GBC HeatSeal H210 Laminator Review

The GBC HeatSeal H210 is one of the manufacturer's entry-level pouch laminating machines, intended for use by small and/or home offices. In this review, we will dive into the various features of the H210 and give you a list of what we consider to be this particular machine's strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths:

1. The H210 has a throat width of around nine and a half inches, which means that it is capable of laminating documents that are letter and legal size. You will also be able to laminate ID tags and other similarly sized documents with the H210.
2. We were pretty happy with the H210's relatively quick warm up time of around five minutes. We also found the nice green glowing light to be a pretty handy indicator of when the machine was ready to get to work.
3. A particular strength of the H210 is that it is designed for lamination with a carrier. One of the big problems you can run into with some of the less expensive laminating machines is adhesive collecting on the rollers and making a big mess, not to mention leading to jams. The carrier design of the H210 helps to prevent this.
4. Another nice feature to find in a lower end laminator, the H210 has a jam release lever that allows the user to easily and quickly take the carrier out of the machine in case of there is a jam. We thought this was a nice inclusion in the H210 and wish that more manufacturers would include similar devices.
5. It must be said that a couple of the best features of the H210 are the price and warranty. You will have a hard time finding a similarly capable machine at this price point, and GBC has a great reputation for backing up their machines. The H210 a one year warranty and in most cases GBC will replace your machine instead of repair it if you end up with problems. That means you won't have to hassle with waiting if you ever do need to file a warranty claim.

Weaknesses:

1. The H210 is designed to use laminating pouches that are 3 or 5mil in thickness. You will find that this particular machine can't handle thicker pouches. If you think that you are going to need to laminate items with thicker pouches such as 7 or 10mil, you will want to look at a machine with that capability.
2. The nine and a half inch throat will get you through most laminating jobs with standard document sizes. You should be aware, however, that the H210 is not the best choice for using with "speed" laminating pouches since you always want to put the sealed side in first, and those pouches are sealed on the long side requiring an eleven inch opening. Also, you won't be able to laminate larger docs like menus.
3. Though the H210 has a small exit tray, we were puzzled to find that it is too small for just about any size document. If fact, the tray just seemed to get in the way, and we had a much easier time using the machine without the exit tray in place.