Fellowes Quasar E Electric Plastic Comb Binding Machine Review

Overview:

• The Fellowes Quasar E is a full featured electric plastic comb binding machine. It is the electric version of the Quasar-500 manual plastic comb binding machine.
• The Quasar-E offers the same stylish design used in the Fellowes Starlet, Star, Pulsar and Galaxy line of comb binding machines.
• This machine is designed for use with almost all the available sizes of plastic binding combs. It can bind documents with just a few sheets, documents that are 2 inches thick and everything in between. This means that it can be used with both round plastic combs and oval combs.

Strengths / Features:

• The Quasar-E binding machine offers a wonderful contemporary design that allows users to fold the machine flat when it is not in use. The combination of dark gray and silver used on the machine help it to blend in with other office equipment such as desktop printers. It includes a convenient push button punching control and an integrated storage tray / spine measuring device.
• This machine is capable of punching up to twenty sheets of 20lb paper per lift. That is a respectable punching capacity for an electric comb binding punch. The twenty sheet punching capacity combined with the convenient electric punching mechanism makes this machine an excellent value.
• The comb opener on this machine is capable of binding virtually any size of plastic comb available on the market. It can be used with combs as small as 1/4" and as thick as 2". It can open smaller 3/16" plastic combs. However, this machine is not recommended for use with 3/16" combs since it does not have an adjustable depth of punch margin control.
• The vertical punching slot and rotary side margin control make this machine easy to use and set up. Documents can be aligned by simply drop the pages into the slot and tapping them into place against the side margin control. The push button punching control is then conveniently located on the right hand side of the machine.

Weaknesses / Limitations:

• The Quasar E is capable of binding letter sized documents with both small and large plastic combs. However, it is not designed for binding documents that are shorter or longer than eleven inches. It can be adjusted for use with oversize clear covers but it can not be used for legal sized paper (24 holes), A4 size (21 holes) or half letter sized documents (15 holes). Users who need to bind these different sized documents will need to choose a machine that offers an open throat design with disengageable punching pins.
• The storage tray on this machine is useful for measuring your documents and measuring the size of spines that you have on hand. However, tray doesn't hold enough combs to make it very useful. It would have been better to use the space to make the chip tray larger instead of offering storage for a few dozen combs.
• Although this machine offers a stylish design that will fit well inside an office environment, it is made primarily out of plastic. This should not be a problem for most office environments. However, heavy users and production environments should consider a more industrial machine with all metal components.

Recommendation:

• The Fellowes Quasar-E is an excellent choice for users who are looking to purchase a full featured electric plastic comb binding machine for use in a medium sized office.
• It can bind both thin and thick documents using plastic combs and is exceptionally easy to use.
• However, it is not a good choice for users who need to bind documents that are longer or shorter than eleven inches. It is also not designed for high volume production environments.