Side by Side Comparison of: Fellowes

I have wanted one of these things for years but never really had a reason to buy one. I started making catalogs for a construction business and three ring binders, or 3 hole folders just weren't fitting the bill. This was at a good price point and works as expected. It takes a bit to get the hang of keeping the pages aligned right, but nothing to complicated.

Great price for an easy binding process. Just needed to make bound copies a few times a year. Really economical way to make this happen without paying retail prices. Paid for itself in about 15 copies.

If you buy one of these machines, be sure to check out the manufacturer's website for a how-to video. It will eliminate a few "duh" moments, for your first use of the machine. It works very well, easy to align for standard size paper, makes clean neat cuts. We are just using it for home use and personalized calendars.

The most important thing about this machine is you have to BE EXTRA careful when inserting the sheets - make sure the paper slides ALL The way DOWN into the puncher. Otherwise its possible to mis-punch a set of sheets causing you to reprint the wasted part.The minor flaw about this machine is that it only punches at most 10 sheets at a time. DO NOT overload the machine because you would either mispunch or cause a jam. Otherwise this comb binding machine is simple to use and is an excellent pick for a home office , light use .

The Star Plus manual binding machine was my first purchase of its kind. I went for the cheapest model ($60) because I wasn't sure how easy or practical it would be for everyday use...It just arrived and I am happy to report that I am in love! I remember using one of these in a grade school class once, it seemed huge and hard to use at the time. The Star Plus is very compact and takes up minimal space on my crafting desk.The Packaging: AThe shipment arrived in a huge box but packed well enough that the box inside did not move around. Once I took the 2nd brown box out of the brown Amazon box, I was greeted with the ACTUAL white box of the binding machine nestled between two packing egg-cartons that kept it secure. There was not much inside, just the machine and 2 slips of paper (warranty and a very useless starter guide).The Machine: A-The Star Plus was surprisingly heavy for its size; a good thing. It gives off that feeling of "I'll last for years!" every time I touch or lift of pull on anything. The only thing I dislike is the high gloss finish on the white parts of the machine, but I'll get over it. I've also read reviews where this particular model does wear down over time for others... I'm not sure how heavy they used it, but I'll wait and see. From what I can tell from handling mine, I think it should last long enough to pay for itself.Instructions: FThe instructions that came in the box are pretty useless. I went on YouTube and watched a 5 minute video to figure out how to use the machine.Ease of Operation: A+My favorite part of the whole thing is how easy (and fast) it is for me to bind my own books. This is how simple it is to use:1) Lift the handle and lid up2) Slip the covers/papers into the slot3) Pull the handle down and back up again to punch your holes4) Place the comb behind the teeth and push it towards you so that they take up the space between each teeth. Make sure that the opening is facing up and that solid spine part is facing down5) Pull the left lever toward you until it opens the comb wide enough for you to slip the paper in6) Slip the punched papers into the teeth7) Push the lever away from you to close the comb and finish bindingI love that I can put a bound book back between the teeth to open and edit the pages freely! There is also a tray that holds all the punched mess. There are probably other features I haven't tried yet, but for now, this is all I need to get my book done in a couple minutes.The Cost: A+Buying from Amazon was the best option. It was about 50% off retail. But more importantly, the component materials were also very cheap on Amazon. There were 8 sizes of combs available to my 150 page capacity machine. The first 4 boxes of 100 each were around $5 each. The other 4 boxes of 100s were about $10 each. They retail for about $15. I also ordered the clear plastic covers but may just look for some heavy cardstock to make my own covers in the future.This was a much cheaper alternative to the thermal (Helios) machines I was looking at. Those thermal covers cost so much! Plus, I like the ability to remove/add to my books with the comb system. And the fact that I don't have to plug anything in or worry about heating problems.If my Star Plus ever breaks down or if I ever feel the need to bind more than 150 pages at a time, I won't hesitate to purchase the higher models. Just wish I'd bought one of these things sooner.

