About Brother
Brother traces back to 1908, when founder Kanekichi Yasui started a sewing machine repair and manufacturing business in Nagoya, Japan, that was later renamed Brother Industries, Ltd. in 1962. The U.S. subsidiary, Brother International Corporation, was established in 1954 and is now headquartered in Bridgewater, New Jersey, with the parent company operating in more than 30 countries. Beyond the sewing machines the company was built on, Brother's product lines most relevant to a desk are its P-touch label makers, QL-series thermal label printers, ADS/DS document scanners, and ScanNCut cutting machines.
Across our reviews, the pattern that stands out is the laminated TZe tape Brother uses throughout its P-touch lineup, which is built to resist UV exposure and moisture, so labels stay legible on cables, shelves and storage bins for years. The range also includes the ScanNCut SDX125E, whose built-in scanner no other cutting machine in our roundup offers.
Brand website: brother-usa.com
What Brother makes
Brother's range runs wider than the products we review. The lines we know best from our own testing are marked with a star:
P-touch label makers
handheld and desktop label makers with laminated TZe tape, from standalone keyboard models to Bluetooth barcode printers — featured on DeskRated
QL-series label printers
desktop thermal label printers for shipping, barcode, and wide-format printing with Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and Bluetooth connectivity — featured on DeskRated
ADS/DS document scanners
portable and desktop sheet-fed scanners for office and mobile document digitization — featured on DeskRated
ScanNCut cutting machines
electronic cutting machines with a built-in scanner for converting hand-drawn or printed designs into cut files — featured on DeskRated
Home and office printers
inkjet and laser all-in-one printers and copiers
Sewing and embroidery machines
home sewing, quilting, and embroidery machines, the original product category Brother was founded on
Why we recognized Brother
The DeskRated Top Brand recognition isn't paid for and can't be applied for. We award it to the brands whose products consistently stand out in our hands-on category reviews. Brother earned it on the strength of the products below, evaluated the same way every product on this site is: bought, used at a real desk, and judged on merit.
Brother products we rated highly
Brother P-Touch PT-D220 Label Maker
It pairs a full QWERTY keyboard with laminated TZe tape that holds up to UV exposure and moisture, and it runs on batteries or an included AC adapter for desktop use.
Read the 7 Best Label Makers of 2026 guide →
Brother PT-D610BT Bluetooth Label Maker
Steps up to 24mm wide-format tape plus barcode and logo printing for asset tags, cable labels, and small-business workflows, with a full-color backlit screen that previews the label layout before it prints.
Read the 7 Best Label Makers of 2026 guide →
Brother PT-N20 Label Maker
A standalone keyboard label maker that needs no app or Bluetooth pairing, using Brother's laminated Btag tape for moisture resistance and offering a cursive font option alongside its standard set.
Read the 7 Best Label Makers of 2026 guide →
Brother QL-1110NWB Wide Format Label Printer
Combines Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and USB connectivity with 300 DPI print resolution, the sharpest output among the thermal label printers we reviewed, plus free SDKs for custom label integration.
Read the 7 Best Thermal Label Printers of 2026 guide →
Brother DS-640 Compact Mobile Document Scanner
At just over a pound and USB-powered with no external adapter, it was the most portable scanner we tested, producing clean 600 dpi output for receipts, business cards, and ID cards.
Read the 7 Best Document Scanners of 2026 guide →
Brother ADS-3100 High-Speed Desktop Scanner
Scans up to 40 pages per minute in color or monochrome with no speed penalty for color output, backed by a 60-sheet automatic document feeder and 256-bit encryption for sensitive documents.
Read the 7 Best Document Scanners of 2026 guide →
Brother ScanNCut SDX125E
The only cutting machine in our roundup with a built-in 300 DPI scanner, letting crafters digitize a hand-drawn design or printed pattern and cut it without a computer, plus an Auto Blade that reads material thickness automatically.
Read the 7 Best Craft Cutting Machines of 2026 guide →What earned Brother the recognition
- The Brother P-Touch PT-D220 is one of our top picks for label makers, for its full QWERTY keyboard and UV- and moisture-resistant laminated TZe tape.
- The PT-D610BT and QL-1110NWB are also among our top picks, extending the lineup to 24mm wide-format tape with barcode printing and to a 300 DPI thermal label printer with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and USB in one unit.
- Brother's range in our reviews extends beyond labeling to portable and desktop document scanners (the DS-640 and ADS-3100) and the ScanNCut SDX125E craft cutting machine, the only cutter in our testing with a built-in scanner for digitizing paper patterns.
- Seven Brother products are featured across four of our roundups, spanning label makers, thermal label printers, document scanners, and craft cutting machines.