Amazon Basics 12-Inch Thermal Laminator Machine, White

This is a very good item to have. Not expensive and very handy. Not something you use all the time, but we love having ours. We used it for many things for ourselves and others. There is also a corner cutter that works very well and keeps the corners round and clean-looking.

I ordered the AmazonBasics laminator long ago, but finally had the opportunity to start using it. It works great and has provided an easy and flawless experience thus far. Plug it in, stick whatever your laminating in the pouch, and insert it into the laminator. That's all there is to it. The laminator can handle two pouch thicknesses - 3mm and 5mm. I've only used the 5mm pouches and can't comment on the difference in quality between the two. The 5mm thickness gives the item your laminating a sturdy, but flexible feel. If using a driver's license as a comparison, it would be a little less rigid than that. After turning on the laminator and switching it to the 5mm option it takes about a minute to warm up and give you the green light to go ahead. While laminating back to back items the green light will go off for a bit and then back on. I assume this is do to a drop in temperature while the lamination process is taking place. When I saw it happen the first time I was worried that the quality of the lamination would decrease. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it did not. If there was a temperature drop, it wasn't big enough to effect the quality. The body of the unit does get warm to the touch. I would suggest a flat, hard surface with some space around to let the heat move away from the machine. The items being laminated come out almost cool to the touch. A little warm, but not much at all. That was a surprising and positive quality to the laminator as well. I'm extremely pleased with the purchase. I would recommend this laminator to anyone and tell you to buy it with confidence. It does the job, produces quality laminations, and is inexpensive.

The Amazon Basics 9-Inch Thermal Laminator Machine has been a game-changer in my office, providing an easy and affordable way to preserve important documents and projects. This machine is a breeze to use, and I appreciate the straightforward design that makes the laminating process simple and efficient. It's a true workhorse, capable of handling a variety of document sizes and types, all without any fuss. What's even better is that it pairs perfectly with Amazon Basics thermal pouches, creating a seamless and reliable laminating system. The compatibility ensures that I can trust this machine to consistently deliver high-quality laminated documents without any issues. It's a great value for the price, offering a level of convenience and functionality that makes it a fantastic addition to any home office or workspace. Whether you're preserving cherished photos or protecting important documents, this laminator and its pouches make the process a breeze, ensuring my materials are safe and secure.

I had it in the box for 7 months and recently started using it. The laminator does not laminate at all, I even ordered 100 more sheets of Amazon laminator sheets and tried a dozen times but the lamination falls apart right away. I may have a defective unit, probably. But if you read all the 1 star reviews on here, many people are having similar problems. I ordered another more expensive brand, hopefully I will be able to get my daughter's spelling bee award laminated finally. I think this product probably has quality issues, cheap chinese manufacturing with no quality check or not enough. I would just waste your time as I spent whole half a day trying to get it work. Initially I thought I was doing something wrong but it turns out it's just a bad laminator. UPDATE: I ordered another laminator the 5 in 1 Blusmart Laminator Set. And realized I was an idiot. The POUCHES that comes with the laminator ARE POUCHES. I thought you were supposed use 2 of them one on top and bottom, did not know there were 2 layers in the pouch. Anyways, no where in the instruction does it say it is in 2 layers, it just says it's a pouch or sometimes not. For noobs like myself, others maybe doing the same thing. Upon using the pouch instead of 4 layers like I was doing, the laminator worked flawless. Now, compared to my newer expensive laminator it's not as smooth. But for the lower price, this is definitely worth it especially for doing basic lamination for school or something. Anyways, upgrading my 1 star to 4 star, this is a pretty good machine but I would still spend a bit more for better smoother laminator.

I have an Etsy shop and one of the products I carry is gold foil prints. I purchased this laminator after I got tired of dealing with the "professional" laminator I had been using for the past 9 months, which incidentally, I also purchased from Amazon, for nearly 7 times the cost of this one. I was tired of the noise, not only from normal function of the rollers turning, but also from the squeaking, as well as the occasional "grinding" noise that would occur whenever the rollers got stuck. I was tired of having to keep the machine on for what seemed like forever to let the rollers cool down afterward. I was tired of it taking up so much precious real estate in my work area with its gigantic foot print. Not to mention the fact that getting a good, solid, gold foil print would almost always take me dozens of tries before I could get one without a lot of black spots (if you've ever tried foiling, you know what I'm talking about!). Enter the AmazonBasics Thermal Laminator, which just arrived today. I had my doubts because of the incredibly low price tag, but I was ready to try something else and couldn't wait to give this one a try. THE FOOTPRINT: The first thing I noticed is that this thing is really, really small. It has such a tiny footprint (about 13" wide by 4.5" deep), I'll definitely be able to find a permanent place for it in my workspace. HOW LOUD IS IT? The second thing I noticed is that it's SO quiet! I was worried at first that it wasn't working because all I could hear was a very quiet hum after I turned it on, but as I discovered, it works perfectly fine. THE S.L.O.W. FEED It really does feed very S.L.O.W.L.Y., as others have pointed out. Much, much more slowly than the other one I have. I'll comment more on that later. HOW DOES IT PERFORM (specifically for gold foiling): I haven't tried it yet for laminating, so I can't speak to that, but as far as the foiling goes, I put it on the 5mil setting, as recommended by others, and let it warm up for about 15 minutes. The first couple of prints came out beautifully, except for a few black spots here and there. Probably my fault, because I was relying on some tricks I had learned from my previous laminator (use sticky notes at the top of the print to hold the foil in place). The black spots occurred only over the sticky notes. So the third time, I ditched the sticky notes and tried one of the other tricks I learned, which is to fold a narrow strip of paper (about 1" in width) in half and place it over the leading edge of the print, sandwiching the print and the foil together so they feed into the laminator evenly. This time, the results were perfect. No black spots whatsoever. Not sure if I just got lucky, but I'm very optimistic, given the way the two previous prints turned out. I suspect that because the print feeds so slowly through the laminator, the toner reactive foil spends more time under the heat, and seems to adhere better to the print. It may take it longer to feed a single print through than my other laminator, but if I only have to do it once, then I've definitely saved a considerable amount of time. Also, I'm thrilled to be able to just turn it off when I'm done, instead of having to wait for it to cool down. I'm still going to have to keep my other laminator for wider prints (Amazon, please make one that will accommodate widths up to 18"!) but I am so happy I gave this one a shot. It will be the only laminator I'll use from now on for smaller gold foil prints. And if it quits working in 6 months, I can buy another one (or two, or three!) and I'm still way, way ahead on the price of the other one. Oh, and I'll come back and post an update if I discover that the perfect print I achieved was just beginner's luck.