I have been trying to convince my hubs that this would be a great investment for our homeschooling adventure, well he finally saw the light! I ordered this wonderful Fellowes Binding Starr Plus Machine about a week ago and have already made a dozen books. I've used it to make our children's planners, e-books and curriculum. I received my binder and supplies pretty quickly and it was packaged very well. I ordered the Fellowes brand plastic combs in 2 sizes, 1/4" and 1" in the same order. This binder was described as a 19 punch machine but is fact a 21 punching machine. It also says (in the literature that comes with the binder) that the maximum comb size is 18mm (150 pgs) but I tried a 1" comb and made it work. It's a bit of a pain because the comb doesn't open up as much as a smaller size but if you are patient you can make it work. I also ordered additional combs, 5/16" (21-40 pg) & 3/8" (41-55 pgs) and they work just great! I will probably try out some off brand combs eventually since I need to try out a few more size combs for various projects. This binder has many great features like the storage tray with built in comb sizer. It is located on the right side of the binder and has been handy for me a time or two. There is also a small window on the top side of the binder so you can see how many punches are in the dump bin, you want to empty this out several times in a session if you are a heavy user, found out the hard way so trust me it's important. Another feature I like is the adjustable edge guide. You can adjust the edge marker quite easily and it makes punching you papers so much easier and faster. I also love the portability of this binder and its compact size. Sure there are smaller binders out them that can be stored in a drawer but I wanted one that would last me for years to come. I also recommend watching the video on fellowes.com about this binder since the instructions on inserting the comb are very precise. I would totally recommend this binder to anyone who homeschools, it has been a blessing to us.

Great product, I will buy from his vendor again

This is not a magic device. The directions are a bit weak on instructions so it is difficult for people who have never used something like this before. This device does what it claims and works well straight out the box. This device had a sample pack of covers, back sheets and plastic spines. My largest binding to the date of this review is 224 pages.

I bought this binding machine to replace a similar one that had bound its last. It works smoothly. I like the texture of the handle and the darker color compared to my older model. It punches about as many pages as claimed. The binding combs that come with it are tiny and useless for my purposes, but that seems like a small loss.

Extremely durable and easy to use! I use this to bind my 202 page book. Since I use the heavier 24 weight paper, I am able to punch 16 pages at a time. I also use it with the 1.5 inch comb binding spines, and it works very well. All pages are punched evenly- no more uneven sections!

I love this machine it works great. I bought a cheap one at a big office supply store. didn't even make one booklet and returned it. This one does everything it says it will. Punches through the paper easily. You can adjust the alignment and that is a challenge. Once you have it set your good to go. This is a great feature, it just takes a little time. I can't see this thing ever wearing out. Wish I had this 20 years ago. I spent so much money making presentation binders. Then you add dropping off and picking up.

This is a great little piece of equipment. Our last binding machine broke down in just over a year. This one is much sturdier. We don't do a lot of binding, but it is great to have a machine that works so well like this one. It seems easier to open the combs to load the punched sheets on, and the cover is a great protector against dust building up in a hard to clean area.For light duty binding I do recommend this.

Comapact and easy to use. We use this to bind flight training manuals and it was much cheaper to invest in our own vs having an office supply store do them for us. We can also add or change pages on our own, which is nice. However, it doesn’t come with ANY combs at all. We had hoped for a few since we read one answered question that stated a variety came with the device. It was slightly frustrating to open it assuming we’d be able to get started right away and end up having to make a drive to an office supply store to buy combs.

This binding machine is easy to use and works as described. I've used this with the 1/4" and 1/2" size comb binds for small projects with the kids and also for some paperwork to help me stay organized. I have three elementary school aged kids so I'm hoping to find a lot of uses for this. The hole punch is rather close to the edge of the paper, so be careful when you feed the paper in to punch the holes. I've been pretty happy with this purchase so far.

