I know thermal is the way to go for any number of reasons but dang
@mayor They still make it. I want - but can't justify - the Dymo Rhino labeller which uses stainless steel tape.
For complex reasons, I have a bunch of different thermal tape labellers. Dymo have got a bit proprietary recently, but they do work decently.
The one I use most is a Brother P-touch Cube. It can only work from an app via bluetooth (or via some very horrible Python code). It's used the same batteries for years and the tape cartridges are long.
(IIRC the plastic tape never stuck to anything worth a damn, but that was also probably because I would put it on inappropriate and non-stationary surfaces)