Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsI thought it was a winner, however....
Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2017
Update: After my 3rd use, the green ready light no longer works. This weekend, I left my laminator in my classroom, and I needed to laminate something prior to Monday, so I purchased the Scotch laminator from another store. That one is a lot faster than the Amazon brand, and a lot easier to insert what needs to be laminated, as there is a guiding tray. This eliminates the issue that I've had with the AmazonBasics brand, where I don't insert the paper exactly right, and it crumples for a second. The scotch one also doesn't have the issue of the ready light going on and off. I did not expect to start having issues so soon. I will be keeping the scotch and returning Amazon's.
As I compose this review, I am currently preparing for the upcoming school year. I have a lot that needs laminating. In previous years, I've gone to Office Depot to get my pages laminated, but considering that I have over 50 pages that need laminating this year, I realize that it would cost way too much money to have it done at Office Depot at about $2 a page. I had to make the choice between this one, and the Scotch branded one. I chose this one because it was over $10 cheaper, and I am a huge fan of Amazon, so I figured why not give their brand a try? I've only ever used AmazonBasics for my iPhone USB, but that's worked well, so I figured that this would be worth a shot. I did not read the directions, as I had already read reviews and even watched a YouTube video prior to ordering the laminator. It was super easy to use. I laminated about 30 sheets back to back, and each one came out perfect, except for one (and I believe that that one was due to user error). I was a bit troubled when I saw that after every page, the "ready" light would go off for a couple of seconds - this was a big hold up to the laminating process. It made the process extremely slow, as it took me about 50 minutes to complete those 30 pages. I read another review that said that she ignores when the light goes off, and continues to feed the pages through and it doesn't affect the quality of the lamination. That makes sense, as the ready light is only off for about 10 seconds, and then it comes back on. There were a couple of times that the light cut off, mid-lamination, and it still came out fine, so I will probably ignore when the light goes off too going forward, in order to make the process more time efficient. Of course, I am not referring to the initial "ready" light, which comes on about 3 minutes after turning the laminator on. There is a burning smell, but it isn't overwhelming. I'd also like to add that I cut all of the sheets that I laminated, and the lamination did not unravel. I would definitely consider this product a $17 well spent.
