Shopping for a Die Cutting Machine {Part 2}

Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, October 16, 2012. Filed under:

So, last time we left off, I'd eliminated the eCraft from my die cutter search and was testing out the BossKut Gazelle.

My photography skills aren't the greatest, but I'm working on it
I ordered my Gazelle from this website.  (Please note, I am not affiliated with them in any way, they just had the lowest price when I was doing my research).  The shipping was fairly quick.  I think I placed my order on a Sunday night, and my Gazelle was delivered on Wednesday.  The packaging kind of surprised me.  I was expecting those formed Styrofoam ends to cushion the machine during shipping and everything to be packaged nice and securely, but instead it was just wrapped in bubble wrap.  Oh well, it held up and the machine worked fine.  The software worked as described and was pretty easy to figure out and was pretty much exactly as advertised.  There was a dongle that had to be plugged in to my computer every time I wanted to use the Funtime software, and there was a piece of paper with printed instructions on how to install the drivers for a Windows 7 computer that was folded up and shoved in to the DVD case with the software install disc.  Another minor complaint; the USB cable that came with it looked really cheap - it was one of those ones with the clear plastic around it so you can see the wires inside.   Mine was blue clear plastic.  I really dislike those.  The whole thing had a really homemade feel.  Don't get me wrong, I love homemade, but when I spend $400 on something I kind of expect it to have a more polished experience from beginning to end.   The cutter worked fine, but I had problems acclimating to the different functions that the buttons performed when the light above one of the buttons was on as compared to when it was off. (Does that make sense?  Apparently I didn't even understand it well enough to explain it, haha!)

I tested out the cutter by cutting out some \words and one of the more complicated designs, which was a really intricate butterfly.  I had ordered a spatula during the same transaction, but it shipped separately from the Gazelle so I didn't have it when I was doing this test.  It cut okay, but did mess up on a couple of pieces on the butterfly.  The Funtime software that came with the Gazelle continued that homemade feel that I had felt since I had opened up the box.  Ultimately, the biggest issue I had with the Gazelle was the buttons; I could not get used to the buttons changing function.  Had they been labeled with words like all of the tutorials on the machine that I have seen I think it would have been fine, but as I've mentioned, mine only had letters, and really random letters, too, like "V".  What's the V supposed to stand for?

All in all, I feel pretty lukewarm towards the Gazelle.  I loved the durable feel of the machine, it felt like a majority of it was made of metal...but the pink end caps made me think of the Pepto-Bismol theme song.

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