Alignment can be very tricky- even after getting the hang of it I still mis punched a couple of reports because one edge of the material doesn't always fall all the way into the gap. I'm processing 20-30 reports per week at under 500 pages total typically- I'd recommend maybe a heavier duty model if you are expecting to do any more than this on a regular basis. The spines and covers addd up in terms of cost, but not waiting for local shop (and travel to/from) is where you start to save time, IMO.

works well for the price. However I do miss my 48 inch cutter to get a smooth spine trim.My last one was powered by electricity instead of old man power>

So my assessment of this binding machine is four stars overall, but would give five stars for the price. With that said, it works perfectly and is a very effective machine for binding smaller projects, or even large projects if you have a lot of time on your hands. I say that because it has a 15 sheet punch capacity so you can only punch 15 sheets at a time. It also has a 2 sheet poly or pvc sheet capacity meaning those clear plastic covers or the black or navy poly covers, you can only punch two at a time. Needless to say I purchased this machine to bind these little 8.5" x 11" books I was putting together. 26 pages of content with a clear overlay cover and a black poly rear cover. Bought the Fellowes brand products right from Amazon, cheapest around. Good products. Overall, this binding machine is well worth the price. Another solid economical product by Fellowes.

I was pleasantly surprised with how well this binder worked. I was able to punch and bind pages for 20 booklets with very little effort. I have used more expensive commercial grade binders in the past, but for the price this machine did the job. I only wish that I could adjust the depth of the holes being punched. The holes were a little too close to the edge of the paper. Also, this binder is for 8-1/2 X 11 paper only.

Delivered on time. No assembly needed. Found YouTube helpful. First publication was a hit.

Overall, it works very well. I had to cut down on the number of pages I would punch at a time to improve hole quality. Produces professional, high quality presentations.

Very easy to use. Although getting started the instructions were not easy to understand. But once you figure it out, super easy! This is very sturdy! Great product for the price!

Learning curve is simple but you have to be accurate and stay on course. Do your cover and backing sheets first to avoid having a 1/4 inch variance at the end. Make sure you have not moved the page from the right side to the left side in aligning pages before you punch them and keep it to less than 10 pages.If we had one wish on this machine it would be that the variance on it permitted us to punch something deeper and slightly longer.We are finding ways to consolidate documents and reference material that is better for our business and for clients.

Good machine. After using this for a year I'm really pleased with it. It took a few practice runs, but once I got the hang of it binding presentations became a snap. I'd give it five stars, but the manual was poor.

Great manual machine, but the space provided for punching holes in a laminated cover isn't big enough, must use old machine for that one step. The slide to adjust for cover sheets does not move over far enough.

It is a good machine, but it has limitations. You cannot put as many sheets in it as it says you can, and many times it doesn't get the sheets all the way in so you end up cutting the edges. Also, the bindings are flimsy, so it becomes quite a process to get all pages securely in the binding. If purchasing again, I would go with a spiral binder instead.

I am a first grade teacher and I need to bind books for my students. The machine works fine for regular white paper but I am unable to fit a piece of construction paper (9x12) in the machine for the cover of the book. I was very disappointed because any other machine I have used does this type of paper. It indicated that it did over size paper, but I have no ideas what size it meant because the difference is minimal.

A little awkward placement of the "hole punching bar", and sometimes it doesn't like to hold the combs on the first try, but it works great.

Disappointed that no spirals came with it. When people say the instructions are terrible, they are right. Needs a lot more information.

It works as you'd want it to. The fittings are tight, I had to punch my pages individually to avoid mis-matches.

I purchased this item for use in our homeschool. Things were a little hectic around our home when it arrived, so I tucked it, unopened, beneath our school table where it resided for a couple of months while we readied our schoolroom for the school year. When I removed it from the package and set it up to try it out, I discovered that the plastic, flimsily made paper guide lever was broken. It's still usable, but I have to be very careful when creating books that require me to punch more than one set of pages at a time, as without the paper guide it is very easy to be off just enough that the holes won't add up. The rest of the machine works great and seems to be made of good quality material. That one flaw, however, is an important one and would prevent from recommending this machine to others.

It's just "ok" for normal 8.5x11 sheets , everything I read said it did laminated sheets , I use the Amazon branded 8.5x11 sheets which hand over about 1/8"-1/4" on each side , they will NOT fit in the machene , so I trimi down a whole book, punched them and decided I'm not doing this 20 more times so I re packed it and sent it back .I can buy a $35-45 one that does A4 paper will fit my needs better

this product worked great, the only problem was that there was paper in the bin already as if it was a used machine and not new. For the price and description, id expect new.

Handle gets in the way bigtime. Also the paper punch doesnt fit all paper easily into the slot.

