The GT820 is a Zebra 4-inch desktop printer with GB18030 Simplified and Traditional Chinese fonts built in and CCC and BSMI certification. It prints up to 127 mm/s (5 ips) with a single 203 dpi head.
It supports both thermal transfer and direct thermal. The GT820's connection ports are listed differently in two places in the specification sheet: the standard features list gives 2, RS-232 serial and USB, while the communications and interface section gives 3, adding 36-pin Centronics parallel. To connect with a parallel cable, first check whether the unit has a 36-pin port on the back. It has the same body dimensions (197 W x 184 H x 273 D mm) as the similarly named GT800, but different resolution choices and options.
Specification differences between the GT820 and GT800
| Item | GT820 | GT800 |
|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 203 dpi only | 203 dpi standard, 300 dpi optional |
| Options | Peeler (with label present sensor) | 300 dpi head, peeler, full-cut cutter, internal 10/100 Ethernet |
| Media sensors | Fixed transmissive + reflective | Multi-position transmissive + full-width reflective |
| Ribbon width | 33.8-110 mm | 33.8-109.2 mm |
| Certifications | CCC, BSMI | TUV, NOM, KCC, CE, FCC Class B, and others |
The GT820 options list has only the peeler. If you need a setup shared by several PCs over LAN, look at the GT800, which can take internal Ethernet.
Chinese font configuration
Sent in ZPL, it prints both Simplified and Traditional with the 24x24 dot SimSun font. In EPL, Simplified is Sung with GB2312 encoding and Traditional is Kai with Big5 encoding, both 32x32 dots.
Built-in fonts are 16 ZPL expandable fonts plus 1 scalable font, and 5 EPL2 expandable fonts.
Media rolls and ribbon replacement intervals
Media fits up to 114 mm wide, 990 mm long, and 0.08-0.18 mm thick. Rolls fit up to 127 mm OD on 25.4 mm or 38 mm cores.
One 300 m ribbon roll lasts while printing 4 media rolls, and a 74 m ribbon is replaced with every media roll. To reduce replacements, use the 300 m ribbon on a 25.4 mm core with a 66 mm OD.
Models to move to after discontinuation
Zebra handled GT820 support together on the GT800 support page. Per that page, the end of sale date is January 31, 2020, and the end of manufacturer service and support is March 31, 2023.
Designated successors are the ZD220, ZD421, and ZD621, with the ZD888 for mainland China only. To replace a GT820 used with a ribbon, choose the thermal transfer model of the ZD220, the ZD421t, or the ZD621t. All three come in 203 dpi, but speeds differ: the ZD220 is slower than the GT820 at 102 mm/s (4 ips), the ZD421 reaches 152 mm/s (6 ips) at 203 dpi, and the ZD621 reaches 203 mm/s (8 ips) at the same resolution.
To keep using an RS-232 serial cable, look at the ZD621t, which has a serial port as standard. On the ZD421t, serial is a field-installable module, and the ZD220 has a single USB port.
GT820 files are in the GT820 downloads, and label designs are made in Goodlabel Designer (free label design software) and sent from there.
