Making the switch from  black-and-white thermal to color inkjet label printing can be a big decision. Yes, new color label printers like the Epson CW-C6500 have emerged to fill this niche. However, there's a better, faster color inkjet label printer on the market that's getting a lot of attention from our customers — the Afinia L701 color label printer. Why? Let's take a look.

Replacing Industrial Thermal Label Printers

The Epson CW-C6500 is an 8-inch color inkjet label printer designed to replace industrial thermal label and barcode printers made by  Zebra, GoDex, and other manufacturers. Its main selling point is that it offers full-color printing while the thermal label printers can only print black text and barcodes on white label stock.

The Afinia L701 is a high resolution, full color inkjet label printer that offers many of the same features as the Epson CW-C6500, but with a few key advantages. First, the print quality is much better at 1600 dpi compared to the Epson CW-C6500's maximum resolution of just 1200 dpi. If you want to print photo-quality labels, the Afinia L701 is your printer.

Second, the Afinia L701 prints significantly faster than the  Epson CW-C6500. When you consider that most production lines are producing labels for finished goods and not for test purposes, it's reasonable to expect that the labels are being printed at their highest quality setting. If you want to print photo-quality labels at high speed, the Afinia L701 is the printer to choose.

At 1600 dpi for the Afinia L701, the print speed is between 6 and 8 inches per second for an 8-inch-wide label. At 1200 dpi for the Epson, the print speed is a mere 0.20 inches per second for the same label.

Think of it this way, on an 8-inch-wide label:

For every 1 inch of labels the Epson prints, the Afinia L701 prints 30 to 40 inches of labels.

Every 10 seconds, the Epson prints just 2 inches of labels while the Afinia L701 prints 60 or 80 inches of labels (depending on which setting you choose).

Every minute, the Epson can print 12 inches of labels while the Afinia L701 prints 360 to 480 inches of labels. That's 30 to 40 feet per minute on the L701 for every 1 foot on the Epson CW-C6500.

Every hour, the Afinia L701 prints 1800 to 2400 feet of labels while the Epson prints just 60 feet of labels (something the L701 can do in less than 2 minutes).

As you can see, the faster printing speed of the Afinia L701 is a big plus. Speaking of seeing, we put the two printers to the test. Check out the video below to see the speed difference with your own two eyes.

Want to see the quality difference for yourself as well? Request free label samples . We will print your label design using both the Afinia L701 and the Epson CW-C6500 at their highest print settings so you can see just how much better 1600 dpi is compared to 1200 dpi.