Vinyl Cutter is an important machine to have by almost all people who love to design and put their drawing in an object. You can go traditional using a manual tools but it will take more time and much focus. If you want to ease your task, you can opt for vinyl cutting machines like Silhouette Portrait vs Portrait 2. These are two of very popular among DIYers and if they also attract your attention, go check our article below.
In this article, we are going to give you information about:
– What are Silhouette Portrait and Portrait 2
– What Silhouette Portrait and Portrait 2 Look Like
– What Silhouette Portrait and Portrait 2 can offer to you
– Silhouette Portrait vs Portrait 2
About Vinyl Cutter
For those who never use a similar machine before, you are probably wondering what these type of machines can do for you, simply put, it is used to draw and cut your designs using the program they are coming with. It is basically an essential for those who loves to put their design in different other objects. For example, you can easily make a stickers or labels using the machine without having to deal with cutting the shape one by one that may takes so much time.
Another popular use of vinyl cutter is to cut wood, crafting, and painting. In case of wood, not all machines can perform the cutting and if you are working with harder or thicker material, you will need to find those that offer more power, so they can deal with your chosen materials. For those who love paper crafts, vinyl cutter is also useful to cut, crease score, and perforate papers, cardstocks, and thin plastics when you want to create elaborate kirigami, origami, and other paper craft objects.
About Silhouette Portrait and Portrait 2
If you are looking for a dependable machine to work with mostly thin to medium materials, you may want to take a look at Silhouette Portrait vs Portrait 2. These two are many people favorite machines from the company since they are more affordable yet still offer a set of useful features you will surely love. Just like the name suggest, the Portrait 2 is the next version of the original, so you will also get some improved capabilities here.
For those who already have or use the original Portrait, you will love the new model because not only added with better capabilities, all the things available in the older model are still present on the new machine. Before going deeper into the product, we will cut it short here because if you are looking for a better version between both of them, Portrait 2 is the answer but if you have limited budget and want to find the more affordable one, the original Portrait will still do the job.
Silhouette Portrait and Portrait 2 Design
From the outside, Portrait 2 still coming with the same appearance to the original machine and there is no redesigning done here but you don’t have to worry about differentiating them since the original model has a grey base while the newer model is white all over the body. It is still as small and compact which you can easily held with two hands firmly while also won’t consume much space.
They look like a printer for those who never use a vinyl cutter before and when you open the cover, here you will see its carriage on the middle and a set of buttons located at the right side of the machine to operate your Silhouette Portrait and Portrait 2. One noticeable thing from the outside is the fact that Portrait 2 now can operate without cable thanks to its Bluetooth connectivity just like in those more expensive Cameo machines. Read the comparison on: Silhouette Portrait 2 vs Cameo 3 here.
Silhouette Portrait and Portrait 2 Features
Now, let’s talk about what these two machines can offer to you and what are those improvement mentioned earlier actually are. To use both of Silhouette Portrait and Portrait 2 you will need a computer unlike Cameo that already built with an LCD screen and can work without one. To cut and draw your design, you will need to use the company’s software included called Silhouette Studio Designer. The list of material they can cut including paper/cardstock, tissue paper, vinyl, iron-on transfer, craft foam, lightweight fabric, and rhinestone template material.
Included in the package, there is a cutting mat if you want to cut material like paper or fabric to prevent them to move around when being cut. You will also get the cutting blade and drawing pen inside the package. What makes them different is because Portrait 2 is compatible and comes with AutoBlade which is Silhouette’s newly developed blade that will adjust itself according to the material being cut, so now you can eliminate the guesswork and save more time.
Another blade that can only be used with Portrait 2 is the deep-cut blade which is used to cut thicker material. To allow you insert the material, now the clearance is also higher at 2 mm than in original Portrait.
The first useful feature from both machines is the Print and Cut. This feature will let the software to print image using your printer to be printed in full color but, the image is not regular image since there are registration marks there which if inserted into your vinyl cutter will be detected and then cut following the pattern.
The second useful feature is PixScan technology. This feature is rather similar to Print and Cut but now the image is placed on top of special mat and then you will need to take the picture of them with smartphone or another devices. The next step is uploading the image into the software, so it can be sent to the machine and cut.
Comparison
Now, let’s compare Silhouette Portrait with Portrait 2. As it has been mentioned earlier, Portrait 2 is better with its Bluetooth connectivity, so you don’t have to deal with tangled cable anymore; AutoBlade compatible and Deep-Cut blade compatible as well as higher clearance to accommodate thicker materials.
Silhouette Portrait vs. Portrait 2
Conclusion
All in all, the decision is all yours to make. In our opinion, both of them are good options if you need to find a vinyl cutter. However, if we are to choose we will recommend you the better Silhouette Portrait 2 because it comes with better capabilities especially for those who would like to cut thicker material.
