggled with their drivers 15 years ago. I can’t imagine how anyone gets them to work properly.

Yes, it's the scaling.

I've tried a ton of stuff including dithering and it doesn't really fix things. I assumed it's just hwo the driver renders it.

Both Zebra's (different models) performed the same on the software and lablesl I was printing. Aside fro mthe resolution, it's the way the Zebra driver renders the image that also determines the quality.

Looks like a possibly bad memory buffer in the Zebra, overpriced junk. Only just recently condemned my HP LaserJet II. Use an HP-CP1525 now found and the test/check/log/print showing

😅 Not much you can teardown, the BMP image is sent to the printer to be printed with it's thermal print head, which you cant really do anything but look at closely and marvel how small the thermal dots are. The difference in image quality is computer software side. Though seeing the difference in the solid black rectangles, it'll be interesting because that's usually an alignment issue against the platen roller, or just because it hast been cleaned in a while.

@@Brooo007MC the surrounding electronics, power circuitry and mechanism can still be looked at 🙂 build quality too.

It's still no good from my shipping software, and that's all that matters.

@@EEVblog2 its a driver issue. try zebra drivers by seagulls.

In Australia I would expect zeb-ra, in America I would expect zee-bra.

He makes these kinds of mistakes all the time. You get used to it.

Why? Cheap and better vs the industry standard. Very fair IMO.

I bet that the image produced by the shipping software is rendered specifically for 300dpi printers and zebra driver is trying his best to get the print done. Maybe it is an old driver an doesn't even support that resolution. Who knows.. I would try other software/driver combination as suggested by many others.

Comparing an ancient printer with a recent one will get more comments.