This is my 3rd machine over the last ten years. The first one was lost in a military move. My son attempted to glue and laminate at the same time. This cause the laminate paper to catch and burn the paper. LOL!!! Other than that, this thing is a workhorse!!! It is mostly indestructible!!! I teach PreK. My machine has been dropped, thrown, stepped on, jumped on, and left out in the elements over night (After a long day of parent conferences, I left it and my bag on top of my car. Both remained in the parking lot until I drove back the next day.) Thank God!!!! But I say all of this to explain the durability of this device. There are some methods that can make the laminating process easier: 1. I use Amazon 5mm sheets. The sheets are around $10 for a pack of one hundred. The $10 price is only through the week. Amazon jacks up the price to $13 on the weekends. This year I have gone through 12 packs. The sheets are reliable and hold up well. 2. There is a learning curve to the sheets. Each sheet has a curve to it. Place the laminate sheets into the machine with the curve facing down. I had to learn this the hard way...after ruining hundreds of sheets. See my photos to get a better idea. The photos show the curve facing up, followed by the curve facing down. The next photos show bent, curved, damaged sheets after placing the sheets in with the curve facing up. The next picture shows crisp, smooth sheets that were placed in downward. The sheets that are down-facing, go through the machine without any problems. My sheets do not have curved, bent ends anymore after using this method. The machine also does not jam paper anymore. 3. This machine is not fast. It works and it works well, however, after making hundreds of laminate items... this will take you an hour or more to complete a pack of 50-60 sheets. This does not bother me... it may bother you... I have a machine that is a third of price of others and it works just as well. However, if you are about speed, this is not your machine. Lastly, the quality of the product cannot be under sold. This is an amazing laminate machine. I no longer worry about, when I will have time to run to the teacher store, or if the location is convenient. I hope this helps!

I love that Amazon is doing a "basics" line because that is exactly what this product is. I lovethe look and that it will fit almost anywhere to store. This is nothing fancy it does exactly what is states without any of the frills and confusing messes that are a lot of machines these days. I was making quite a few things for the boy scouts and I wanted to make sure that what they had was something they could always keep with them no matter the weather. They do a lot of camping, fishing, hiking just a lot of outdoor activities and it is nice to have their paper items that they have to have on them be protected against all the elements. The laminator does a great job, I didn't have any problems with bubbles, paper jams, or any of the other things that my old one gave me problems with. It does a great job with the most basic and simple instructions. I did notice that if I left it on for a long period of time that it did not want to accept the page but if I unplugged it then plugged it back in it seemed to work just fine, I did well over 150 pages in one sitting back to back and only had to reset it once and that was about 45- 50 pages in and then after that it was fine so that would be my only complaint and I really cant justify taking a star away just because of the very small issue that I had. Over all this is a very well made item that is inexpensive for the common person to grab for whatever the reason they need it for, I am about to laminate the directions on our favorite games so that I never have to go on a hunt to find them online!

I bought this machine because I like to keep a photo record of when my cacti bloom. The problem was that my inkjet printer does not produce waterproof photos, and I did not want to go to the trouble of using some kind of spray-on preservative. I also wanted to laminate and preserve some personal documents. In one of my prior jobs, I had used a laminator to make company IDs, so I knew that laminating is an easy process, but I hadn't realized how inexpensive laminators are until I priced them on Amazon. I have had good results using Amazon Basics product before, so I ordered this one. The first thing I practiced on was some photos of my blooming cacti. They came out perfectly. The next thing was to make a copy of my Covid vaccination record and laminate it. That way, I would have proof of vaccination that I could carry with me if I needed it. Then I laminated my draft card from 1967 as a reminder of the two disasters I have survived in my life, Vietnam and Covid. Yesterday I printed out and laminated some more cactus photos. For occasional home use, this laminator is perfect. The ready light goes out for a short time when you run something through it, but comes back on in a few seconds. This might be a problem for a business which has to laminate a large quantities in a short time, but, in my home, where there is no rush, it's no problem. I have laminated eleven items with no jamming or other problems so far. two of the items required trimming and showed no signs of delaminating, So I think it works pretty well if you follow the instructions. At the price, this is a handy tool to have around.