The position of the handle makes it difficult to operate.

The machine I received is not as advertised. The version I received does not have the dial to center the paper and appears different from the photo. Everything has to be exact and some practice is required. I did one mishap with a cover where the holes almost were off the page. The directions are terrible and I had to watch the video online or I wouldn't know how to use this machine. I will be replacing it today as it is not as advertised.

punches holes very close to the edge - thus the holes get torn very easily, there seems to be no way of adjusting the distance.I really can't understand the high ratings of this product.

Package appeared to have been opened before, possibly a return. 15 page punch it is NOT. More like 5 sheets at a time.

sent back

unable to do a 9 x 12 sheet, the standard music size

The A4 format paper's long edge(297mm) does not fit.The product in photo has wheel(roller), but mine...not.Machine has 19 holes not 21.I explained these things to seller but i see they...1.did not care2.did not correct description3.did not delete uncorrect photos.I lost my money cause the product can not be resend back(it is in Armenia)Unuseful thing.

First, this product - does not accept A4Second, this product only has 19 holes - not 21 holes.Lastly, you will get very similar product in the picture - But, if you look into details, it's different. [product code / name / appearance all same], but could be without 'wheels'. You cannot put A4 without wheels.FYI, you might get the product in the link below. Looks official and fine, but not same with Amazon description.[...]After all, in the Amazon description, you can found the 'A4 Size' in the 4th picture. It's not true and it will deceive you to buy 'correct one'.YOU SHOULD TRY IT AFTER YOU BUYING IT.

The Fellowes Binding Machine Pulsar+ Comb (5006801) is advertised as able to bind 300 sheets and costs about twice as much as the Fellowes Binding Machine Star Plus (5006501) rated at 150 sheets. I bought the Pulsar+ because I wanted to be able to bind larger documents. The unit is reasonably well made (although the documentation is extremely poor). But I can only conclude that the favorable reviews are from purchasers who have not tried to bind larger documents. I can bind up to 50 pages with reasonable ease. But efforts to bind documents of, say, 125 pages -- little over a third of the advertised capacity -- are teeth gnashing. The unit punches the needed holes well. The difficulty is that with a document of that size -- roughly 5/8 of an inch thick (1.6 cm.) -- you are trying to ease 19 plastic combs through the corresponding holes in the "deck" of paper. But the holes lie in a straight line, while the plastic combs are curved (even after using the comb-opening lever to open them). And the combs tend to curl by slightly different amounts, have little or no rigidity, and want to curl more with unequal force. The result is that instead of passing easily through the small holes in the, say, 125 sheets, some or all of the combs escape from the hole tunnel and curve out of the paper deck. Even with great care and, after experimentation, the use of several binder clips to keep the paper deck in alignment and tightly together. In my experience, it takes many tries to get something close enough to success that the last several errant combs can be pulled partly out and after several or many tries, re-threaded through the sheets of paper that have been skipped. Time-consuming and frustrating. The scant documentation does not recognize this step will be difficult or suggest how to deal with the problem. The quarter-page of troubleshooting tips also ignores the problem. I start with five stars for a well-built machine, but deduct three stars for the lack of advertised capability and an additional star for the woeful documentation.NOTE: Meditating on how a product could be so incapable of doing what it should, it occurred to me that perhaps one should load the pages onto the extended plastic combs a few pages at a time. There's nothing in the documentation or on the manufacturer's Support website to state this (or point out the near impossibility of loading all pages at once). The only YouTube video (from a third party website selling binders) shows all pages being gracefully loaded at once. But the few-at-a-time idea is worth trying. I note it here to help others. Alas, it doesn't affect my overall rating -- perhaps the product is not as bad as it seems, but if this inconvenient approach is required, it makes thed documentation seem even more inadequate.

The holes are at edge of the paper so the paper easily comes off after binding.

I purchased this product for use overseas. Unfortunately NO WHERE in the product description does it state that the machine will ONLY work with 8.5 X 11" paper. We only use A4 paper, which is slightly longer. A4 paper will NOT fit in this machine.SO, now I have $183 paper weight, door stop, and the seller has a smirk on his face.No way to get my money back, because the product is in Africa... VERY unhappy.