The Epson CW-C6500 and the Afinia L701 are both 8-inch  color label printers that offer businesses a better quality, full color label than your typical 8-inch  industrial thermal label and barcode printer. These printers are both excellent. However, when it comes to performance, the  Epson CW-C6500 just can't keep up with the  Afinia L701. And, in busy production environments, that can make all the difference.

How Fast are These Color Label Printers?

In our comparison, we're going to use an 8-inch-wide label as an example because the Epson's speed is affected by the label's width. Since it uses a traditional serial printhead that moves back and forth across the width of the label, performance is limited by the technology and varies by label width. The Afinia L701 uses a stationary Memjet printhead that covers the entire width of the label with ink droplets in a single pass, so it's much faster and its print speed remains consistent regardless of label width.

Since businesses do not use draft mode in production, we're going to focus on the highest quality settings for each printer which are:

• 1200 dpi on the Epson CW-C6500
• 1600 dpi on the Afinia L701. The L701 allows you to choose between 1600x800 dpi or 1600x1600 dpi, giving you a slight speed difference depending on your selection.
• For the Epson CW-C6500 using the above settings, the print speed is 0.20 inches per second. For the Afinia L701, the print speed is 6 inches per second at 1600x1600 dpi and 8 inches per second at 1600x800 dpi. Just looking at those numbers, you can see that the Afinia L701 is significantly faster than the Epson CW-C6500.

Now that we have the parameters defined, let's do the math.

• In one second, the Afinia L701 prints 6 to 8 inches of labels while the Epson CW-C6500 prints 1/5 of an inch.
• In ten seconds, the Afinia L701 prints 60 to 80 inches of labels while the Epson CW-C6500 prints just two inches.
• In one minute, the Afinia L701 can print 360 to 480 inches of labels (30 to 40 feet) while the Epson CW-C6500 can print just twelve inches (one foot).
• In one hour, the Afinia L701 can print 21,600 to 28,800 inches of labels (1800 to 2400 feet) while the Epson CW-C6500 can print just 720 inches (60 feet).
• In a production environment, you typically need both high print quality and a fast print speed. The Epson CW-C6500 is a great color label printer, but its speed just can't keep up with the Afinia L701 and its print quality isn't nearly as good.

As you can see from the above comparison, if you need to print a lot of labels quickly, the Afinia L701 is the better choice. It's not even close. The Epson CW-C6500 might be a better fit if you're a home-based business with small labeling jobs or if you don't mind waiting quite a bit longer for your labels. But, if speed and print quality are important to you, the Afinia L701 color label printer is the way to go.

Real-world Speed Showdown

Finally, let's see what kind of real-world difference these numbers make. Here's a side-by-side comparison of the two printers printing an identical 8-inch label at their highest print settings. Check out the video below:

Get Free Label Samples

See the print quality difference for yourself by requesting free printed label samples using your label design file. We'll print and mail sample labels using both printers so you can see the quality difference for yourself.

Request your free label samples today!