Jeff McRitchie

GBC Heatseal H310 Pouch Laminator Review

The GBC Heatseal H310 pouch laminator is an entry level pouch laminator designed for small offices, home offices and medium sized businesses that want to laminate all sizes of documents up to 11" x 17" in size.This review will take a quick look at the features and strengths, limitations and weaknesses and provide a recommendation concerning the H310 laminating machine.

• The GBC Heatseal H310 pouch laminator is an entry level pouch laminator designed for small offices, home offices and medium sized businesses that want to laminate all sizes of documents up to 11" x 17" in size.
• The H310 was introduced by GBC to replace the older Heatseal H300 and has several new and improved features that are worth looking at.
• This review will take a quick look at the features and strengths, limitations and weaknesses and provide a recommendation concerning the H310 laminating machine.

Strengths and Features:

• The 12.5 inch throat on the H310 allows you to use letter sized laminating pouches that are sealed on the long side. Running these pouches with the 11" side going first into the machine (you should always put the sealed end into the laminator first) helps to almost double productivity by increasing the number of documents that can be laminated per minute.
• The H310 pouch laminator has GBC's patented ReadyGlo technology. This means that after the laminator warms up for approximately six minutes the throat of the laminator will glow green to let you know that it is ready for your documents.
• The Heatseal H310 has a special Jam release lever that allows you to quickly and easily separate the rollers in order to remove a jammed pouch from the machine. This feature can help you save the motor on the laminator from burning out since the motor on this machine will not stop if a pouch gets jammed in the throat.
• The Heatseal H310 has a cold laminating setting for use with pressure sensitive GBC Selfseal laminating pouches and can also accept 3mil and 5mil laminating pouches.

Weaknesses and Limitations:

• The H310 requires the use of a laminating pouch carrier for all materials. This will prevent pouches from becoming wrapped around the rollers or jammed inside of the machine. Although I recommend the use of a carrier with all pouch laminators, not all machines require the use of one. This machine does.
• The H310 does not have the ability to handle either 7mil or 10mil thick laminating pouches. These thicker pouches are commonly used for laminating signs, name badges, ID cards and other materials that will be handled frequently. If you anticipate the need to laminate documents with thicker laminating pouches then you will need to step up to GBC's 400 series of pouch laminators.
• The Heatseal H310 has a variable temperature control that allows you to adjust the laminator. However, the H310 runs at a fixed speed of 13" per minute which is fairly slow, especially if you are laminating large documents. The lack of a speed adjustment on this model makes it a little bit more difficult to troubleshoot problems with the finished laminate.

Recommendation:

• This machine is great for an office that needs to laminate all different sizes of documents and wants a small machine that is both easy to use and reliable.
• The fact that it can not handle 7mil and 10mil laminating pouches and has a fairly slow speed does not make it an ideal candidate for offices that do a lot of laminating or anticipate the need to laminate materials that are frequently handled. For these offices, a machine that will do all of the thicknesses of laminating pouches may be a better fit.
• Still the H310 comes with the GBC name and a generous 2 year warranty and would be a good fit for almost any organization that is looking to start laminating some of their documents or for a home user that is looking to laminate larger documents that wouldn't fit in a smaller laminator with a 9" throat.

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